Plot summary
Hibbert, an imprisoned innocent, is caught up in the jailbreak of his cellmate Scarlatti, engineered with the assistance of another man, Burks. Forcing Hibbert to accompany them, Scarlatti and Burks make for the Florida Everglades, picking up Scarlatti's girlfriend Carlotta on the way.
In the Everglades the four encounter a miraculous golden stairway extending into the sky. Ascending, they find a pool defended by a blue flamingo, which is killed by Burks. Another stairway leads them to the land of Khoire, a strange and mysterious paradise. There a man named Patur exposes the true nature of each by means of a crystal mask. He warns them that they will be transformed in accordance with those natures within a day, and must leave Khoire.
Scarlatti and Carlotta's alteration is horrible, and they are consumed by a huge beast; Burks agrees to become a blue flamingo, taking the place of the guardian of the pool, in the hope of some day being readmitted to Khoire. Hibbert is little changed. Returning to the mundane world, he undertakes to find certain persons who can help him gain his own readmittance to Khoire, having fallen in love with one of its denizens, Mareth of the Watchers.
Donald Allen Wollheim was an American science fiction editor, publisher, writer, and fan. As an author, he published under his own name as well as under pseudonyms, including David Grinnell, Martin Pearson, and Darrell G. Raynor. A founding member of the Futurians, he was a leading influence on science fiction development and fandom in the 20th-century United States. Ursula K. Le Guin called Wollheim "the tough, reliable editor of Ace Books, in the Late Pulpalignean Era, 1966 and '67", which is when he published her first two novels in Ace Double editions.
Hannes Bok, pseudonym for Wayne Francis Woodard, was an American artist and illustrator, as well as an amateur astrologer and writer of fantasy fiction and poetry. He painted nearly 150 covers for various science fiction, fantasy, and detective fiction magazines, as well as contributing hundreds of black and white interior illustrations. Bok's work graced the pages of calendars and early fanzines, as well as dust jackets from specialty book publishers like Arkham House, Llewellyn, Shasta Publishers, and Fantasy Press. His paintings achieved a luminous quality through the use of an arduous glazing process, which was learned from his mentor, Maxfield Parrish. Bok shared one of the inaugural 1953 Hugo Awards for science fiction achievement.
James Benjamin Blish was an American science fiction and fantasy writer. He is best known for his Cities in Flight novels and his series of Star Trek novelizations written with his wife, J. A. Lawrence. His novel A Case of Conscience won the Hugo Award. He is credited with creating the term "gas giant" to refer to large planetary bodies.
Eleanor Alice Hibbert was an English writer of historical romances. She was a prolific writer who published several books a year in different literary genres, each genre under a different pen name: Jean Plaidy for fictionalized history of European royalty and the three volumes of her history of the Spanish Inquisition, Victoria Holt for gothic romances, and Philippa Carr for a multi-generational family saga. She also wrote light romances, crime novels, murder mysteries and thrillers under pseudonyms Eleanor Burford, Elbur Ford, Kathleen Kellow, Anna Percival, and Ellalice Tate.
Lester del Rey was an American science fiction author and editor. He was the author of many books in the juvenile Winston Science Fiction series, and the editor at Del Rey Books, the fantasy and science fiction imprint of Ballantine Books, along with his fourth wife Judy-Lynn del Rey.
Abraham Grace Merritt – known by his byline, A. Merritt – was an American Sunday magazine editor and a writer of fantastic fiction.
Stanley Grauman Weinbaum was an American science fiction writer. His first story, "A Martian Odyssey", was published to great acclaim in July 1934; the alien Tweel was arguably the first character to satisfy John W. Campbell's challenge: "Write me a creature who thinks as well as a man, or better than a man, but not like a man." Weinbaum wrote more short stories and a few novels, but died from lung cancer less than a year and a half later.
Linwood Vrooman Carter was an American author of science fiction and fantasy, as well as an editor, poet and critic. He usually wrote as Lin Carter; known pseudonyms include H. P. Lowcraft and Grail Undwin. He is best known for his work in the 1970s as editor of the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series, which introduced readers to many overlooked classics of the fantasy genre.
Michael Lawson Bishop was an American author. Over five decades and in more than thirty books, he created what has been called a "body of work that stands among the most admired and influential in modern science fiction and fantasy literature."
Phantastes: A Faerie Romance for Men and Women is a fantasy novel by Scottish writer George MacDonald published in London in 1858.
Henry de Vere Stacpoole was an Irish author. His 1908 romance novel The Blue Lagoon has been adapted into multiple films. He published using his own name and sometimes the pseudonym Tyler de Saix.
The Ballantine Adult Fantasy series was an imprint of American publisher Ballantine Books. Launched in 1969, the series reissued a number of works of fantasy literature which were out of print or dispersed in back issues of pulp magazines, in cheap paperback form—including works by authors such as James Branch Cabell, Lord Dunsany, Ernest Bramah, Hope Mirrlees, and William Morris. The series lasted until 1974.
Harold Warner Munn was an American writer of fantasy, horror and poetry, best remembered for his early stories in Weird Tales. He was an early friend and associate of authors H. P. Lovecraft and Seabury Quinn. He has been described by fellow author Jessica Amanda Salmonson, who interviewed him during 1978, as "the ultimate gentleman" and "a gentle, calm, warm, and good friend." He was known for his intricate plotting and the careful research that he did for his stories, a habit he traced back to two mistakes made when he wrote his early story "The City of Spiders".
David Clement-Davies is a British author and sculptor. He is known for animal fantasy fiction The Sight, Fire Bringer and Fell.
The Face in the Frost is a short fantasy novel by American author John Bellairs published in 1969. Unlike most of his later works, this book is meant for adult readers. It centers on two accomplished wizards, Prospero and Roger Bacon, tracking down the source of a great magical evil. The subject matter prompted Ursula K. Le Guin to say of the novel, "The Face in the Frost takes us into pure nightmare before we know it—and out the other side."
The Charwoman's Shadow is a 1926 fantasy novel by Anglo-Irish writer Lord Dunsany. It is among the pioneering works in the field, published before the genre was named "fantasy".
The Sorcerer's Ship is a fantasy novel by Hannes Bok. It was first published in the December 1942 issue of the magazine Unknown, and was first published in book form in paperback by Ballantine Books as the ninth volume of the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series in December 1969. The Ballantine edition includes an introduction by Lin Carter. The novel has also been published in translation in Polish and Russian. Like much of Bok's fiction, it is the story of a traveler "from our world who found [himself] in colourful, magic lands that are far more attractive than our own".
The Wood Beyond the World is a fantasy novel by William Morris, perhaps the first modern fantasy writer to unite an imaginary world with the element of the supernatural, and thus the precursor of much of present-day fantasy literature. It was first published in hardcover by Morris's Kelmscott Press, in 1894. The book's importance in the history of fantasy literature was recognized by its republication by Ballantine Books as the third volume of the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series in July, 1969. The Ballantine edition includes an introduction by Lin Carter.
The Blue Star is a fantasy novel by the American writer Fletcher Pratt, the second of his two major fantasies. It was first published by Twayne Publishers in 1952 in the fantasy anthology Witches Three, a volume that also included Fritz Leiber's Conjure Wife and James Blish's "There Shall Be No Darkness". Its first publication as a stand-alone novel was in paperback by Ballantine Books in May 1969, as the inaugural volume of the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series. The Ballantine edition included an introduction by Lin Carter; it was reprinted twice, in 1975 and 1981. It has also been translated into French, German, Italian and Spanish.
This is an incomplete list of works by American space opera and science fiction author Frederik Pohl, including co-authored works.
