A. Merritt
The Metal Monster (prologue–chapter IV)
(Originally Published in Argosy All-Story Weekly, August–September 1920)
Abraham Merritt (1884–1943) was born in Beverly, New Jersey. A writer of speculative fiction as well as an inductee to the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame, Merritt wrote characteristic pulp fiction themes of lost civilizations, monsters and treacherous villains. Many of his short stories and novels were published in Argosy All-Story Weekly. His most famous novels are perhaps Burn Witch Burn, The Ship of Ishtar, and Dwellers in the Mirage. His writing was known for its excessive descriptive detail as well as the immense creativity of the alternative worlds he created.
Stephen G. Parks
Last Breath Day
(Originally Published on www.quantumtraverse.com, 2016)
Stephen G. Parks, a nomadic Canadian, once spoke with a wild bull elephant in Namibia for 5 minutes. Other life-altering experiences included working with the amazing students of the African Leadership Academy; releasing sea turtles in Malaysia; filming a documentary in the Kyangwali UN Refugee Settlement in Uganda; and having lunch with a giraffe in Kenya. Other than a few short stories on his website, www.quantumtraverse.com, this is Stephen’s first publication. He hopes to have his debut novel finished soon. You can find him @stephengparks on Twitter.
Patrick Parrinder
Foreword: Alien Invasion Short Stories
Patrick Parrinder is President of the H.G. Wells Society and has written several books on Wells and science fiction, including Shadows of the Future which won the 1996 University of California Eaton Award. He is also the author of Nation and Novel (2006) and Utopian Literature and Science (2015), as well as being General Editor of the 12-volume Oxford History of the Novel in English. He now divides his time between London and Norfolk and is an Emeritus Professor of English at the University of Reading.
Sunil Patel
The Merger
(Originally Published in The Book Smugglers, 2015)
Sunil Patel is a Bay Area fiction writer and playwright who has written about everything from ghostly cows to talking beer. His plays have been performed at San Francisco Theater Pub and San Francisco Olympians Festival, and his fiction has appeared in Flash Fiction Online, Fantastic Stories of the Imagination, Asimov’s Science Fiction, and Asian Monsters, among others. He has also edited fiction for Mothership Zeta and reviewed books and television for Lightspeed. His favourite things to consume include nachos, milkshakes, and narrative. Find out more at ghostwritingcow.com
Laura Pearlman
Some Things I Probably Should Have Mentioned Earlier
(Originally Published in Mothership Zeta, 2016)
Laura Pearlman’s fiction has appeared in Shimmer, Flash Fiction Online, Daily Science Fiction, the Unidentified Funny Objects anthology series, and a handful of other places. A full list can be found on her otherwise sadly-neglected blog, Unlikely Explanations. Laura lives in California, reads slush for Escape Pod, and has a Tumblr devoted to things her cats have dropped in their water bowl. She should probably get out more. Until then, you can find her at @laurasbadideas on Twitter.
Tim Pieraccini
Outvasion
(First Publication)
Tim Pieraccini has kept a cunningly low profile since publishing a short story in Doctor Who Magazine 25 years ago, busying himself making music videos, short films and one feature-length film, All Heart. He is still searching for a home for his fictional addition to the history of 60s music, No Way to Beehive. He lives in Hove, without animals or children but content with books, and has various fictions on the go at present, along with a projected book of feminist film criticism.
Robert Potter
The Germ Growers (preface–chapter II)
(Originally Published by Melville, Mullen, & Slade, 1892)
Robert Potter (1831–1908) was born in County Mayo, Ireland, a son of the local clergyman. He was an outstanding student of rhetoric and English literature at Dublin’s Trinity College, later also delving into the arts. After gaining his qualifications, he followed his father’s footsteps and upon becoming a clergyman he moved to Australia. The Germ Growers is the story of an interplanetary race that assumes human form and invades Earth to grow germs able to eradicate humanity. Science fiction enthusiasts have compared it to the later masterpiece The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells.
Eric Reitan
Lovers at Dawn
(First Publication)
Eric Reitan, a philosophy professor at Oklahoma State University, has won numerous writing awards, including the 2014 Outstanding Writer Award of the Rose State Writers’ Conference and the 2008 Crème-de-la-Crème Award of the Oklahoma Writers’ Federation, Inc. His short stories have appeared in several venues, including The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction and Gamut. His nonfiction books include Is God a Delusion? (named a Choice Outstanding Academic Title of 2009), God’s Final Victory: A Comparative Philosophical Case for Universalism (with John Kronen), and The Triumph of Love: Same-Sex Marriage and the Christian Love Ethic.
Garrett P. Serviss
Edison’s Conquest of Mars (chapters I–IV)
(Originally Published in the New York Evening Journal, 1898)
Garrett Putnam Serviss (1851–1929) was an American journalist, amateur astronomer, and science fiction writer. He studied science at Cornell and law at Columbia University. Edison’s Conquest of Mars was commissioned by a newspaper in 1898 as a sequel to Fighters on Mars, an unauthorized, altered version of H.G. Wells’s The War of the Worlds. The story was set in America and has been assessed as a competent commentary on American society at the time. It was Serviss’s first of five science fiction novels, the remainder of which were considered to lack the flair of the first. He also wrote a short story and several non-fiction astronomy-themed pieces.
Jonathan Swift
Gulliver’s Travels (part III, chapters I–III)
(Originally Published by Benjamin Motte, London, 1726)
Jonathan Swift (1667–1745), born in Dublin, Ireland, was perhaps the greatest prose satirist in the English language. His unique ‘Swiftian’ prose style, mixing irony, lighthearted humour and biting ridicule, inspired such later writers as John Ruskin and George Orwell. Unlike other satirists, his prose remained largely free of embellishments, rhetoric and affectations, and he opted instead for a plainer, common form. He is best known for his story Gulliver’s Travels, and his hyperbolic essay ‘A Modest Proposal.’ Most of Swift’s prose and poetry was published pseudonymously while he worked for the church in Ireland, and as a political pamphleteer during the Whig-Tory conflict tin England.
Voltaire
Micromégas
(Originally Published by A Londres, 1752)
François-Marie Arouet (1694–1778), better known as Voltaire, was born in Paris, France. He was a highly prolific writer of the Enlightenment movement and a historian and philosopher who garnered controversy through his attack on the Catholic Church, advocating its separation from the state as well as freedom of religion and expression. His bibliography consists of over 22,000 works of all forms, including plays, poems, novels, and essays. Micromégas and later Plato’s Dream are seminal pieces in the history of science fiction as well as literature in broader sense.
John Walters
Dark Mirrors
(Originally Published in Warrior Wisewoman 3, 2010)
John Walters is an American writer, a graduate of Clarion West and a member of Science Fiction Writers of America, who recently returned to the United States after living abroad for many years in India, Bangladesh, Italy, and Greece. He writes science fiction and fantasy, thrillers, mainstream fiction, and memoirs of his wanderings around the world. He currently lives in Seattle, Washington, with two of his five sons, precariously eking out a living as a fulltime freelance writer. You can find
his blog at johnwalterswriter.com
H.G. Wells
The War of the Worlds
(Originally Published in Cosmopolitan, 1897)
Herbert George Wells (1866–1946) was born in Kent, England. Novelist, journalist, social reformer, and historian, Wells is one of the greatest ever science fiction writers and along with Jules Verne is sometimes referred to as a ‘founding father’ of the genre. With Aldous Huxley and, later, George Orwell he defined the adventurous, social concern of early speculative fiction where the human condition was played out on a greater stage. Wells wrote over 50 novels, including his famous works The War of the Worlds, The Time Machine, The Invisible Man, and The Island of Doctor Moreau, as well as a fantastic array of short stories. The War of the Worlds is a seminal work in the alien invasion genre, and undoubtedly had a huge influence on later science fiction.
S.A. Westerley
What Survives of Us
(First Publication)
S.A. Westerley is one of Sheffield-based Spleeny Dotson’s many alter egos. As S.A. Westerley he has an unpublished anthology of Golden Age style sci-fi, The Speculators, from which this story comes. Spleeny also produces radio comedy and drama for Sheffield Live radio. His sci-fi sitcom, Accidentally Reckless, is available on YouTube. Under his own name Spleeny performs stand up comedy and, not under his own name, he ghostwrites for money. Speaking of alter egos, Spleeny is somewhat involved in the career of embittered elderly pulp writer Foster Abraham, whose killer-hayfever beset works can be found at facebook.com/fosterabrahamarchive
William R.D. Wood
Jars for Their Eyes
(First Publication)
William R.D. Wood traces his love of science fiction and horror back to a childhood filled with classic Universal Studios monsters, Space: 1999 reruns, a worn-out copy of Dune, and Heavy Metal magazine. His work has appeared in Nature, The Lovecraft eZine, and the 3rd and Starlight anthology, among other places. A good writing day often finds him at any of several favourite overlooks on the Blue Ridge Parkway deeply immersed in a new work of cosmic horror. Will lives with his wife and children in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley in an old farmhouse turned backwards to the road. Find out more at www.williamRDwood.com
FLAME TREE PUBLISHING
New & Classic Writing
Flame Tree’s Gothic Fantasy books offer a carefully curated series of new titles, each with combinations of original and classic writing:
Chilling Horror Short Stories
Chilling Ghost Short Stories
Science Fiction Short Stories
Murder Mayhem Short Stories
Crime & Mystery Short Stories
Swords & Steam Short Stories
Dystopia Utopia Short Stories
Supernatural Horror Short Stories
Lost Worlds Short Stories
Time Travel Short Stories
Heroic Fantasy Short Stories
Pirates & Ghosts Short Stories
Agents & Spies Short Stories
Endless Apocalypse Short Stories
Alien Invasion Short Stories
Lost Souls Short Stories
Robots & Artificial Intelligence Short Stories
Companion titles offering rich collections of classic literature include:
H.G. Wells Short Stories
Lovecraft Short Stories
Sherlock Holmes Collection
Edgar Allan Poe Collection
Mary Shelley Horror Stories
Bram Stoker Horror Stories
Celtic Myths & Tales
Greek Myths & Tales
Norse Myths & Tales
Available from all good bookstores, wordwide, and online at:
flametreepublishing.com
For our books, calendars, blog and latest special offers please see:
blog.flametreepublishing.com
Introducing our new fiction list:
FLAME TREE PRESS | FICTION WITHOUT FRONTIERS
Award-Winning Authors & Original Voices
Horror, Crime, Science Fiction & Fantasy
flametreepress.com
Alien Invasion Page 89
