Brian W.Aldiss:


Brian W. Aldiss was an English writer and anthologies editor, best known for science fiction novels and short stories. Aldiss was named a Grand Master by the Science Fiction Writers of America in 2000 and inducted by the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 2004. He received two Hugo Awards, one Nebula Award, and one John W. Campbell Memorial Award. His influential works include the short story “Super-Toys Last All Summer Long,” the basis for the Stanley Kubrick-developed Steven Spielberg film A.I. Artificial Intelligence.

We enjoy his short stories, and the Joe Bodenland novels which we start with here, but his non-SF/fantasy doesn’t do it for us.


Frankenstein Unbound:

Joe Bodenland, a 21st century American, passes through a timeslip and finds himself with Byron and Shelley in the famous villa on the shore of Lake Geneva. More fantastically, he finds himself face to face with a real Frankenstein, a doppelgänger inhabiting a complex world where fact and fiction may as easily have congress as Bodenland himself manages to make love to Mary Shelley. This title was made into a film, starring John Hurt, Raul Julia, Bridget Fonda, Jason Patric and Michael Hutchence.


The Centipede signed limited edition.

This new edition of Frankenstein Unbound features striking dust jacket art. It has a new introduction by fellow British New Wave pioneer Michael Moorcock. The book is oversize at 6½ × 10 inches .



Enter Text

Devil Take the Blue-Tail Fly by John Franklin Bardin

“What if your husband had fallen in love with someone else?” Dr. Danzer had asked her gently. “Would that be so terrible?”

New York, 1946, and Ellen is returning home to Basil after the breakdown that has interrupted her career as one of the city’s most gifted concert harpsichordists. Over the next terrifying weeks, John Franklin Bardin’s finest novel plays a virtuoso performance on themes of music and madness, unfolding an unforgettable thriller-nightmare in which Ellen is both the criminal — and the agonized victim.


Julian Symons commended this novel with the following review: “One of the most convincing and frightening ‘psychological’ crime stories ever written. Bardin was ahead of his time. He belongs not to the world of Agatha Christie and John Dickson Carr, but to that of Patricia Highsmith and Edgar Allan Poe.”

This new edition features a new introduction by Frank Bardin, John Franklin Bardin’s son, and the first part of an unfinished novel, “Black Counted Fair,” published here for the first time anywhere.


The Last of Philip Banter by John Franklin Bardin

Philip Banter is a little too fond of drink, and his marriage is not what it should be. That doesn’t mean he’s losing his mind.


Then Philip finds in his office fifteen pages of a manuscript entitled “Confession.” He reads about a surprise dinner party his wife held, of the conversation that took place and — to his horror — of his own infidelity. But the “confession” turns out to be a prophecy: accurate in almost every detail.


Is he the victim of a conspiracy to kill him or drive him mad, or did he type the manuscript himself? As the “confession” grows lengthier and more destructive, can he find the willpower to resist its terrifying inevitability?


This new edition of The Last of Philip Banter features a new introduction by Ramsey Campbell. Combined with cover art by Dan Rempel, this new edition of The Last of Philip Banter is essential psychological noir reading.


Signed by Ramsey Campbell and cover artist Dan Rempel.Facsimile signature by John Franklin Bardin.

300 signed copies.

Combined with cover art by Dan Rempel, this new edition of Devil Take the Blue-Tail Fly is essential noir reading. Perhaps just as important, this publication of Devil Take the Blue-Tail Fly marks its first-ever U.S. hardcover appearance!

Signed by Frank Bardin and cover artist Dan Rempel. Facsimile signature by John Franklin Bardin.

Ambrose Bierce  - Library of Weird Fiction

Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914?) was the leading American writer of weird fiction between Edgar Allan Poe and H. P. Lovecraft. A prolific journalist and fierce satirist, Bierce brought a distinctly sardonic and misanthropic vision to his short fiction.

After serving in some of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War, he wrote dozens of tales of psychological terror using the war as a backdrop. Among these are such famous stories as “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,” “Chickamauga,” and “One of the Missing.” In these tales, Bierce etched with unsparing realism the fear, alarm, and apprehension that soldiers feel in the heat of battle.

Bierce applied his psychological acumen to tales of “civilians” as well. In such stories as “The Suitable Surroundings,” “A Watcher by the Dead,” and “The Man and the Snake,” Bierce pungently depicted the sensations of characters beset by fears of death. He also employed his keen analysis of human foibles in tales of the supernatural, such as “The Death of Halpin Frayser,” a hideous account of incest and revenants; “The Middle Toe of the Right Foot,” a chilling story of supernatural revenge; and “The Eyes of the Panther,” a tale of possible metempsychosis.

Bierce also wrote such pioneering tales as “The Damned Thing,” about an invisible monster, and “Moxon’s Master,” which broaches the possibility of artificial intelligence.

A distinctive branch of Bierce’s fictional work are his political fantasies, where he utilizes his cynicism in regard to American political institutions and politicians in creating imaginary realms in the manner of Jonathan Swift and Voltaire.

This collection presents a generous selection of Bierce’s weird fiction, with introduction and bibliography.

The volume has been edited by S. T. Joshi, a renowned expert on weird fiction. Joshi is the author of The Weird Tale (1990), The Modern Weird Tale (2001), and Unutterable Horror: A History of Supernatural Fiction(2012).

A Beastly Business by John Blackburn


Bill Easter is a petty criminal with a little problem of a £2000 overdraft that he has no means of covering. Fortunately, the bank manager has a problem of his own and needs Bill’s help: the corpse of Henry Oliver, a very hairy 350 lb. mass murderer known as the “Mad Vicar,” is decomposing in his basement and he wants it removed.

Among Oliver’s papers, Bill finds a tantalizing reference to treasure that leads him to the Scottish isle of Rhona, where he meets the intrepid General Charles Kirk of British Foreign Intelligence and the arrogant adventurer J. Moldon Mott.


Kirk has uncovered a bizarre plot involving the KGB, ex-Nazi mad scientists, and the “mad monk” Rasputin, while Mott is hot on the trail of a stolen gold treasure. And when they discover the island is being overrun by werewolves, their trip to the remote island will become a very beastly business indeed!

A Beastly Business (1982) features the trademark blend of mystery, adventure, and horror that made John Blackburn (1923-1993) one of the most acclaimed British thriller writers of his generation.

One of the scarcest of Blackburn’s books and long unobtainable, A Beastly Business is reprinted here for the first time ever in a handsome hardcover edition.

Limited to 200 copies, signed by Bob Eggleton.

Family-approved facsimile by John F. Blackburn.

Blue Octavo by John Blackburn


When bookseller James Roach is found dead after paying an exorbitant sum for Grey Boulders, a rare but apparently valueless volume on mountaineering, the police write it off as suicide.


But his young colleague John Cain suspects foul play when he discovers the book is missing and that someone has been going to great lengths to obtain every copy of Grey Boulders in existence.

Is it a case of some deranged collector driven to murder by his bibliomania, or is there some secret contained in the book that is worth killing for?


It’s a race against time as Cain joins forces with egocentric adventurer J. Moldon Mott and beautiful heiress Julia Lent to solve the mystery. Can they stop the killer before he gets hold of the last remaining copy, or will one of them become his next victim?

A prolific author of thrillers and horror novels, John Blackburn (1923-1993) also managed a secondhand bookstore, and he draws on this background in Blue Octavo (1963), a clever and fast-paced tale set in the shady world of antiquarian bookselling.


Limited to 200 copies, signed by Bob Eggleton.


The Architect of Sleep by Steven R. Boyett


Fresh out of college, Jim Bentley has no idea what to do with his life. A dead-end job at 7-Eleven, movies, caving in sinkhole tunnels in central Florida.

But life has plans for Bentley — because one day he stumbles into a different world. Evolution took a different path here. Primates don’t rule the world. Raccoons do.

Surviving in the woods, Bentley befriends one of these intelligent creatures, and soon learns that she is more than she seems. For Bentley has landed in the midst of turmoil: political coup, class uprising, and imminent war — and his new alien friend has something to do with all of it.


And she seems to think he has a part to play in her agenda. If he can stay alive.

This classic novel of alternate evolution, one of the most well-written, frustrating, and highly regarded fantasy novels of the last 50 years, is finally back in print after 35 years, in its first hardcover edition.


This book features a new afterword by Steven Boyett (explaining, in part, the lack of a second volume), as well as new dustjacket artwork by Brenoch Adams, the original paperback art by Jim Gurney, endpapers by David Ho, and ten interior black & white illustrations by Cristina Bencina. It is signed by Boyett, Bencina, Adams and Ho.


The book is oversize at 6½ × 10 inches and is printed on acid-free Cougar paper with a Smyth sewn binding complete with head and tail bands and a ribbon marker

A Case of Conscience:


First published in 1958. It is the story of a Jesuit who investigates an alien race that has no religion yet has a perfect, innate sense of morality, a situation which conflicts with Catholic teaching. The story was originally published as a novella in 1953, and later extended to novel-length, of which the first part is the original novella. The novel is the first part of Blish's thematic "After Such Knowledge" series (title from T.S. Eliot's "Gerontion," "After such knowledge, what forgiveness?") , followed by Doctor Mirabilis, Black Easter, and The Day After Judgment.


The story is unusual in several respects. Few science fiction stories of the time attempted religious themes, and still fewer did this with Catholicism.

Father Ruiz-Sanchez was a dedicated man — a priest who was also a scientist, and a scientist who was also a human being. He found no insoluble conflicts in his beliefs or in his ethics until he was sent to Lithia.

There he came upon a race of aliens — reptilian in form — who were admirable in every way except for their total reliance on cold reason; they were incapable of faith and belief. On Lithia, Father Ruiz-Sanchez also found a scientific riddle, and he was presented with an ethical problem that reached across two worlds.

Father Ruiz-Sanchez was then torn in a struggle between the teachings of his faith, the teachings of his science, and the inner promptings of his humanity. There was only one solution. He had to accept an ancient and unforgivable heresy — and, in accepting that heresy, he risked the futures of both worlds.


Below is the new edition of 'A Case of Conscience’ from Centipede Press with an introduction by Greg Bear, new cover artwork by Pascal Casolari, new interior art by Allen Koszowski, and archival artwork by Darrell K. Sweet. The signed edition is limited to 300 copies. Each book is signed by Greg Bear and Allen Koszowski, with an Estate-approved facsimile signature by James Blish.

Black Easter:


This is the third book in Blish’s quasi-religious quartet 'After Such Knowledge'.


Black Easter is more of a horror novel, in which an arms dealer hires a black magician to unleash all the Demons of Hell on earth for a single day


This new edition of Black Easter has a new introduction by J.A. Lawrence, new cover and interior artwork by Samuel Araya, new interior art by Allen Koszowski, and archival artwork by Chris Moore and Wayne Douglas Barlowe.

       

Doctor Mirabilis:


This is the second book in Blish’s quasi-religious quartet 'After Such Knowledge'.

The historical novel recounts of the life of the 13th-century English Franciscan Roger Bacon and his struggle to develop a “Universal Science.” Though thoroughly researched, with a host of references, including extensive use of Bacon’s own writings, frequently in the original Latin, the book is written in the style of a novel, and Blish himself referred to it as “fiction” or “a vision.” It is widely considered to be the most ambitious novels of the quartet.


Blish’s view of Bacon is uncompromisingly that he was the first scientist, and he provides a postscript to the novel in which he sets forth these views. Central to his depiction of Roger Bacon is that “he was not an inventor, an Edison or Luther Burbank, holding up a test tube with a shout of Eureka!” He was instead a theoretical scientist probing fundamental realities, and his visions of modern technology were just by-products of “…the way he normally thought — the theory of theories as tools…”


Blish indicates where Bacon’s writings, for example, consider Newtonian metrical frameworks for space, then reject these for something which reads remarkably like Einsteinian relativity, and all “…breathtakingly without pause or hiccup, breezily moving without any recourse through over 800 years of physics”.


This new edition of Doctor Mirabilis has new cover artwork by Ben Baldwin, new interior art by Allen Koszowski, and archival artwork by Geoff Taylor and Wayne Douglas Barlowe.

The 'After Such Knowledge' series

Ray Bradbury:

Science fiction, fantasy, small town life and small town people are the materials from which Ray Bradbury weaves his unique and magical stories of the natural and the supernatural, the past, the present and the future. There are spaceship and dragons, time machines, new planets, and new science, but it is real people reacting in their personal human ways to the phenomena of a strange world that give the haunting beauty that won critical acclaim for Bradbury’s books.


In a career spanning more than seventy years, Ray Bradbury has inspired generations of readers to dream, think, and create. A prolific author of hundreds of short stories and close to fifty books, as well as numerous poems, essays, operas, plays, teleplays, and screenplays, Bradbury was one of the most celebrated writers of our time.


Something Wicked This Way Comes:


First appearing as the short story “The Black Ferris” in the May 1948 issue of Weird Tales, accompanied by a suitably gruesome illustration by Lee Brown Coye, Ray Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes went through an intermediate stage as an unproduced screen treatment for Gene Kelly in 1955 before the author expanded it into the novel published by Simon & Schuster in 1962.


If Bradbury’s 1957 novel 'Dandelion Wine' is the summer panel in the author’s nostalgic portrait of childhood in small-town America, 'Something Wicked This Way Comes' may be considered its darker autumnal counterpart. The magic that had imbued everyday life in the fictional town of Green Town, Illinois in the earlier episodic novel here becomes incarnate in the shape of Mr. Dark and his carnival; but all these new marvels cast shadows, teasing at innocence while attempting to corrupt it, and promising wonders that take morality and mortality as their toll.


It is a skillfully woven work, which captures dread and heroism, horror and lyricism, power and compassion in equal measure, with characters as venal or lovable as any we may encounter in real life.

This new edition includes a new introduction by Neil Gaiman, the complete novel, two interviews with Ray Bradbury, and a fifteen page gallery of artwork associated with the novel, including old editions, unused movie poster concepts, and several original hardcover and paperback artworks, reprinted in their original glory, many of them seeing publication in this form for the first time ever.


The artwork is especially dazzling. Along with the archival art by Gray Foy, Ian Miller, Joseph Mugnaini, and Bob Peak, there are several stereoscopic illustrations by David Ho, which come to 3D life when viewed with a special viewer, including in the back of each book, five wood engravings by renowned artist Vladimir Zimakov, and a stunning full-color, wraparound dustjacket by Matt Mahurin, all combined with marbled endsheets, ribbon marker, stamped cloth, and a capped slipcase.

Knock 3-1-2


“Fredric Brown tops himself again,” says the Los Angeles Mirror-News of this taut, dramatic novel of one night when a desperate rapist-killer stalked a town, ten hours of panic and terror that turned the night into a nightmare. For as the net tightened around the killer more and more, people became entangled in a chain of events that ended in an explosion of maniacal savagery.


Knock 3-1-2 is widely considered to be one of Fredric Brown’s best suspense novels, and is rarely reprinted.

This edition features a new introduction by Jack Seabrook, a color cover by legendary cover artist Ron Lesser, and is signed by both Seabrook and Lesser.

Full color dustjacket with black Brillianta cloth, ribbon marker.


Limited to just 200 signed and numbered copies.

Centipede Press

The Lenient Beast


“The Mark of the Beast is upon me, and the Beast is Mercy. Until the Mark is taken away, I must perform my function as the giver of God’s greatest gift of Mercy — death and surcease to those for whom life seems to be agony.”


Six people already had been relieved of the burden of life; six times John Medley had felt peace. On the police blotter six brutal murders were stamped unsolved.



The Lenient Beast presents Fredric Brown at his best and most daring, with a certified crime classic.


This edition features a new introduction by John Pelan, a color cover by legendary cover artist Ron Lesser, and is signed by both John Pelan and Ron Lesser.


There are also three bonus stories.



Full color dustjacket with black Brillianta cloth, ribbon marker.


Limited to just 200 signed and numbered copies.

Centipede Press

The Wench is Dead


“I’m called Howie, or The Professor. I’m on Skid Row in Los Angeles because I want to know what it’s like to be a bum, from the inside. But I didn’t know I’d fall for a part-time hustler named Billie the Kid. I didn’t know I’d get mixed up in two killings, and that the cops would pin them on me...”


The Wench Is Dead is one of Fredric Brown’s most wild novels, flawlessly written and rarely reprinted.


This edition features a new introduction by Bill Crider, a color cover by legendary cover artist Ron Lesser, and is signed by both Bill Crider and Ron Lesser.


There are also twelve bonus stories.

Full color dustjacket with black Brillianta cloth, ribbon marker.


Limited to just 200 signed and numbered copies.

Publisher : Centipede Press

Paul Cain was the hardest boiled of all the Black Mask writers. And other than Hammett and Chandler, the one who best epitomizes the hard, brittle style that represented the magazine. Short staccato sentences void of introspection, conjunctions, and all but the most necessary exposition. Stark, violent, and occasionally brutal storylines. And prose so provocative and compelling that the reader finds himself gulping it down whole instead of in the usual bite-size pieces.


This massive collection, originally conceived by Keith Alan Deutsch, who has selflessly taken it upon himself (as proprietor and conservator of Black Mask Magazine copyrights) to keep this classic work in print in high quality formats available to a new generation, features the novel Fast One (in its original serial form) and the complete 13 "slayers"—brilliant works of noir fiction—written by Paul Cain for Black Mask and other crime pulps. For six of the "slayers," this is the first time ever that they have been collected in book format, and also marks the first time that all of Cain’s fiction has been collected in book form.


This new edition includes a stunning biographical introduction by Max Allan Collins and Lynn F. Myers, Jr., which incorporates years of research into the life of Paul Cain, about whom little is known. Along with the stories, this edition features a cover gallery of old issues of Black Mask as well as old covers of the Fast One and Seven Slayers collections. This hardcover book is signed by Max Allan Collins, Lynn F. Myers, Jr., and Ron Lesser, the cover artist.

Limited to 500 copies, each signed by Max Allan Collins, Lynn F. Myers, Jr., and Ron Lesser. This copy a PC copy with roman numerals 

Ender's Way:


This large collection of Ender-related short stories is 416 pages, with 13 stories, including “Governor Wiggin,” which was written especially for this collection.

Each story has a stunning black & white full page illustration by Cristina Bencina, as well as a frontispiece illustration, and a wraparound dustjacket by Rob Rey.


An unsigned edition


Centipede Press edition with slipcase

Speaker for the Dead  by Orson Scott Card:


An unsigned edition of the Centipede Press edition with slipcase.

Great dust jacket art by David Palumbo.


In this second book in the saga set 3,000 years after the terrible war, Ender Wiggin is reviled by history as the Xenocide--the destroyer of the alien Buggers. Now, Ender tells the true story of the war and seeks to stop history from repeating itself. ...


In the aftermath of his terrible war, Ender Wiggin disappeared, and a powerful voice arose: The Speaker for the Dead, who told the true story of the Bugger War.


Now, long years later, a second alien race has been discovered, but again the aliens' ways are strange and frightening...again, humans die. And it is only the Speaker for the Dead, who is also Ender Wiggin the Xenocide, who has the courage to confront the mystery...and the truth.


Speaker for the Dead, the second novel in Orson Scott Card's Ender Quintet, is the winner of the 1986 Nebula Award for Best Novel and the 1987 Hugo Award for Best Novel.

Masters of the Weird Tale - Ramsey Campbell


This latest installment in the Centipede Press series “Masters of the Weird Tale” celebrates the first fifty-five years of Ramsey Campbell’s illustrious career. As you might imagine, one volume simply wouldn’t do. Instead, they’ve issued two volumes of over one thousand pages.  There’s never been such an extensive collection of work by a living horror writer, but then again there’s never been another Ramsey Campbell!



Limited to 250 sets and featuring an introduction by Adam Nevill, a lengthy career retrospective interview, over three dozen illustrations, 86 stories, this is an essential volume for any serious collection of modern weird fiction.


Each volume is signed by Ramsey Campbell, Allen Koszowski, Jill Bauman, John Kenn Mortensen, David Ho, Gavin O’Keefe, David Whitlam, and Jeanne D’Angelo. 

   First edition hardcover -signed/ ltd

   First edition hardcover -signed/ ltd

Novels of alien invasion are as common as dirt; however, peaceful alien invasions are a far rarer breed of story. Beginning with “Guardian Angel,” Clarke began laying the groundwork for the magnificent chronicle of the interaction with humanity by the mysterious Overlords who seem entirely benign in intent. Clarke’s tale of the end of the human race as we understand it is an epic on the level of Olaf Stapledon’s Last and First Men and Star Maker.

The title of the work itself gives you the basic plot: the Overlords are here to help humanity transition to its maturity. The tale of how this unfolds is what makes Childhood’s End such a classic work. From the shocking revelation of the Overlords’ appearance, to a stowaway’s forty light-year journey to the Overlords’ home world to the beginning of what the human race is evolving into, this is truly an epic saga. After five decades of prosperity under the watchful eyes of the Overlords, we see that the humanity’s future is that of a group mind, one that will be united with an even vaster one as part of the Overmind.

The novel was Clarke’s first true success as a novelist, selling out its first printing of over 200,000 copies rather quickly. Long considered to be Clarke’s best work, the book is rightfully regarded as one of the true enduring classics of the genre. Over six decades after its first publication this powerful tale of transformation and triumph remains as fresh and optimistic as it was in 1953.

Against the Fall of Night was originally written as a novella for Startling Stories. However, realizing that there was a more involved story to tell, Clarke revised and expanded the story in 1951 to novel length, where it was published two years later by the legendary Gnome Press. It was then completely revised and published as The City and the Stars in 1956. The City and the Stars has since been recognized as an all-time classic, ranking highly in the coveted “All-Time Best Novel” awards from Locus in 1975, 1987, and 1988.

This is the first time that these classic and important works have received the lavish presentation that they deserve. The City and the Stars features a new introduction by Robert Silverberg and new cover and interior artwork by Bob Eggleton.  

Best viewed as complementary rather than competing works, The City and the Stars was published a scant three years after the landmark appearance of Against the Fall of Night. The world building of Diaspar and Lys is nothing short of remarkable as are the discoveries that Alvin and Rorden make on their journey, not the least of which is the chilling discovery of a being called the “Mad Mind” that is (at least for now) imprisoned.

For an author to revise and re-publish such a recent and well-thought-of work as Against the Fall of Night was a bold move that many feared would irreparably damage Clarke’s career. Fortunately, nothing could be further from the truth; not only did he produce a worthy successor to the original, but he succeeded in elevating both novels as a result.

Each book features double-page title page artwork in full color, and reproductions of old editions of each book, all reprinted in color as well.

The Centipede Press edition is limited to 300 copies. Signed by Jack Dann and David Ho. Introduction by Jack Dann. Interview with Arthur C. Clarke. The story “Guardian Angel”. Several reproductions of covers of older editions of the book. Printed at a luxurious size of 6¼ × 10 inches, the book features full wraparound dustjacket work, full cloth binding, two color stamping, blind stamping on front board, two-part signature page, handsome cloth slipcase, and the usual extras you expect. 

Years ago, aficionados of science fiction used to speak of “The Big Three,” referring to the giants of the field Asimov, Heinlein, and Clarke. The passing years have shown us that Sir Arthur C. Clarke stands as one of the most memorable voices that the field has produced. Centipede Press have produced two of Clarke’s classics in a new double-volume edition: The City and the Stars and Against the Fall of Night.

The Bedeviled - Thomas Cullinan


Jack Caine’s heart attack was all the advice he needed. He and Maggie and the children were moving as far as possible from the rat race that was slowly killing him, leaving New York to a quiet old farmhouse in Ohio, which Jack has inherited from a distant aunt. The house, ten miles away from the nearest neighbor, was once owned by a Civil War general reputed to have been a Satanist.


From their first night in the desolate old house, when the screams of Jack’s teenage son, Duff, split the dark silence, the Caines sense the hellish curse descending upon them. When his family burial ground is mysteriously vandalized, Jack cannot bring his tortured thoughts to bear on who might have done it — and why — until a strangely transformed Duff appears before him, possessed of the corrupt and lascivious spirit of his great-great-grandfather Brigadier General Duffin Caine.


And Maggie, now possessed by the General’s long-dead mistress, is the sole object of his perverse desire.

This is a marvelously sinister brew of Satanism, possession, and incest, here reprinted in a special limited edition hardcover. The book has new artwork by Christopher Shy and a new introduction by Thomas W. Cullinan, the author’s son, with rare photographs.


There are 300 signed copies, each signed by Shy and Cullinan. The book is bound in cloth, with two color foil blocking on the front cover, a handsome color dustjacket, color and black & white interior illustrations, and ribbon marker.



   First edition hardcover -signed/ ltd