These cult books were the literary equivalent of blaxploitation movies: stories of black action heroes (usually hardened street warriors like pimps, dealers, or hit men) who were trying to get one over on the Man (represented by racist cops, government stooges, or corrupt politicians). A whole generation of inner-city youths cut teeth on these pulp fiction thrillers, yet the authors and books remain unknown outside the ghetto.With the reissue of these classics by Old School Books (W. W. Norton), Original Gangster literature moves from the ghetto slum to the buppie enclave. In "serious" literary circles, ghetto stars such as Iceberg Slim and Chester Himes are now referred to as "urban realists." Consider yourself warned.This genre exists in an amoral universe, where "good guys" are sometimes hardened criminals, and by the last page the heroes usually meet a violent end. One of the most popular cult writers was Donald Goines, a heroin addict and ex-con whose 16 books chronicled the brutal and desperate lives of addicts, hustlers, and pimps. Goines's books have remained in print, but Daddy Cool is his first novel to be given the trade paperback treatment.Although hugely popular, Goines was far from a master prose stylist. Many of his books have hollow characters and laughable plots. His finest book, by far, was this novel about Larry Jackson, better known as Daddy Cool.Although he's the best hired killer money can buy, even Daddy Cool isn't safe from domestic trouble. He's got two lazy stepsons who've turned stickup men, a wife he's outgrown and barely tolerates, and a beloved daughter who's left home to live with her boyfriend, a young pimp on the make. It's taken a toll on Daddy Cool and thrown off his game. A routine assignment, for example, results in the deaths of his mark and an unexpected witness. Things get even worse when he discovers his daughter has started working the streets for her boyfriend.In Daddy Cool, Goines's plot makes up for his bare-bones writing style. He manages to do the unthinkable: take a standard blaxploitation stereotype and make him into a believable character. Here's the scene where Daddy Cool spots his daughter plying her trade: "Hey, kitten," he said gently, "I didn't come down here to find you just to see you lookin' blue. I remembered that today was your birthday and hoped maybe we could have dinner or something together.""Oh, Daddy," she cried; then the floodgates opened and all the pent-up emotions she had been holding back came spilling out. Daddy Cool leaned over and took his daughter in his arms. She cried as though her heart was broken.As he held her tenderly, he had to fight down a lump that came into his throat. He stroked the back of her head and spoke gently to her. "Now, girl, it ain't nothin' that bad, is there? I know I raised a girl who could just about handle everything that came up."Goines manages to walk the line between heartfelt sentiment and melodrama. Best of all, he fully explores the complex interrelationships of his characters. And don't worry, there's still plenty of tough gangsta stylin' and explosive violence to make hard-core gangsta rappers look like stone-cold punks.And in a broader sense, Daddy Cool and the other Old School Books titles are important historical and cultural markers for African Americans. Norton deserves acknowledgement for rescuing these otherwise abandoned treasures.Originally published over a 21-year period (1957-1978), these books and authors fell just outside the limelight created by the Black Arts Movement—that 1960s literary/political movement that advanced social engagement as its banner toward liberation. Eschewing the accommodationist literature of civil rights, the Black Arts Movement aspired only to black power. Among its early progenitors were writers Tom Dent, Ishmael Reed, Larry Neal, and Rosa Guy and poets Dudley Randall and Amiri Baraka, the movement's acknowledged founder. The literary movement coalesced in 1965, holding tightly together until 1975-1976.But Old School Books authors found themselves in a double bind. As a genre, they were dependent on acceptance by the established politic for finance and publication. The New Negro Movement and glow of the Harlem Renaissance had long passed, and the perceived value of African-American fiction was minimal.The Black Arts Movement, ignited by performance poetry spoken in popular rhetoric and vernacular, sparked mass appeal. While poetry flourished (the Last Poets, Haki Madhubuti, Sonia Sanchez, Nikki Giovanni, Gwendolyn Brooks), black fiction took a back seat. Simultaneously, as the Black Arts Movement spoke of community and liberation, the themes addressed by Old School authors made them politically incorrect pariahs: "Player and hustlers...mack daddies and racketeers...cops on the take and girls on the make" reads one introduction.Apparently, time has rehabilitated (and exonerated) these authors, now warmly embraced in the hip-hop era. "They take the brutality and ruin of the urban black landscape and transform them into art," says The Source. In Old School Books, one can find a dramatic recounting of black life on the hard track. Welcome back.

    It was released in 1942 and was the third book published by Arkham House. 1,054 copies were printed. A British hardcover appeared from Neville Spearman in 1971, with a two-volume paperback reprint following from Panther Books in 1974. Bison Books issued a trade paperback edition in 2006.The stories for this volume were selected by the author and were considered by him to be his best fantasy and horror stories to date. The collection contains stories from Smith's major story cycles of Averoigne, Hyperborea, Poseidonis, and Zothique. Smith had wanted to call the collection "The End of the Story and Other Stories", but acceded to Derleth's suggestion, an allusion to Edgar Allan Poe's "Dream-Land".

    A pathbreaking, surreal novel of the outdoors.

    LovecraftIncredible worlds, impossibly beautiful cities, and still more fantastic creatures...take one step across the threshold of his stories and you plunge into colour, sound, taste, smell and texture: into language. - Ray BradburyStories like strange ornaments, the metal elaborately inlaid and fired, studded with unknown semi-precious stones, from an unknown and timeless culture. - Fritz LeiberCover illustration by Bruce Pennington

    Jones; * Submicroscopic / Capt. S.P. Meek; * Awlo of Ulm / Capt. S.P. Meek; * Tetrahedra of Space / P. Schuyler Miller; * The World of the Red Sun / Clifford D. Simak. Originally 26 stories published in one hardcover volume.

    Reissue.

    American Ulysses Paxton becomes the chief assistant to the greatest scientist on Mars. Ras Thavas falls in love with Valla Dia, whose mind was transplanted to the ancient body of Xara. Vad Vara attempts to restore his love to her own body and faces a series of obstacles to save her.A Fighting Man of Mars: Hadron of Hastor, native of Helium, and the warrior who is The Fighting Man of Mars, earns the enmity of Haj Osis, jed of Tjanath. Sentenced as a spy and condemned to suffer 'The Death', Hadron must prove that John Carter's warriors are not so easily destroyed.Book club edition

    It was a name that was woven into the legends from Teheran to Bombay.Here is the tale of how El Borak discovered the descendants of Alexander the Great's soldiers who had remained isolated for centuries in the mountains. And how, with the aid of Bardylis of Attalus and the Sons of Iskander, El Borak plotted the downfall of his implacable enemy - the renegade Hunyadi!The Lost Valley of Iskandercontains three adventures of the mighty El Borak by Robert E. Howard, creator of Conan and Kull.* The Daughter of Erlik Khan* The Lost Valley of Iskander* Hawk of the HillsCover illustration: Chris Achilleos

    Gallun · ss Planet Stories Mar ’52 117 · Quest of Thig [Thig] · Basil Wells · ss Planet Stories Fll ’42 131 · The Rocketeers Have Shaggy Ears · Keith Bennett · nv Planet Stories Spr ’50 175 · The Diversifal · Ross Rocklynne · ss Planet Stories Win ’45 193 · Duel on Syrtis · Poul Anderson · ss Planet Stories Mar ’51

    Ranson Daventry, a famed neurologist who is just returning to his practice after a mysterious absence. Initially, the position could not be more enchanting - the splendid fortress-like mansion, the wild natural splendor of the Pacific river valley, the amiable company of Dr. Daventry and his family. But, unexpectedly and mercilessly, the sunlight ebbs and gives way to darkness. There is an angel of death presiding over the premises, and it is none other than the doctor's beautiful but belated bride!

    The first appearance of Richard Dragon and the O-Sensei, this story by Dennis O'Neil and Jim Berry (writing together under a pseudonym) was later adapted as the DC comic series Richard Dragon: Kung-Fu Fighter.

    Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone

    

    "In the famous Fifth Avenue salon, beauty became a mask for murder."

    

    Terror can have such simple beginnings - a child’s letter to Father Christmas… a lovely girl glimpsed in a London street… a spin down the Brighton Road… a night spent in an empty mansion for a bet.And the consequences can be so fearsome, as the unsleeping dead walk again, as strange emotions stir inanimate things to murderous life, as horrors beyond our imagining cross the threshold into everyday life; can anyone be sure that all is as it seems?After you have read this book, can you?

    This was a Danse Macabre - grotesquely doubled in the mirrored walls, eerily elongated in the flickering shadows. What was I doing here? Masquerading as another woman, waltzing in the arms of a pale man who claimed me with his icy eyes and cold hands. Would I still be warm, young - and alive - after a year in this HOUSE OF THE DANCING DEAD

    

    The howling of the wind at night, the chill seeping up from dungeon-like cellars, were familiar to lovely young Molly Boyd. For this had been her home since she was orphaned as a little girl.But only when Molly became mistress of Point of Truth did she discover what evil dwelled within its walls...what terror lay behind the mysterious last words of her dying guardian...what hideous curse was contained in the exquisite ancient Oriental box that was part of her legacy - a legacy of horror she could not escape even with the aid of the man she thought she loved.

    

    For amusement, they toasted marshmallows over burning pages of the Bible and practiced sadism. Soon, their attention focused on Kevin and Pam, two children in the neighborhood, for whom, along with the little girl's young mother, they had frightening plans...

    Pendarves, Mary Elizabeth Counselman, Mearle Prout, Mindret Lord, Robert E. Howard, Earl Pierte, Jr., Seabury Quinn, J. Wesley Rosenquest, and Robert Nelson.

    A black power in the jungle prepares to manipulate the sub-continent and against this terrible malaise the nuclear nations are impotent.But Qhe will avenge. Called from his Himalayan domain with Willard, a kind of deadly Jeeves with a Luger, Qhe confronts black magic with white, poison darts with psychic ones. In a deadly duel with Veiss, albino sadist and megalomaniac, Qhe must exorcise the devil before all hell breaks loose. Qhe is as cool as a diamond and as cutting. There's no one on earth to touch him.In this, his second mission, Qhe renews his acquaintance with Kellinger, the blundering CIA man, and tangles with Tenquesta, the smouldering mystic Mayan priestess.

    There are untoward happenings, things without explanation. In bewilderment the villagers can only fear a devil or an unquiet soul is abroad in their peaceful streets.No one is safe from the violent and malevolent intruder. Doors are bolted, eyes peer from behind curtains. There seems no end as every fresh horror is revealed, till the very fires of Hell itself are burning in their midst.The unknown enemy that fills the night with terror is the most deadly of them all – the enemy from Within.

    

    

    But as Beatrice begins her duties at Carlisle Manor, she realizes that she has been hired to be more than just a companion...and it is with dread that she learns from the handsome Dunstan that the old house is known as 'Folly Hall', built to the specifications of a madman.

    Twelve true mysteries concerning the Abominable Snowman, Rasputin, the death of the Red Baron, Marie Antoinette and the diamond necklace affair, the strange markings of the Andes, and more.

    

    

    

    When the exact same house appears in a real estate catalogue, her precognition becomes reality. Then the forces that drew her to the mansion slowly begin to take possession and the ghost of her former self returns to haunt her.

    In the haunting tradition of Rebecca -- a beautiful woman's deadly legacy.