Search Worlds Without End

The Metal Giants and Others launches in style the multi-volume program to collect all the prose work of a neglected, but fondly remembered master, Edmond Hamilton.

Culled from the highly collectible (and highly priced!) early issues of pulp magazines such as Weird Tales, Amazing Stories, and Science Wonder Quarterly, these tales seethe and foam with the vigor of unrestrained imagination. Hamilton had yet to earn his (sometimes undeserved) reputation as "World Wrecker" or "World Saver" when these stories were published, but as these tales show -- he was well on his way. In this volume, the Earth is threatened countless times, but one lone hero (usually a genius-scientist) stands between triumph or total annihilation. The influence of A. Merritt and M.P. Shiel is felt in several tales of lost, exotic lands, and Hamilton himself begins to exert his own small influence on the genre with several stories of temporal dislocation and cosmic menace.

Author, editor, bookdealer, art collector (and co-owner of Weird Tales, Ltd.) Robert Weinberg delivers an introduction with details on the history of early American science fiction, the context of these stories in relation to their contemporaries, and his own personal memories of knowing -- and publishing -- Edmond Hamilton.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction by Robert Weinberg
• "The Monster-God of Mamurth" (Weird Tales, Aug '26)
• "Across Space" (Weird Tales, Sep, Oct, Nov '26)
• "The Metal Giants" (Weird Tales, Dec '26)
• "The Atomic Conquerors" (Weird Tales, Feb '27)
• "Evolution Island" (Weird Tales, Mar '27)
• "The Moon Menace" (Weird Tales, Sep '27)
• "The Time-Raider" (Weird Tales, Oct, Nov, Dec '27, Jan '28)
• "The Comet Doom" (Amazing Stories, Jan '28)
• "The Dimension Terror" (Weird Tales, Jun '28)
• "The Polar Doom" (Weird Tales, Nov '28)
• "The Sea Horror" (Weird Tales, Mar '29)
• "Locked Worlds" (Amazing Stories Quarterly Spr '29)
• "The Abysmal Invaders" (Weird Tales, Jun '29)

Nearly a century before the racks of mass-market books were flooded with media tie-ins for franchises such as Star Trek, Star Wars, etc. (and ten years before E.E. "Doc" Smith created the Lensmen), Edmond Hamilton pioneered and popularized the concept of a galactic peacekeeping force.

Hamilton's first crack at the concept in "Crashing Suns" has his band of heroes confined to the solar system as the "Interplanetary Patrol." With "The Star Stealers," Hamilton takes his notion of a stellar police force to the distant cosmic shores as the "Interstellar Patrol."

Many of these stories were reprinted in the 1960s from Ace Books as two beautiful paperbacks: Crashing Suns and Outside the Universe. This volume collects ALL of the stories of the Patrol... plus continues the program to collect all the prose work of Edmond Hamilton with two unreprinted novels, "The Other Side of the Moon" and "Cities in the Air."

The American master of modern Space Opera, Walter Jon Williams (author of Implied Spaces, and the three volume saga, Dread Empire's Fall) provides the introduction.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction by Walter Jon Williams
• "Crashing Suns" (Weird Tales, Aug, Sep '28)
• "The Star-Stealers" (Weird Tales, Feb '29)
• "Within the Nebula" (Weird Tales, May '29)
• "Outside the Universe" (Weird Tales, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct '29)
• "The Comet-Drivers" (Weird Tales, Feb '30)
• "The Sun People" (Weird Tales. May '30)
• "The Cosmic Cloud" (Weird Tales, Nov '30)
• "Corsairs of the Cosmos" (Weird Tales, Apr '34)
• "The Hidden World" (Science Wonder Quarterly, Fll '29)
• "The Other Side of the Moon" (Amazing Stories Quarterly, Fll '29)

Less than a year after the release of first two volumes of THE COLLECTED EDMOND HAMILTON (Vol. One: The Metal Giants and Others and Vol. Two: The Star Stealers: The Complete Tales of the Interstellar Patrol) Haffner Press lets no grass grow under our feet as we announce the next volume of collected stories from one of the godfathers of Space Opera.

This volume sees Hamilton established not only as a regular contributor to Weird Tales, but also to Amazing Stories, Hugo Gernback's new magazine Air Wonder Stories, and the young upstart publication, Astounding Stories. Eight of these stories are reprinted for the first time, including two novels: "Cities in the Air" and "The Universe Wreckers."

Hamilton's as-yet-unrecognized talent for the short horror story gets a work-out with "The Plant Revol," "Pigmy Island," and "The Life-Masters."

As with previous volumes in this series, an appendix showcasing the original pulp magazine illustrations also bulks large with obscura including reader's letters from the vintage magazines commenting on these stories, along with editorial correspondence between Hamilton and his editors.

University of Pittsburgh professor Dr. Eric Leif Davin (and author of Pioneers of Wonder: Conversations with the Founders of Science Fiction and Partners in Wonder: Women and the Birth of Science Fiction, 1926-1965) provides a lengthy introduction placing these Hamilton stories in historical context and shares a wealth of information on the editorial policies of the commissioning editors. His website is: http://ericleifdavin.vpweb.com/

Table of Contents:

• Introduction by Eric Leif Davin
• "Cities in the Air" (Air Wonder Stories Nov, Dec '29)
• "The Life-Masters" (Weird Tales, Jan '30)
• "The Space Visitors" (Air Wonder Stories, Mar '30)
• "Evans of the Earth Guard" (Air Wonder Stories, Apr '30)
• "The Plant Revolt" (Weird Tales, Apr '30)
• "The Universe Wreckers" (Amazing Stories May, Jun, Jul '30)
• "The Death Lord" (Weird Tales, Jul '30)
• "Pigmy Island" (Weird Tales, Aug '30)
• "Second Satellite" (Astounding Stories, Aug '30)
• "World Atavism" (Amazing Stories, Aug '30)
• "The Man Who Saw the Future" (Amazing Stories, Aug '30)

Appendix

• Original Pulp Illustrations
• Readers' Letters from Original Magazines
• Correspondence between Hamilton and the SF Luminaries of the Day