Coming this summer as a special joint venture between Altus Press and Meteor House, with all-new cover art by current Doc Savage Artist Joe DeVito:

Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life

by Philip José Farmer

He is the greatest hero of our time—Doc Savage!

Philip José Farmer, three-time Hugo award winner and Science Fiction Grand Master, has turned his superb research and narrative skills to one of the greatest heroes of our time: Doc Savage, the bronze champion of justice.

Now, at last, the incredible life story of the real man behind the Doc Savage pulp novels, including:

His true name and family background, covering his relationship to Lord Greystoke, Sherlock Holmes, Sam Spade, James Bond, and Fu Manchu.

Detailed information on some of his most devilish opponents—John Sunlight, the Mystic Mullah, and Mr. Wail.

A summation of some of Doc’s most amazing inventions.

Biographies of the Fabulous Five—Monk, Ham, Renny, Long Tom, and Johnny—as well as the group’s Lady Auxiliary and Bronze Knockout, Pat Savage!

Together with other data and brilliant deductions, Philip José Farmer offers an amazing account of this remarkable man’s astonishing career!

Softcover: $24.95 | Deluxe, expanded hardcover: $35.00

The Deluxe, expanded hardcover features over 60 pages of bonus material!

Cover artist Mark Sparacio has posted online his cover art work in progress for The Scarlet Jaguar, and we couldn’t be happier with what we’re seeing!

Now would be a good time to mention that 104 copies of The Scarlet Jaguar have been preordered. And remember that if you are one of the first 100 people to preorder the book, you will get a limited edition (collectible?) laminated bookmark.

However, since several people have ordered 2, 3, and even 4 copies of the book (but they only get one bookmark), we still have several bookmarks left to be claimed by the next people who preorder the book.

BTW: There’s a pretty good chance the image above will be on the bookmark!

Meteor House is proud to announce a new edition
of Philip José Farmer’s landmark biography

Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life

is now available for preorder
and will be available in July 2013!

Cover by Doc Savage cover artist Joe DeVito!

Back in print for the first time in over 30 years, Philip José Farmer’s biography of the bronze crusader who fought almost 200 separate battles against the forces of evil “is ingenious, sardonic, adulatory, outrageous and funny in turn.” (Publisher’s Weekly)

Philip José Farmer, biographer of Lord Greystoke, has turned his superb research and narrative skills to one of the greatest heroes of our time: Doc Savage, the bronze champion of justice. Now, at last, the incredible life story of the real man behind the exploits in the Doc Savage pulp novels can be told, including: his true name (Dr. James Clarke Wildman, Jr.); his family background, covering his relationship to such stalwarts as Lord Greystoke, Sherlock Holmes, Sam Spade, James Bond, and Fu Manchu); detailed information on some of his most devilish opponents—John Sunlight, the Mystic Mullah, and Mr. Wail; a summation of some of Doc’s most amazing inventions; and biographies of the Fabulous Five—Monk, Ham, Renny, Long Tom, and Johnny—as well as the group’s Lady Auxiliary and Bronze Knockout, Doc’s own cousin Pat Savage!

Together with other data and brilliant deductions, Philip José Farmer offers an amazing account of this remarkable man’s astonishing career!

Available now for preorder, the newly revised edition of Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life also features a brand new foreword by Farmer and pulp expert Win Scott Eckert, updates to the “List of Doc Savage Stories” including the latest novels, and rare material culled from Mr. Farmer’s notes.

The deluxe hardcover edition arrives just in time for Doc’s 80th anniversary, and features tributes by other Farmer and Doc experts, including John Allen Small, Keith Howell, Rick Lai, Art Sippo, Christopher Paul Carey, and current Doc Savage writer Will Murray, as well as other bonus materials not seen in prior editions, such as:

• Doc’s Coat of Arms, reconstructed by Win Scott Eckert and illustrated by Keith Howell, from notes by Philip José Farmer
• A List of Doc Savage Comics by Win Scott Eckert and John Allen Small (a rundown of authorized Doc Savage comics which supplements Mr. Farmer’s “List of Doc Savage Stories”)
• Writing Doc’s Biography by Philip José Farmer

“Written with wit and charm, sprinkled with allusions, this is a book to delight both science fiction and mystery fans.” (Library Journal)

If you want a signed copy, be sure to read this:

All copies preordered by June 30th, 2013 will be signed by Win Scott Eckert at FarmerCon VIII / Pulpfest 2013. In addition, Meteor House will try to organize a signing by the bonus material contributors (John Allen Small, Keith Howell, Rick Lai, Art Sippo, Christopher Paul Carey, and Will Murray), who are available at FarmerCon VIII / Pulpfest 2013. (Hint: almost all of them are sure to be there!)

After FarmerCon VIII only unsigned copies of the book will be available to purchase.

Meteor House is proud to announce
a new Patricia Wildman adventure

The Scarlet Jaguar by Win Scott Eckert

Fully authorized by Philip José Farmer’s estate
The Scarlet Jaguar is now available for preorder
and will be available in July 2013!

Featuring Cover Art by Mark Sparacio!

When we last saw Patricia Wildman, daughter of Doc Wildman, the bronze champion of justice, six months had passed since the main events of The Evil in Pemberley House. She and her associate Parker, an ex-Scotland Yard Inspector, had set up Empire State Investigations at her Pemberley House estate—and she just received a mysterious phone call from her supposedly late father. . .

Several months later, Pat receives a visitor, a young girl named Emma Ponsonby, whose father, a British diplomat to a small Central American country, has been kidnapped by the Scarlet Jaguar. Pat, following in her father’s footsteps of righting wrongs and assisting those in need, agrees to help, but before they can set off on their quest the Scarlet Jaguar sends a gruesome warning.

Undeterred, the investigation takes Pat, Parker, and their young charge from Pemberley House in the Derbyshire countryside . . . To New York, where they battle agents of the Scarlet Jaguar and meet Pat’s old friend, the icy, pale-skinned beauty Helen Benson, who agrees to join them on their quest . . . To the small nation of Xibum, where the Scarlet Jaguar’s reign of uncanny assassinations threatens to expand to the rest of Central America—and beyond!

Now, it’s a race against time deep in the wilds of the Central American jungle, as Pat Wildman and her crew search for Emma’s father, and confront the Scarlet Jaguar’s weird power to eliminate his enemies from afar, marked only by a wisp of crimson smoke—smoke resembling nothing so much as the head of a blood-red screaming jaguar. But who—or what—is the Scarlet Jaguar? A power-mad dictator determined to reclaim power? A revolutionary movement bent on taking over the country, and the rest of Central America?

Or a front for something even more sinister . . .?

The Scarlet Jaguar is the second in our series of signed limited edition novellas. Just like (the now sold out) Exiles of Kho, the print run will be determined by the number of copies preordered. Also, if you preorder before June 30th, your name will appear in the book on the acknowledgements page. You know you want to see your name near the top of that list, so don’t delay, preorder your copy today!

One more thing, if you are one of the first 100 customers to preorder the book, you will receive a special laminated commemorative bookmark!

Last Chance for You to be a Spectator in this Novel!

That’s right, you can be in this book:

The world has never seen an aviator quite like Stringent Strange. Half man, half ape, half badly added fraction, he can fly anything with wings and many things without. Under the mentorship of the unorthodox genius Professor Tobias Crinkle, our hairy hero soon gets much more than he bargains for when he finds himself up against a fiendish Nazi plot to invade and conquer America before the war has even begun!

Fortunately there exists an invention that can help him fight back against the warlike scoundrels, but the consequences of using it will propel him into even greater peril, into an alternative future where the themes and tropes of early magazine science fiction are menacingly real and coexist in perfect disharmony! Into a bracing reality where the only weapons he can rely on are the three special abnormalities he was born with…

Not only is The Abnormalities of Stringent Strange Rhys Hughes best novel (so he says anyway), but this Signed Limited Edition may also be his rarest book! As of today, pending future preorders, this book collector’s dream (or nightmare if you don’t order now), will be a limited edition of less than 100 copies!

The deadline to preorder your copy of this pulp / science fiction / surrealist / metafictional / comedic romp, and all the goodies that come with it,* is April 30th. On May 1st you will no longer be able to preorder a copy of the novel and the final number of copies will be announced.

So this is it, time is running out for you to get in on, and into, one of the most unusual books in the history of small press publishing.

*Goodies: Your name is printed in the book as a spectator along with all the other preorderers, and you get a free ebook of The Further Fangs of Suet Pudding, and if you want you can even purchase a “deleted scene” featuring yourself interacting with a famous author (and by “interacting” we mean you fight them in the gladiatorial arena…and you die).

The Further Fangs of Suet Pudding

What happens when apeman good meets marshmallow evil? That’s the alarming question posed by this novella, which is a double sequel to two obscure and unlikely books, namely The Abnormalities of Stringent Strange by Rhys Hughes and The Fangs of Suet Pudding by Adams Farr…

In a forgotten corner of Africa, an eccentric club of veteran flyers must confront the unexpected arrival of a violet-scented jelloid Nazi with all the evil powers of a psychic pudding at his disposal! Only Stringent Strange, the apeman test pilot (plus his chums and a few readers) has a chance to prevent the repulsive invader from achieving total world domination!!

If you preorder the signed limited edition novel, The Abnormalities of Stringent Strange not only will your name appear in the book, but you will also receive, absolutely free, the novella-length ebook sequel, The Further Fangs of Suet Pudding, which you can read first, while you know, you wait for the novel to be published. Look its ok, Rhys Hughes writes such absurd, silly, mind-bending stories that doing something like reading a sequel first, makes perfect sense!

The Abnormalities of Stringent Strange by Rhys Hughes may turn out to be the most inclusive, and fun for the reader, project in the history of small press publishing. To begin with the novel is a pulpish comedy science fiction/surrealist metafictional romp that is, for some reason, rather hard to describe other than to say it is unlike any book you have ever read. That is a promise.

So, first we held a charity auction where readers could bid to be a character in the novel. Part of the proceeds from this auction went to charity.

Next we allowed readers to purchase a unique ”deleted scene,” which depicts themselves as a character in the story but will not appear in the printed novel. Part of the proceeds from this go to charity as well.

Then yesterday Rhys Hughes announced he is writing a brand new novelette featuring Stringent Strange, “The Further Fangs of Suet Pudding,” and that an ebook of this story will be sent for FREE to everyone who pre-orders a copy of The Abnormalities of Stringent Strange.

Now here is the next step in the evolution of this metafictional event. If you preorder a copy of The Abnormalities of Stringent Strange with a deleted scene no later than November 30th, 2012, you will appear in “The Further Fangs of Suet Pudding” as a character!

Confused? It’s ok, we understand, it’s a lot to take in. Read the above again and if you still have any questions hit the contact link above and we can chat about it. Here are the important things you need to know now:

1. Preorder a copy of The Abnormalities of Stringent Strange and you will automatically be sent a free ebook copy of “The Further Fangs of Suet Pudding” as soon as it is finished (most likely early December).

2. If you also purchase a deleted scene from the novel by November 30th, you will appear in the novelette as a character!

3. If you already preordered the novel, but not a deleted scene, you can still order one and get in the novelette.

Don’t miss out on a unique event in publishing and an absolutely terrific novel to boot. Keep watching this website for further news and excerpts from the novel which will be posted online.

At long last we bring you the seemingly normal cover for one of the strangest books you may ever read, The Abnormalities of Stringent Strange by Rhys Hughes!

We say seemingly normal because this is really a bit of a tease since you can only see the front cover. It’s when you flip the book over that you’ll be taken aback as your brain tries to process what it’s seeing.

This cover, by the wonderfully talented Keith Howell, is a perfect parallel of the book itself. The Abnormalities of Stringent Strange begins like a slightly-off aviation pulp of the 1930s, then turns into a science fiction novel, then turns humorously surrealistic, and then, really and then, it just gets plain weird.

Oh, you say you want to see the back cover? Sorry, we’re saving that for later. In fact, we may only show the back cover to those fearless readers who have preordered the book! We’ll have to wait and see…

Speaking of fearless readers, don’t forget that in addition to buying this wonderfully humorous surrealistic adventure, you can also purchase a deleted scene from the book that will be written just for you! This scene will show you fighting to the death in the gladiatorial arena against the author of your choice. Hmmm, that last sentence might be a little misleading, let’s try again. This scene will show you being killed in the gladiatorial arena by the author of your choice. (The part about you being killed is a small detail, but should probably be mentioned.) Here is a sample of the carnage that awaits.

But know that your death will not be in vain, it will actually do some good. For every deleted scene Rhys Hughes writes, $4 will be donated to the charity of his choice, Animal Aid.

And just to continue the weirdness, we should also mention that if you preorder, your copy of this SIGNED LIMITED EDITION soon, your name will appear in the story as a spectator. Ok, maybe that’s not all that weird. Awesome perhaps, but maybe not weird.

We keep telling you what a thoroughly amazing book The Abnormalies of Stringent Strange is, but hey, don’t just take our word for it:

The Whimsical Carnage Continues!

Our charity auction, to be Tuckerized in The Abnormalities of Stringent Strange to benefit Animal Aid, went even better than expected with $584 worth of bids. Even though you have missed your opportunity to be written into the book as character fighting a famous writer to the death (and losing!), you haven’t completely missed the boat. As we said when we first announced this book: the world has never seen a publishing event quite like this. There are two ways you can still get in on the fun.

First, if you preorder the book your name will appear among the spectators in the stadium during the fights. How cool is that? And the spectators will be listed by sections, which means if you want an up close seat in a good section, order now! Wait too long and you’ll be sitting in the nose-bleed section with the riffraff.

Second, you can still have Rhys Hughes write a scene where you fight to the death with a famous author! In the history of publishing we don’t know if anything this crazy has been attempted before. Luckily we have just the author to pull it off.

For just an extra $15 when you order your copy of The Abnormalities of Stringent Strange Rhys will write a scene specifically for you. This scene will not appear in the book, but it will be printed out and mailed to you with your book. While all of the deleted scenes would have appeared in the same place in the novel, each scene will be unique and feature a different author and victim (you). Click here to read an example.

See, that is the kind of silliness that is in store for you, if you order a “deleted scene.” And a portion of the $15 fee will be donated to Animal Aid. So once again, being impaled on a sword, trident, javelin, axe, or any other weapon Rhys comes up with, will do some good beyond your personal entertainment.