word from Haffner

Email rec'd:

Greetings!

NEW RELEASES!

The latest releases from Haffner Press will be:

LORELEI OF THE RED MIST: PLANETARY ROMANCES by Leigh Brackett

GATEWAY TO PARADISE, THE COLLECTED STORIES OF JACK WILLIAMSON, VOLUME SIX by Jack Williamson

Picking up where MARTIAN QUEST: THE EARLY BRACKETT left off, LORELEI OF THE RED MIST: PLANETARY ROMANCES collects 12 more tales of strange adventures on other worlds from the undisputed "Queen of Space Opera." Drawn from Planet Stories and Thrilling Wonder Stories pulp magazines, this tome revels in the 1946 titular collaboration with Ray Bradbury--who also contributes an original poem about Leigh Brackett as well as an essay about meeting & working with Brackett. Harry Turtledove, the modern master of "alternate history," provides the introduction and the book is adorned with Frank Kelly Freas' vintage illustrations from the 1953 reprint of "Lorelei of the Red Mist."

In a review of MARTIAN QUEST: THE EARLY BRACKETT, Paul di Filippo says "Plainly, Brackett was growing with every story she wrote, not yet 30 years old by the volume's end, with the best yet to come." LORELEI OF THE RED MIST: PLANETARY ROMANCES is where some of that "best" can found:

The Blue Behemoth (from Planet Stories)
Thralls of the Endless Night (from Planet Stories)
The Jewel of Bas (from Planet Stories)
The Veil of Astellar (from Thrilling Wonder Stories)
Terror Out of Space (from Planet Stories)
The Vanishing Venusians (from Thrilling Wonder Stories)
Lorelei of the Red Mist (with Ray Bradbury) (from Planet Stories)
The Moon That Vanished (from Thrilling Wonder Stories)
The Beast-Jewel of Mars (from Planet Stories)
Quest of the Starhope (from Thrilling Wonder Stories)
The Lake of the Gone Forever (from Thrilling Wonder Stories)
The Dancing Girl of Ganymede (from Thrilling Wonder Stories)

So, in Brackett's own words: "The trailways of space are before you, to blaze as you will . . . I’ll be looking for you when I get back. Right now my little Fitts-Sothern is warming up in the launching rack, ready to blast off for Venus. There’s a situation developing there, up in the high plateaus north of the Sea of Morning Opals. I've got to see what happens."

See ya there, Leigh.

LORELEI OF THE RED MIST: PLANETARY ROMANCES
By Leigh Brackett
Foreword by Ray Bradbury, Introduction by Harry Turtledove
Illustrated by Frank Kelly Freas
496-page 6.25" x 9.25" Smythe-sewn Archival-quality Hardcover
ISBN-13: 978-1-893887-24-4
1000-copy trade edition: $40.00 (U.S.)
Release date: December 24, 2007

Be sure to check www.haffnerpress.com often for updates, changes, and special announcements.

**********

Grand Master Jack Williamson passed away last year at the age of 98, but the ambitious program to collect his short fiction continues. Of the 10 tales in this collection (three of which are full-length novels!) over half have never been reprinted before. GATEWAY TO PARADISE includes ten stories from 1938 to 1940, including the original texts of "The Reign of Wizardry" (later editions were amended by Williamson with the 1953 translation of Minoan Linear B), "Darker Than You Think" (this version is 40,000 words, Jack expanded the manuscript for the 1948 Fantasy Press edition) and "Gateway to Paradise" (reprinted as DOME AROUND AMERICA - Ace Double D-118). Included are two true rarities: two stories that originally appeared in William L. Hamling's 1940 fanzine, Stardust. The author provides an afterword commenting on the genesis of these stories, and reflecting on the economic and cultural mood of the nation during the tail-end of pre-WWII American Science Fiction.

Contents include:
The Reign of Wizardry (from Unknown)
The Sun Maker (from Thrilling Wonder Stories)
The Crystal of Death (from Stardust)
The Girl in the Bottle (from Super Science Stories)
Racketeers in the Sky (from Argosy Weekly)
Ashes of Iron (from Stardust)
Darker Than You Think (from Unknown)
The Star of Dreams (from Comet Stories)
The Iron God (from Marvel Tales)
Gateway to Paradise (from Startling Stories)

As with the previous volumes in THE COLLECTED STORIES OF JACK WILLIAMSON, GATEWAY TO PARADISE is a smythe-sewn 6" x 9" hardcover typeset in a format designed to honor the Fantasy Press editions of Williamson's first books from the 1940s & 50s. Full-color endpapers reproduce the pulp magazine cover art for each story's first appearance.

Several volumes in this series are already out of print, so make sure to reserve your copy to avoid disappointment. Previous volumes in the series are:

THE METAL MAN AND OTHERS (Vol 1) Out of Print
WOLVES OF DARKNESS (Vol 2) Low Stock
WIZARD'S ISLE (Vol 3) Low Stock
SPIDER ISLAND (Vol 4) Low Stock
THE CRUCIBLE OF POWER (Vol 5) Out of Print

GATEWAY TO PARADISE, THE COLLECTED STORIES OF JACK WILLIAMSON, VOLUME SIX
By Jack Williamson
540+ page 6.25" x 9.25" Smythe-sewn Archival-quality Hardcover
ISBN-13: 978-1-893887-26-8
500-copy trade edition: $40.00 (U.S.)
Release date: Spring 2008

Be sure to check www.haffnerpress.com often for updates, changes, and special announcements.

---I will be getting my order in for these presently for sure.