Space Opera Apotheosis!

“Edmond Hamilton’s 'The Man Who Evolved' was the first science fiction short story to permanently impress me,� Isaac Asimov famously remarked.

And it wasn’t just Asimov. Hamilton literally created space opera—and the flat-out weird, high-baroque far future that defines the genre. (Okay, to be truthful, we’d say he created it together with E.E. “Doc� Smith.) Hamilton’s “Starwolves� and “Interstellar Patrol� universes positively crackle with parsec-a-minute, headlong action.

And the ideas!

Anti-gravity disks, control helmets, force field projectors, planetary rocket motors! Hamilton wasn’t borrowing this stuff—he came up with it! And the characters: Hamilton’s “Interstellar Patrol� stories forged the baseline assumptions of space adventure as a genre. The routine galactic patrol. The starship captain as independent, rogue hero who can subvert a baroque alien empire in the morning and bed its beloved princess at night—all while serving as the spearhead for civilization and decency in the chaos out there among the stars!

And when the 1960s dawned and Hamilton figured it was time for space opera to get another shot in the arm, he gave us the darker and more complex, but just as wonder-inducing “Starwolves� tales.

It’s all here!

"Epic . . . lyrical . . . conceived on the grand scale," says the New York Herald Tribune. “Star-spinning allure,� says The Washington Post. To which we add: “As wonder-inducing today as ever before.�

Featuring an introduction by Frederick Pohl and art by Doug Chaffee, the entire saga will be released August 1, 2008. It will be available in the reader-friendly, unencrypted formats Webscriptions is known for. For the next 3 months, the “Starwolves and  the Interstellar Patrol� compilation will go for $20. Then the e-volume dissolves and individual ebook titles go for $4 each.

No shipping fees. No dead tree crumble. Welcome to the near-unimaginable future!