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In the 1930s, a very unusual tale appeared in the influential Amazing Stories magazine. Unlike the usual yarns of robots and interstellar travel, this "Battle in the Dawn" featured the brutal exploits of Hok, the first hero of humanity, in his struggles against the savage Neanderthals. Written by rising pulpster Manly Wade Wellman (Who Fears the Devil?), who would later achieve fame for his American folktales of Silver John and beat out William Faulkner for a prestigious writing award, the story and its brave hero struck a chord with Amazing's readers, and several additional adventures followed, taking Hok through the prehistory of mankind to battle unrelenting cavemen, explore the lost city of Atlantis, discover new technology, and chart a new destiny for humanity. Now, for the first time ever, Planet Stories presents a complete authorized collection of all of Wellman's rare Hok the Mighty tales, packed with unfinished story fragments, all-new illustrations, and a brand-new introduction by Wellman's longtime friend, fantasy author David Drake.

Table of Contents:

• Manly and the Stone Age - essay by David Drake
• Battle in the Dawn - (1939)
• Hok Goes to Atlantis - (1939)
• Hok Draws the Bow - (1940)
• Hok and the Gift of Heaven - (1941)
• Hok Visits the Land of Legends - (1942)
• The Love of Oloana - (1986)
• The Day of the Conquerors - (1940)
• Untitled Hok Fragment - (1989)
• An Autobiography - (1940)

Scientist Oliver Norfleet and his college buddy Spencer DuPogue are called by the Board of Science, to investigate a mysteriously expanding red blight that is growing around the site of a meteor crash. With the help of the daughter of a famous scientist, they soon discover that the blight is not only alive, but that it consumes nearly everything in its path. When their own abilities prove inadequate, they are forced to turn to the greatest scientific minds that history has to offer. Can Norfleet and DuPogue and the Giants from Eternity stop the blight before the entire Earth is consumed?

After twenty years in prison, deep in the bowels of the earth, Blackie Peyton found himself a free man, back on the surface again. But it didn't take him long to discover that his freedom was illusory, as was the freedom of everyone else in the city. The dreaded wars had come and gone; and the Airmen had taken control to rebuild from the ruins and prevent further conflict. All the survivors were gathered into cities, which had no contact with each other. All aircraft was restricted to the ruling class of Airmen, whose control was assured by the island in the sky.

The Island was a platform a mile in diameter, atomic-powered and set in a closed orbit some fifteen miles above Earth-an orbit which carried it over all the cities now remaining on Earth. Here the Airmen lived in their own city; from this point they could observe and control all that went on below. Any city in rebellion could quickly be bombed into submission.

Life was hard for surface people. The rich were taxed to the breaking point, and the poor barely kept alive. The Airmen had revived the old Roman custom of "bread and circuses," to divert the hostility of the ruled; and gladiatorial games were produced each week in a monster stadium, men pitted against all manner of wild animals and each other.

Sight of the flying island gave Blackie Peyton a dream, a dream of someday getting up there where no surface dwellers and no women-even Airmen's wives-were permitted. Then he and a newly found friend were seized by the press gang which combed the city for gladiatorial recruits, and Peyton found himself working for General Argyle, Airman in charge of the Circus Maximus and boss of New York.

Here is a different novel of worlds to come, and tomorrow's struggle for freedom.

Contents:

• 11 - The Adventure of the Crystal Egg - [Sherlock Holmes Versus Mars] - novelette
• 53 - Sherlock Holmes Versus Mars - [Sherlock Holmes Versus Mars] - (1975) - novelette
• 97 - George E. Challenger Versus Mars - [Sherlock Holmes Versus Mars] - novelette
• 147 - The Adventure of the Martian Client - [Sherlock Holmes Versus Mars] - (1969) - short story
• 175 - Venus, Mars, and Baker Street - [Sherlock Holmes Versus Mars] - (1972) - short story
• 205 - Appendix: A Letter from Dr. Watson - [Sherlock Holmes Versus Mars] - short fiction

Giant jellyfish aliens invade Earth. The story follows one man as he attempts to find a weapon from the invaders themselves that will allow humanity to destroy them, and take back their lands.

This short story originally appeared in Weird Tales, August 1939. It has been collected and anthologized a number of times.

It was the basis for episode 76 (1961) of The Twilight Zone.

Foreword by the author

• "The White Road" (poem)

PAGES FROM A MEMORY BOOK

• "Up Under the Roof"
• "Among Those Present"
• "The Terrible Parchment"
• "Come Into My Parlor"
• "Frogfather"
• "Sin's Doorway"
• "The Undead Soldier"

GRAY VOICES

• "The Pineys"
• "The Kelpie"
• "Changeling"
• "The Devil Is Not Mocked"
• "For Fear of Little Men"
• "'Where Angels Fear...'"
• "The Witch's Cat"
• "School for the Unspeakable"
• "Warrior in Darkness"
• "Dhoh"
• "Larroes Catch Meddlers"

THE NIGHT SIDE OF HISTORY

• "Voice in a Veteran's Ear"
• "These Doth the Lord Hate"
• "The Liers in Wait"
• "Young-Man-With-Skull-At-His-Ear"
• "The Hairy Thunderer"
• "The Song of the Slaves"
• "When It Was Moonlight"
• "His Name on a Bullet"
• "The Valley Was Still"

LONGER IN THE TELLING

• "Fearful Rock"
• "Coven"

Bow Down to Nul

When Earthman Gary Towler is off work, he is a pariah. For his task as chief interpreter for the corrupt and tyrannical nuls makes other humans avoid him as a traitor.

Nor is he trusted by the three-armed mammoth rulers themselves, especially when they learned than an envoy was on the way from their distant planetary headquarters to investigate charges of corruption on Earth. For the leaders realized that Gary knew too much.

When the humans leading the underground rebellion demanded Gary's aid or his life, he was caught between two untrustful forces. And his only way out was to make himself into a one-man third force against two worlds' plotters.

The Dark Destroyers

They brought a new ice age.

Curt Newton, Joan Randall and the Futuremen cruise into a strange world peopled with weird, pallid inhabitants, on the quest of a lost satellite which was mysteriously plucked from the sky!...

This novel first appeared in the Fall, 1946 Issue of Startling Stories magazine.

While vacationing in Italy, 19-year-old Leo Thrasher rashly experiments with a radical new science. The result: he "reflects" himself 500 years back in time and must deal with life in the middle ages as he strives to return to the present. And in the 20th century, the memoirs of Leonardo da Vinci are unearthed.

Description Conceived by Manly Wade Wellaman and Weird Tales editor Dorothy McIlwraith in 1943, John Thunstone is a scholar and playboy who investigates mysterious supernatural events. Large and strong, intelligent, handsome, and wealthy, he has the typical attributes of a heroic character. He is also well-read in occult matters and has access to weapons (such as a sword-cane forged by a saint) that are especially potent against vampires, werewolves, and other supernatural creatures. In addition to the ghosts and other traditional supernatural beings, several of Thunstone's enemies are Wellman's unique creations. Particularly compelling are the the enigmatic shonokins, a race of human-like creatures who claim to have ruled North America before the coming of humans. Thunstone's most persistent foe is the diabolical sorcerer Rowley Thorne, a character loosely based on the real occultist Aleister Crowley.

Table of Contents:

• Manly Remembered - (2001) - essay by Ramsey Campbell
• The Third Cry to Legba - (1943)
• The Golden Goblins - (1944)
• Hoofs - (1944)
• The Letters of Cold Fire - (1944)
• John Thunstone's Inheritance - (1944)
• Sorcery from Thule - (1944)
• The Dead Man's Hand - (1944)
• Thorne on the Threshold - (1945)
• The Shonokins - (1945)
• Blood from a Stone - (1945)
• The Dai Sword - (1945)
• Twice Cursed - (1946)
• Shonokin Town - (1946)
• The Leonardo Rondache - (1948)
• The Last Grave of Lill Warren - (1951)
• Rouse Him Not - (1982)
• What Dreams May Come - (1983)
• The School of Darkness - (1985)

Thunstone arrives in the village of Clines to witness the local ritual of overtuning the Dreamer Rock, as is the "pagan" custom every July 4th. This July 4th will be different than usual.

Thunstone runs across his arch-enemy Rowley Thorne at a symposium on American folklore. On Thorne's side is a coven of witches, on Thunstone's are his comrades Judge Persuivant, Ruben Manco and more.

Table of Contents:

• Foreword: Manly in the Mountains - (1988) - essay by David Drake
• Introduction: Just Call Me John - (1988) - essay by Karl Edward Wagner
• O Ugly Bird! - (1951) - short story
• The Desrick on Yandro - (1952) - short story
• Vandy, Vandy - (1953) - short story
• One Other - (1953) - short story
• Call Me from the Valley - (1954) - short story
• The Little Black Train - (1954) - short story
• Shiver in the Pines - (1955) - short story
• Walk Like a Mountain - (1955) - short story
• On the Hills and Everywhere - (1956) - short story
• Old Devlins Was A-Waiting - (1956) - short story
• Nine Yards of Other Cloth - (1958) - short story
• Then I Wasn't Alone - (1962) - short fiction
• You Know the Tale of Hoph - (1962) - short fiction
• Blue Monkey - (1962) - short fiction
• Find the Place Yourself - (1962) - short fiction
• The Stars Down There - (1962) - short fiction
• I Can't Claim That - (1962) - short fiction
• Who Else Could I Count On - (1962) - short fiction
• John's My Name - (1963) - short fiction
• Why They're Named That - (1963) - short fiction
• None Wiser for the Trip - (1963) - short fiction
• Nary Spell - (1963) - short fiction
• Trill Coster's Burden - (1979) - short story
• The Spring - (1979) - short story
• Owls Hoot in the Daytime - (1980) - short story
• Can These Bones Live? - (1987) - short story
• Nobody Ever Goes There - (1981) - short story
• Where Did She Wander? - (1987) - short story

Hugo Award nominated short story. It originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, November 1958. The story can also be found in the anthology A Treasury of Modern Fantasy (1981) edited by Martin H. Greenberg and Terry Carr. The story is included in the collection Who Fears the Devil? (1963) and Owls Hoot in the Daytime and Other Omens (2003).

There's a traveling man the Carolina mountain folk call Silver John for the silver strings strung on his guitar. In his wanderings, John encounters a parade of benighted forest creatures, mountain spirits, and shapeless horrors from the void of history with only his enduring spirit, playful wit, and the magic of his guitar to preserve him. Manly Wade Wellman's Silver John is one of the most beloved figures in fantasy, a true American folk hero of the literary age. For the first time the "Planet Stories" edition of "Who Fears the Devil?" collects all of John's adventures published throughout Wellman's life, including two stories about John before he got his silver-stringed guitar that have never previously appeared in a Silver John collection. Lost, out of print, or buried in expensive hardcover editions, the seminal, unforgettable tales of "Who Fears the Devil?" stand ready for a new generation ready to continue the folk tradition of Silver John!

Table of Contents:

• John's My Name - (1963)
• O Ugly Bird! - (1951)
• Why They're Named That - (1963)
• One Other - (1953)
• Then I Wasn't Alone - (1962)
• Shiver in the Pines - (1955)
• You Know the Tale of Hoph - (1962)
• Old Devlins Was A-Waiting - (1956)
• Find the Place Yourself - (1962)
• The Desrick on Yandro - (1952)
• The Stars Down There - (1962)
• Vandy, Vandy - (1953)
• Blue Monkey - (1962)
• Dumb Supper - (1954)
• I Can't Claim That - (1962)
• The Little Black Train - (1954)
• Who Else Could I Count On - (1962)
• Walk Like a Mountain - (1955)
• None Wiser for the Trip - (1963)
• On the Hills and Everywhere - (1956)
• Nary Spell - (1963)
• Nine Yards of Other Cloth - (1958)

The first Silver John novel.

In the wilds of Southern Appalachia lies Wolter Mountain - a sacred place for the Indians and their predecessors. But the land atop the mountain, taken over by two Englishmen, Brummitt and Hooper Voth, is undergoing frightening changes.

Strange evil things are terrorizing Luke and Creed Forshay who live at the foot of Wolter Mountain in the southern Appalachians, a sacred place for Indians and their predecessors. Two old-world Druids, disguised as Englishmen, are attempting to awaken pre-Indian spirits of the ancient mountain. Silver John and an Indian medicine man must collaborate to prevent certain death at the hands of blood-sacrificing priests.

"Many eons ago a humanoid race with supernatural powers roamed the North American Continent. But when vast hordes of Indians migrated across the Bering Strait land bridge the Shonokins soon became a defeated people. The few remaining Shonokins were able to survive and evolve into an all male race with man-like features except for cat-like eyes and an elongated third finger.

In a small Southern mountain town, the Shonokins have resurfaced and are led by Brooke Altic, a recognized leading citizen. Altic is interested in recruiting Silver John, a young mountain man whom he meets at a local music festival....

Guitar-picking wanderer Silver John goes to a remote community to investigate rumors of their terrifying practices of devil worship and evil Satanic rites.

Millionaire industrialist Noel Kottler had no respect for mountain lore. He wanted to build a duplicate of Stonehenge high on top of Teatray Mountain, turn it into an amusement park, and hire Silver John to entertain the tourists. ~ But the sharptoothed wolf demons who dwelt in the back-country were angered by the invasion of their sacred ground. And Silver John had no use for money-mongers and citified mystics. When his beloved Evadare was kidnapped and unholy darkness was unleashed upon the land, only the pure-hearted power of Silver John could restore the sunshine and subdue the savage spirits.

There's a lonely and haunting sound that comes from Cry Mountain, and as John tries to find out the source of the sound, he encounters many mythical creatures of folk legend as well as the sorcerer who controls them.

WFA nominated short story. It originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, March 1975. The story can also be found in the anthologies The Best from Fantasy and Science Fiction: 22nd Series (1977), edited by Edward L. Ferman, and The World Fantasy Awards, Volume Two (1980), edited by Stuart David Schiff amd Fritz Leiber. It is included in the collections The Valley So Low (1987) and The Devil is Not Mocked and Other Warnings (2001).

Volumne 1 (Third Cry to Legba and Other Invocations) collects Wellman's John Thunstone and Lee Cobbet stories. These stories (written between 1943 and 1979) combine the mystical and horrific with traditional southern folk tales and legends. At the same time, these stories reveal a post World War 2 modernism that make them much more then pulp romanticism. The paranoia and cynicism of modern weird icons such as the X-files may well have had their genesis in the pulp musings of Manly Wade Wellman. Indeed the intensely driven, idealistic occult investigator John Thunstone could be a pulp/noir stand in for Fox Mulder.

Contents:

• A Giant Up in the Mountains (essay) by John Pelan
• The Third Cry to Legba
• The Golden Goblins
• Hoofs
• The Letters of Cold Fire
• John Thunstone's Inheritance
• Sorcery from Thule
• The Dead Man's Hand
• Thorne on the Threshold
• The Shonokins
• Blood from a Stone
• The Dai Sword
• Twice Cursed
• Shonokin Town
• The Leonardo Rondache
• The Last Grave of Lill Warren
• Rouse Him Not
• The Dakwa
• The Beasts That Perish
• Willow He Walk
• A Witch for All Seasons
• Chastel

Wellman's work will be remembered, and should be preserved because it combines the dark gothic tradition of the American pulps with a detailed snapshot of regional history and culture. This mixture is shown through the lens of the American modernist tradition, revealing something that is larger than the sum of its parts.

Contents:

• Manly Remembered (essay) by Ramsey Campbell
• The Devil Is Not Mocked
• The Pineys
• Hundred Years Gone
• Where the Woodbine Twineth
• Keep Me Away
• Come Into My Parlor
• Yare
• Chorazin
• The Petey Car
• Along About Sundown
• What of the Night
• Rock, Rock
• Lamia
• Caretaker
• The Ghastly Priest Doth Reign
• Goodman's Place
• Frogfather
• Dhoh
• Warrior in Darkness
• Young-Man-With-Skull-at-His-Ear
• Vigil
• The Kelpie
• Parthenope
• The Theater Upstairs
• Ever the Faith Endures
• Dead Dog
• The Cavern
• At the Bend of the Trail

Fearful Rock and Other Precarious Locales is the 3rd volume of Night Shade Books' five volume "Selected Stories of Manly Wade Wellman." This volume is made up of eight novella length stories. It reprints Wellman's "Judge Pursivant" and "Sergeant Jaeger" stories, as well as a lost classic that has not been reprinted since its original publication in Strange Stories, in 1939. In addition, it features an introduction by Wellman's long time friend, Stephen Jones, who provides a heartwarming bit of historical perspective on Wellman, and the influential shadow that his work as cast over the genre.

Contents:

• Introduction by Stephen Jones
• Fearful Rock
• Coven
• Toad's Foot
• For the Love of a Witch
• The Hairy Ones Shall Dance
• The Black Drama
• The Dreadful Rabbits
• The Half-Haunted
• Some Notes on the Texts by John Pelan

Sin's Doorway and Other Ominous Entrances is the 4th volume of Night Shade Books' five volume "Selected Stories of Manly Wade Wellman."

Contents:

• Introduction by David Drake
• The Undead Soldier
• Larroes Catch Meddlers
• Up Under the Roof
• Among Those Present
• The Terrible Parchment
• Sin's Doorway
• The Golgotha Dancers
• Changeling
• For Fear of Little Men
• Where Angels Fear
• The Witch's Cat
• School for the Unspeakable
• Voice in a Veteran's Ear
• These Doth the Lord Hate
• The Liers in Wait
• The Hairy Thunderer
• The Song of the Slaves
• It All Came True in the Woods
• When it Was Moonlight
• His Name on a Bullet
• The Valley Was Still
• Back to the Beast
• Finger of Halugra
• Arimetta
• Half Bull

Owls Hoot in the Daytime & Other Omens is the 5th and final volume of Night Shade Books' five volume "Selected Stories of Manly Wade Wellman." This volume contains all of the John the Balladeer stories (sometimes better known as Silver John), Manly's most famous character.

Contents:

• Introduction by Karl Edward Wagner
• O Ugly Bird!
• The Desrick on Yandro
• Vandy, Vandy
• One Other
• Call Me From the Valley
• The Little Black Train
• Shiver in the Pines
• Walk Like A Mountain
• On the Hills and Everywhere
• Old Devlins Was A-Waiting
• Nine Yards of Other Cloth
• Wonder As I Wander
• Farther Down the Trail
• Trill Coster's Burden
• The Spring
• Owls Hoot in the Daytime
• Can These Bones Live?
• Nobody Ever Goes There
• Where Did She Wander?
• Afterword by Gerald W. Page