Hannes Bok's three solo fantasy novels in a beautiful hardcover omnibus with a never-before-published Bok cover! Two of the novels, THE SORCERER'S SHIP and BEYOND THE GOLDEN STAIR, were previously published as part of Ballantine Books Adult Fantasy paperback line. STARSTONE WORLD, is a much shorter and darker piece: Bok's first published novel it has never been reprinted since it appeared in SCIENCCE FICTION QUARTERLY #7, [Summer of 1942], over 75 years ago. These aren't your conventional fantasies, although all the trappings are there. His novels have a sly humor with plots containing unconventional twists and turns; a strange metaphysical bent; and his artist's talent for glorious description.
Hannes Bok (Wayne Woodard) was one of the 20th Century's greatest fantasy artists, painting 150 magazine covers as well as contributing numerous cool story illustrations to the pulps (WEIRDS TALES, PLANET STORIES, THE MAGAZINE OF FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION, OTHER WORLDS, IMAGINATION, etc.). He carved whimsical wood figures and crafted papier-mâché masks. But his talent and creativity also flowed into poetry and prose as he wrote a number of short stories, poems and novels. A pre-Stonewall gay artist, his fiction would not be recognized as gay literature as written today, as he kept far away from such literature's concerns. He considered his fiction as a way of presenting his highly metaphysical philosophy to the audience of his beloved genre of science fantasy.
When he was young, like many of his generation, he was turned on to the genre by seeing the movie King Kong. (It was a huge hit, look it up.) That trip to the movies was one of his self-described trauma moments (a moment that changes your life forever), and he delved into the fantastic arts with abandon.
When sf/fantasy began to appear in hardcover, he painted spectacular covers for Arkham House (Skull-Face and Others, Hounds of Tindalos, House on the Borderland), Shasta (Slaves of Sleep, Who Goes There?, Kinsman of the Dragon), Gnome Press (The Castle of Iron), Fantasy Press (The Moon is Hell, The Crystal Horde, Alien Minds) and other specialty presses. Notoriously hard to work with, he was a perfectionist, often ignoring art directors and editors.
A great raconteur, a student of astrology, a longtime friend of Ray Bradbury, and a devoted disciple of Maxfield Parrish, he loved the music of Max Steiner, Rimsky-Korsakov, Jean Sibelus and Grieg (Pier-Gynt Suites). His friend Martin Jukovsky described him as: "the unstoppable perpetual motion Bok the Hannes Bok that would always be at work on something: a painting, a mask, a novel, an astrological chart, letters to his crowd of friends and clients. You would watch him in motion, you would then watch him sitting still he would still be in motion!
Bok died in poverty in 1964, never seeing any of his solo novels in hardcover or paperback, [though the books he finished from fragments left behind by Abraham Merritt (THE BLACK WHEEL and THE FOX WOMAN) were published in his lifetime].
