More Stories from The Twilight Zone

Fans of Rod Serling's 1959-1964 classic, The Twilight Zone, may want to take a moment to seek out a number of these paperbacks. Some of the gifted writers who contributed to the television series, Richard Matheson and Charles Beaumont, among others, wrote numerous short stories throughout the 1950s and 1960s, many of which would have made superb episodes of the television series.

The question that often comes up is where can fans of the television series find more stories just like those. The answer is to seek out the short story collections of Matheson, Beaumont, William F. Nolan, George Clayton Johnson, and others. The magazine Gamma, was short-lived and lasted a mere five issues from 1963 to 1965. Though not difficult to find, this magazine was launched and produced by the same writers of The Twilight Zone. Even Rod Serling contributed a story for one of the issues.  

In 1988, Roger Anker edited a superb collection of short stories by Charles Beaumont, with three of his stories that were adapted for The Twilight Zone, and plenty of stories that never had the chance to be adapted. A list of stories from that book is enclosed below as an example.

Contents:
The Vanishing American (1955)
Mourning Song (1963)
Gentlemen, Be Seated (1960)
Last Rites (1955)
Miss Gentilbelle (1957)
Place of Meeting (1953)
The Devil, You Say? (1951)
Free Dirt (1955)
Song for a Lady (1960)
The Howling Man (1959)
The Dark Music (1956)
The Magic Man (1960)
Fair Lady (1957)
A Point of Honor (1955)
The Hunger (1955)
Black Country (1954)
The Jungle (1954)
The New People (1958)
Perchance to Dream (1958)
The Crooked Man (1955)
Blood Brother (1961)
A Death in the Country (1957)
The Music of the Yellow Brass (1959)
Night Ride (1957)

 

So if you are a fan of The Twilight Zone and seeking more stories of that same nature, I recommend you seek out those paperbacks and hardcovers. And enjoy a cool story of science-fiction or fantasy.

The Lone Ranger and the Outlaws of Wild Horse Valley (1940)

For collectors of children's books featuring The Lone Ranger, one of the rare titles is The Lone Ranger and the Outlaws of Wild Horse Valley, published by Whitman in 1940. The publishing company recycled one of the prior pulp stories, so there is nothing in this that you cannot find elsewhere. But this book is so rare that most collector catalogs, price guides and reference guides do not include it. This PDF is being provided for a few weeks so be sure to download and enjoy asap.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/v5ci5np3oylpl20/The%20Lone%20Ranger%2C%20Outlaws%20of%20Wild%20Horse%20Valley%20%281940%29.pdf?dl=0

THE ADVENTURES OF THE SPACE EAGLE

In 1967, Whitman published the first of two books dramatizing the futuristic adventures of The Space Eagle, who was in reality Paul Girard, a millionaire whiz-kid playboy and heir to the world's biggest cosmetic empire, the House of Girard, who by night fought International crime at the request of the President of the United States. Many who used to work for George W. Trendle in Detroit, no doubt influenced by The Lone Ranger and The Green Hornet, ultimately created their own legendary heroes of fictional lore. James Jewell created The Black Ace, The Silver Eagle and provided assistance with a successful franchise known as Jack Armstrong, the All-American Boy. Raymond J. Meurer, attorney for George W. Trendle, created both the characters and the setting for what would become The Space Eagle (with assistance of Jack Pearl) who wrote the text for two Whitman hardcover books.

In the first book, Operation Doomsday, set in the near future after space travel was accomplished and norm, a Chinese Communist during the height of the Cold War named Dr. Lachesis Muta devised a diabolical scheme to start a nuclear war between Russia and the United States so that he could seize control of whatever was left of the earth. Mad scientist though he was, the plot had come fearfully close to succeeding. With bootlegged I.C.B.M.'s, launched from Muta's secret underground base in the mountains of Tibet, winging through space toward targets in the U.S.S.R. and the United States, only the Space Eagle and the untested S.W.I.F.T. had stood between the deadly nuclear warheads and total world destruction. 

Armed with a number of gadgets and weapons, including tranquilizer darts shaped like eagle talons (ala Green Hornet gas gun), and his vessel, S.W.I.F.T. (Space Warp Infinity Finity Transport) which traveled through outer space and defies the laws of physics and time as according to Einstein. (Additional influences from The Lone Ranger saga was the President's two reference to Paul's great-great-grandfather was a U.S. Marshal in the Oklahoma territory during the wild west days.)

By special order of the President of the United States, a new department of the U.S. Government, known as he Spacial Intelligence Agency of the U.S.A. was formed. Paul Girard was the only member of the organization, taking directives from the President. Paul's secret base was set in the middle of the hundred-acre tract of heavily wooded land in West Virginia. His sister, Julie Girard, was the gadget genius. 

In the second book, published in 1970, Operation Star Voyage, the Russians have managed to duplicate their own S.W.I.F.T., a ship capable of traveling past the speed of light. With assistance from Sam Aarons, a boyhood friend and friend of the family, Paul and Sam travel to an unexplored region of the galaxy to meet a race of space aliens that looked remarkably like Earthmen, except that they were pygmy-sized and were entirely hairless. Their skin was albino white, almost as transparent as glass. Paul explains to the aliens of the perilous arms race between the Free World and the Iron Curtain countries, how spartanism was discovered and how it led to the building of the S.W.I.F.T., and the crisis that existed on Earth because the Russians were developing their own matter-anti-matter engine -- and because they only source of spartanism was in their territory. Should the Russians get their hands on the spartanism, the safety of the entire galaxy was threatened.

Dr. Lachesis Muta, as it turns out, is alive and well and leading a band of renegade pirates. Laser rifles, space ships, space aliens, and an arch nemesis were bound to show up in additional volumes had a third and fourth book been published. Alas, the series ran only two novels. They are both enjoyable reads and easily affordable in the collector market.