Patricia Fanthorpe

The strange thing about THE END was that nobody expected it... The pessimists had been wrong. No atomic war. No nuclear destruction. No fall out.…

Anthropologists argue over the significance of Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon remains and vast periods of pre-history remain to be filled satisfactorily. These hidden eras of the…

They dragged the screaming stranger into the asylum. His talk of Fire Gods and universal conquest seemed the ultimate in illusions. Next morning, the padded…

Nadia was a girl who had everything except real happiness. She was tired of trying to buy it, and she had just about matured to…

Blake had waited a long time for his big chance. Finally the selection board called him in. This was it. He got his promotion, his…

Valli had always lived for the Dance. She expressed her very soul through the sinuous, mystic movements that were as old as the East itself.…

Have you ever faced one of those savage biting winds that try to hurl men from perilous heights? Have you sailed into the teeth of…

Sands of Eternity is the breath-taking saga of forbidden, secret evil erupting beneath the thin veneer of Yesterday.

"The Thing from Sheol" by Bron Fane is the nerve-chilling saga of a thing from the next world which tore down the flimsy curtain of…

Who is the mysterious Golden Warrior lingering near the ancient burial grounds? And what strange apparition haunts the dreaded Goodwin sands? Another spinetingling collection from…

Another spinetingling collection from the prolific pen of R L Fanthorpe! The Frozen Tomb: Unliving and undying she waited in a casket of ice. Sleeping…

The Gliding Wraith: If he was really asleep in his chair why did he glide across the street? Twilight Ancestor: Her evil power held the…

The Phantom Crusader: A skeleton figure gleamed beneath the ancient armour. The Room that Never Was: The door had been there the night before ...…

Storm God's Fury: The ancient gods used powerful weapons on those who defied them. Vampire Castle: Something with claws instead of hands was unpicking the…

Since the first classical ghost story was written, and since the unexplainable caught the imaginations of men, the mysteries of ancient Egypt have captivated the…

Salford is chosen to visit a long dead planet outside the solar system. However, when he gets out of the ship for a look around,…

A strange new race of modified men had fantastic powers and a kind of immortality. But something the human touch itself had been lost, and…

Psychic investigators have long been intrigued by the question of the existence of Elemental Spirits. Is it possible that Beings of incredible age wander unseen…

Humanity played with fire once too often. It was atomic fire and its ravages produced an almost complete annihilation, but there were survivors. The radiations…

They were suspended in frozen animation billions of years ago. Now the Searcher was looking for them, scattered across the universe. Would he find them…

An itinerant French mercenary stumbles into the Valley of the Kings; driven by thirst and crazed by the eastern sun, he crawls through a crevice…

Alexander Blish was the security chief at Tomloy's, the new nuclear physics research centre. They were doing things in the plant that had never been…

Man is an intelligent mammal. His intelligence lies in his brain. In mammals the tissues of the central nervous system are irreplaceable. The human brain…

Xalia was old when the Pyramids were built. Xalia was a woman when Gaza was an untouched coastal plain. Xalia was a woman when Abraham…

Life on the pioneer planet Orkol was harsh and lonely. Earth settlers found a civilisation of decay, a frustrating shortage of women, outdated machinery and…

An archaeological party in Mesopotamia found a chest of stone tablets in an unknown script. Disaster struck every man who worked on the tablets, every…

Legends of the living dead have filled the pages of mythology since time immemorial. If ninety-nine point nine percent of the stories can be explained…

Psychology recognises the existence of multiple personalities inhabiting the same mind. To the ancients such strange transformations were evidence of demonic possession, and even today…

Abercrombie was a strangely secretive man even for a top atom scientist. He had peculiar, advanced theories of his own which he would communicate to…

Henderson was a brilliant nuclear physicist until the night he staggered home a pathetic wreck of his former self, raving wildly about flying saucers and…

The sea has always been a symbol of uncontrolled power and infinite movement. Its rhythms are the rhythms of Life itself... for Life began in…

It should have been routine. Nothing could go wrong. The anode and the cathode were behaving perfectly. The meters and dials were recording accurately. A…

The only lesson we learn from history is that we never learn from history. Primitive weakness destroys just as surely in the age of Rock…

Dolores Foster was walking home from work when she noticed an oddly shaped glittering something at the edge of the pavement. She stooped, fascinated, and…

The modern mind usually associates witchcraft with the middle ages. We think of witches as Shakespeare depicted them in Macbeth. We see them as secret,…

There are some parts of the world where change comes slowly. There are other placed where it scarcely comes at all. In really remote areas…

Is there a Destiny? Does Fate impose a limit? What Barrier stands between man and the creation of life? Since the legendary failure of the…

Uma, a beautiful but frightened dancing girl, sells a strange bronze statuette of Nataraja, the dancing Siva, to Dr Chris Anderson, while he was visiting…

Space fiction is no longer fiction in the same way that it used to be. There was an element of distance and strangeness about it…

The romantic legend of the Holy Grail is almost without parallel in the stories of chivalry. It has about it a quality of inspiration and…

Alex was a pioneer. Like all pioneers he had problems. He had more problems than most; when things start to go wrong in space they…

Kerrigan was a legend of his own life-time. He was the kind of electric personality around whom strange stories accumulate like iron filings dancing towards…

Oliver Marland was an ordinary crew man on a routine flight before disaster overtook the 5X5. The strange sequence of events affected the minds of…

The Eurasian world of the 24th Century is in the grip of Rajak the Magnificent, one of the most efficiently ruthless totalitarian tyrants ever produced…

Francis Simnel was a pathetic old man who lived in a strange world of his own, a world of puppets and marionettes. His sister Agnes…

Servius had always been a faithful servant of the goddess Diana. As a gladiator he had given her thanks for his victories, as a Centurion…

Rudolf Mallory was one of the many pathetic pieces of human flotsam on the tide of the 20th-century neurosis. He was a man who had…

Darryl Whitesmith was engaged upon a new line of research at the Horological Central Institute. He was familiar with the famous saying of Minkowski: "From…

Sally McQuire worked for an unusual organisation. She was an undercover agent for the I.P.F., but her friends knew her only as a scatter-brained night…

Life at the Station had ceased to hold any drama. The only enemies were boredom - a psychic inertia - and the innate weakness of…

In the realm of science things are often far from what they seem. In the science of sociology this is truest of all. Those who…

'The Night Walker' began as an ordinary country legend. No two stories agreed on the details and Paul Donovan's attempts to sift out the facts…

On June 1st 1963 Donald Bailey set out on a hiking tour. For twelve days it was mountain and lakes, rivers and fells, healthy exercise…

Modern man is not fascinated by ancient Egypt without good reason. The Nile Civilisation is not only interesting because of its age but because of…

Man has often wondered about the birth of his world. Our remote ancestors told strange tales of parental deities who gave birth to planets, and…

Atomic Alloys Amalgamated could always use a research technician. A man like Rosco Cawdor was sure of a job there. The security department hadn't been…

The anatomy of fear is the unknown. The essence of terror is contained in the phrase "What if?" Suppose the dead should return? Are there…

It was a proud moment in the earth's history, when twenty-four dedicated volunteers set off, on that bright summer morning in 1993, to conquer the…

The human personality had been defined by leading psychologists as the integrated and dynamic organisation of psychical, mental, moral and social qualities. A personality is…

Catherine Wilder was a strange girl, lovely but lonely. Sir Henry Wilder, her father, was the kind of eccentric, medical researcher who preferred to work…

Unless life itself is a pathetic cosmic accident, man cannot be the only intelligence in the universe. It is unlikely that man is the highest…

Brinton couldn't believe the inscription when he read it in the cold white moonlight. He was looking at his own grave. He tried to read…

If a man from the mid-1920s had picked up today's paper he would have mistaken it for a science fiction magazine. In the same way,…

Leinster was a scientist with rather odd political ideas. When he discovers a new super-efficient rocket projectile, he decides to publish his findings to the…

A space liner is a brilliantly designed machine. It is not the kind of thing that disappears without good reason. The Q 97 bound for…

"Elpowa" industries the mammoth electro-engineering combine controlling half the galaxy, discovered the Threshold... a scientific gateway to the fourth dimension. The industry and culture of…

The engines died first, then the ship. Hope died. Men lived on. Then men died one by one... Accidents... quarrels... illness... age. One man remained.…

Inexplicable electro-magnetic disturbances threw the Avon's passengers and crew into confusion as their ship was dragged off course. Collision with a huge asteroid seemed inevitable…

Beyond the eccentric orbits of Pluto and Neptune lies a vast, empty wilderness. There is nothing but the silence of space between the fringes of…

Astra City was a technological 40th century masterpiece. It represented the challenge of society to the raw untamed planet where it raised its gleaming towers…

Whenever disaster wipes its bloodstained hands on the pages of human history man asks why? Before the dawn of science primitive man believed in the…

Man has already entered space and lived to tell the tale. Science Fiction is on the verge of being overtaken by science fact. Tomorrow is…

Everything was ordinary. Men worked in factories and fields. Women were shopping. Children were at school. Then came the four-minute warning. Wires hummed madly between…

Heredity is dependent on the complex patterns of genes and chromosomes, which are particularly vulnerable to radiation. An error in a biological research unit led…

Can it be that of all the billions of probably planets, revolving around strange suns, in far corners of the Universe, ours is the only…

Mars is our nearest neighbour in the solar system, with the exception of our own satellite Luna. It will be considerably easier to hit the…

Cobwebs hung in weird, grotesque festoons from the vaulted roof. There was a strange odour in the ancient cellar. A bent figure crouches over forbidden…

Seven desperate survivors drifting helplessly in a life-capsule, sight an uncharted world. The anti-grav landing shields are only working spasmodically, but the survivors still land…

Science and technology seem to advance in wild leaps. Something tremendous is discovered, then there is a breathing space. War accelerates the process of discovery.…

BY JOHN E. MULLER The botanist claims that human life depends indirectly on the chlorophyll in the green leaf. The leaf depends on sunlight. But…

Personality has a physical basis and what is in itself bio-chemical can be modified by bio-chemical means. The new formula could dissolve a man's personality…

After being sent to the planet from which no one had returned and was guarded by barrier rays, Mac is able to return. But the…

Dan Bellamy was down and out. It seemed that he had reached the end of the road... and then he met the stranger. Who was…

At first it was just another hoax, another UFO story, but the sightings went on increasing. It couldn't be an alien, there had been so…

Innumerable explanations have been put forward for the phenomena, known popularly as U.F.O'S and Flying Saucers. Eminent psychologists explain them as purely mental phantasmagoria -…

Anzar was known as a crazy eccentric scientist. Nobody paid much attention to his weird pseudo -scientific experiments. When unexplained accidents started to happen around…

Brant was a scientist, a space scientist. He had techniques and technologies at his fingertips that would have looked like magic to the old timers…

Charles Fort, the great American Rebel Philosopher, believed that every man had the right to doubt. He aimed his merciless shaft at scientists and religious…

The world of 2165 needed co-ordinators to link the liaison officers from different broad fields. Natasha was a trained nexus officer who became curious about…

Dakos was an alien humanoid who hated earth; he detested the planet; its people were anathema to him. He loathed its cities; its countryside was…

Krells never set out to be a hero. He was the first to admit he was a trader. "In it for the money; I leave…

The ties of home were strong. In a few years man gets attached to bricks and mortar, and scenery. In a hundred years roots are…

In an age that takes wireless for granted and its beginning to tire of television, it seems incredible that parts of the globe are still…

Most of the problems were solved in the 29th century. War was a memory. Disease was almost conquered. Old age and Death were held at…

They dragged the unidentifiable body of a man out of the Thames: Routine enquiries led nowhere and the case was shelved. Superintendent Harry Lee retired…

Thursday began as an ordinary day as far as Estelle was concerned. Breakfast... Tube... Office... Lunch... And then the sane, sane, simple everyday world began…

Along with progress in other spheres, criminology and remedial treatment for the socially unacceptable will undoubtedly make rapid strides in the Twenty-second and Twenty-third centuries.…

Helen Powell was a punch card operator in the test office of Elcomp, the largest and most dynamically progressive computer manufacturing company in the West.…

Jonga and Krull had a routine job in the solar system defence organisation. Week after week and year after year they checked the asteroids. 23rd…

It was a great world in the fortieth century. No economic problems. No work. Robots and androids everywhere. Every girl a princess, every man a…

Tharnos, assistant to the High Priest of the Holy Mysteries at Karnak was disturbed when strange alternation appeared in the ritual. Was it Kakos the…

Ever since science began seriously investigating the potentials of electronics, man has toyed with the idea of creating robots. The dawn of the robot age…

They were trying out a new drive when a cosmic accident took them incalculable light years off course. A miracle of courage and astrogation meant…

George Mallory was out for a quiet day's shooting. A typical country-man, in typical English country. His day's sport was interrupted by the beginning of…

They woke up to the smell of danger. No one could see it. None of them could hear it. But it was there. Lurking... intangible...…

Carl Kovak was an expendable political prisoner as far as the Eastern Totalitarian Government was concerned. He was being sent into orbit in a lead…

They had reached the very limits of space. Nothing lay ahead except the evil planet, waiting to destroy. NOTES FROM CAPTAIN BRONET'S LOG: It looked…

Mike Sterne was a man with problems. His environment included an unknown quantity in the form of an eccentric alien scientist and a determined corps…