Maurice Renard The Scientific Marvel Fiction of the French H.-G. Wells Doctor Lerne - A Man Among the Microbes - The Blue Peril - The Doctored Man - The Master of Light adapted by Brian Stableford Often hailed as the best French science fiction writer of the early 20th century, Maurice Renard coined the term "Scientific Marvel Fiction" to pen a series of gripping, ground-breaking stories that owe as much to Edgar Allan Poe as they do to H.-G. Wells. Until now, Renard was best known to the English-speaking public for his thrice-filmed thriller, The Hands of Orlac. This is a series of five volumes, translated and annotated by Brian Stableford, devoted to presenting the classic works of this pioneering giant of French science fiction. cover by Gilles Francescano READ AN EXCERPT DOCTOR LERNE by Maurice Renard adapted by Brian Stableford Dr. Lerne had no right! It was as infamous as murder! The odious operations he performed on virginal Nature combined the horror of murder with the ignominy of rape! Contents: - M. Dupont's Vacations (Les Vacances de M. Dupont, 1905) - Doctor Lerne (Le Docteur Lerne, 1908) - Scientific Marvel Fiction and its Effect on the Consciousness of Progress (Du Roman merveilleux-scientifique et de son action sur l'intelligence du progrès, article, 1909) Introduction and Afterword by Brian Stableford.   US$ 22.95 /GBP 14.99 5x8 tpb, 328 pages ISBN-13: 978-1-935558-15-6 Dedicated to H.-G. Wells, Maurice Renard's Doctor Lerne (1908) features a mad scientist who performs organ transplants not only between men and animals, but also with plants, and even machines. This volume also includes "Mr Dupont's Vacation" (1905), a story about dinosaurs returning to life, and Renard's 1909 revolutionary manifesto on "Scientific Marvel Fiction." READ THE REVIEW! cover by Gilles Francescano READ AN EXCERPT A MAN AMONG THE MICROBES by Maurice Renard adapted by Brian Stableford "I can't keep shrinking indefinitely!" "Why not?" said Pons, who hesitated to pronounce those terrible words. "Instead of thinking of yourself as shrinking, imagine that you're moving away…" "Going away, then," Fléchambeau traced. "Yes, going away without moving…" "And without any hope of return!" Contents: - A Man Among the Microbes (Un Hommme chez les microbes, 1908) - The Motionless Voyage (Le Voyage Immobile, 1909) - The Singular Fate of Bouvancourt (La Singulière Destinée de Bouvancourt, 1909) - The Rendezvous (Le Rendez-vous, 1909) - Death and the Seashell (La Mort et le Coquillage, 1909) - Parthenope (Parthenope, ou l'Escale Imprévue, 1909) - The Sunlit Statue (La Statue Ensoleillée, 1909) - A Christian Legend of Akteon (Une Légende Chrétienne d'Akteon, 1909) Introduction and Afterword by Brian Stableford.   US$ 22.95 /GBP 14.99 5x8 tpb, 336 pages ISBN-13: 978-1-935558-16-3 A Man Among the Microbes (1908) features an "incredible shrinking man" who, through miniaturization, reaches an inhabited micro-world where he meets scientifically-advanced aliens. This volume also includes The Motionless Voyage (1909), a story about an experimental anti-gravity flying machine. cover by Gilles Francescano READ AN EXCERPT THE BLUE PERIL by Maurice Renard adapted by Brian Stableford “It can only be a world concentric to the Earth, a kind of spherical continental raft, a thin membrane on the surface of the Air, as the Earth’s crust is only a thin membrane on the surface of the interior fire. It’s a light globe surrounding the planet...” Contents: - The Blue Peril (Le Peril Bleu, 1911) Introduction and Afterword by Brian Stableford.   US$ 24.95 /GBP 16.99 5x8 tpb, 364 pages ISBN-13: 978-1-935558-17-0 The Blue Peril (1911), which many consider to be Renard's masterpiece, features invisible alien creatures which live in high Earth orbit and which, feeling threatened by man's incursion into space, retaliate by fishing for men the way we capture fish, and studying our species. "In spite of the vast progress in the exploration of extraordinary ideas made by 20th century science fiction writers, very few have ventured into territories as exotic as the ones featured herein, and even fewer have done so with the same intellectual boldness and narrative flair." Brian Stableford. cover by Gilles Francescano READ AN EXCERPT THE DOCTORED MAN by Maurice Renard adapted by Brian Stableford "Because," Hopkins cried, triumphantly, "one can't become invisible without becoming blind, and Wells is pulling a fast one when he shows us an invisible man who can see! An invisible eye is inoperative. An invisible man is inevitably a blind man!" Contents: - M. d'Outremort (1913) - The Cantatrice (La Cantatrice, 1913) - The Man with the Rarefied Body (L'Homme au Corps Subtil, 1913) - The Fog of October 26 (Le Brouillard du 26 Octobre, 1913) - The Doctored Man (L' Homme Truqué, 1921) - The Man Who Wanted to be Invisible (L' Homme qui Voulait Etre Invisible, 1923) - Since Sinbad (Depuis Sinbad, article, 1923) - The Frog (La Grenouille, 1926) - Hypothetical Fiction (Le Roman d' hypothèse, article, 1928) - The Discovery (La Découverte, 1929) - The Truth About Faust (La Vérité sur Faust, 1929) - Them (Eux, 1934) - The Shark (Le Requin, 1939) - When Hens Had Teeth (Quand les Poules Avaient des Dents, 1939) - On the Planet Mars (Sur la Planète Mars, 1939) Introduction and Afterword by Brian Stableford.   US$ 22.95 /GBP 14.99 5x8 tpb, 280 pages ISBN-13: 978-1-935558-18-7 The Doctored Man, a collection of 14 stories, features a man blinded during WWI who, through the grafting of "electroscopic" eyes, can see into other dimensions, the classic The Man Who Wanted To Be Invisible in which Renard exposes the scientific fallacy inherent in Wells' famous novel, as well as other ground-breaking tales of time-travel, prehistoric wing-men, intangibility, robotic cars and interplanetary travel! cover by Gilles Francescano READ AN EXCERPT THE MASTER OF LIGHT by Maurice Renard adapted by Brian Stableford "Here are two very singular panes of glass," said Charles, pointing to the left-hand half of the window. When one looks through them from within, one sees the garden as it was before 1860. And when one looks through these windows from outside, one sees the room as it was before 1829, the year when my ancestor César Christiani left Silaz, never to return." Contents: - The Master of Light (Le Maître de la Lumière, 1933) Introduction and Afterword by Brian Stableford.   US$ 22.95 /GBP 14.99 5x8 tpb, 300 pages ISBN-13: 978-1-935558-19-4 The Master of Light (1933), anticipating Bob Shaw's notorious "slow glass" concept, is the tales of a vendetta and a murder mystery solved thanks to luminite, a glass-like substance which slows down light as it passes through, and through which one can actually witness the past. Brian M. Stableford has been a professional writer since 1965. He has published more than 60 science fiction and fantasy novels, as well as several authoritative non-fiction books. He is also translating the works of Paul Féval and other French writers of the fantastique for Black Coat Press which also published his most two recent fantasy novels: The New Faust at the Tragicomique, The Wayward Muse and The Stones of Camelot.