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, 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." 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) (Includes "The Motionless Voyage", "The Singular Fate of Bouvancourt", "The Rendezvous", "Death and the Seashell", "Parthenope", The Sunlit Statue" and "A Christian Legend of Akteon") 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 Contents: - The Doctored Man (L' Homme Truqué, 1921) - M. d'Outremort (1913) The Cantatrice The Man with the Rarefied Body The Fog of October 26 The Man Who Wanted to be Invisible Since Sinbad The Frog Hypothetical Fiction The Discovery The Truth About Faust Them The Shark When Hens Had Teeth On the Planet Mars 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 published between 1913 and 1921, features a man blinded during WWI who, through the grafting of "electroscopic" eyes, can see into other dimensions, and the classic "The Man Who Wanted To Be Invisible" in which Renard exposes the scientific fallacy inherent in Wells' famous novel. cover by Gilles Francescano READ AN EXCERPT THE MASTER OF LIGHT by Maurice Renard adapted by Brian Stableford 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 slow glass, is 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.