SEVENTY-FIVE; THE DIAMOND ANNIVERSARY OF A SCIENCE FICTION PIONEER, JACK WILLIAMSON

A literary and visual feast, this 8.5" x 11" 603 page hardcover celebrates the first seventy-five years of Jack Williamson’s career in Science Fiction. From "The Metal Man" in 1928 to his recent Hugo and Nebula Award-winning novella "The Ultimate Earth," inside are some of the best of Williamson’s stories, including excerpts of such classic novels as The Legion of Space, Golden Blood and The Legion of Time.

Also included are several never-before-published gems such as a vintage 1930s tale "The Crystal Castle," a collaboration with long-time friend Edmond Hamilton, and a story originally commissioned for Last Dangerous Visions, "Previews of Hell."

Sidebars with essays, correspondence, and articles are decorated with over 300 book and magazine covers and interior illustrations. A full-color 32-page section features an illustrated timeline of the author’s career, and reprints a complete story arc from Jack Williamson and Lee Elias’ 1950s Sunday comic strip, Beyond Mars. Seventy-Five: The Diamond Anniversary of a Science Fiction Pioneer also features a foreword by award-winning author Connie Willis and an introduction by a fellow pioneer, Sir Arthur C. Clarke.

Born in 1908 on a hard-scrabble dirt ranch, Jack Williamson is one of the true pioneers of science fiction. Since his first publication in Amazing Stories in 1928 he has written some of science fiction’s acknowledged classics including The Humanoids, The Legion of Space, and Darker Than You Think. He has been credited with developing modern concepts of artificial intelligence, anti-matter, and genetic engineering.

With time away from writing as an Army weather forecaster in World War II, and earning a Ph.D. in English literature at the age of fifty, he taught one of the first SF courses in a university curriculum. In 1976 he was named a Grandmaster by the Science Fiction Writers of America. His fifty-fourth novel, The Stonehenge Gate, is forthcoming in 2005. He lives and works in Portales, New Mexico.

Stephen Haffner is an avid book collector who founded Haffner Press in 1997, and has been dedicated to publishing books by authors such as Leigh Brackett, Edmond Hamilton, Henry Kuttner, C.L. Moore, and Jack Williamson. He lives in Royal Oak, Michigan.

Richard A. Hauptmann is Jack Williamson’s bibliographer, and his book, The Work of Jack Williamson: An Annotated Bibliography and Guide, was nominated for the Hugo Award. He is also a committee member of the annual Williamson Lectureship series at Eastern New Mexico University. He lives in Portales, New Mexico.