Armchair Fiction presents classic science fiction double novels with original illustrations.  The first novel, “The Exile of the Skies” is a grand epic of space opera by Richard Vaughan.  He was an outcast in the endless abyss of space, bounding from one distant planet to another, colliding with a myriad of alien creatures.  The second novel is “Abduction” by Steve Frazee  What would you do if you were abducted by a flying saucer and no one believed you...?  

Armchair Fiction presents science fiction double novels with original illustrations.  The lead-off novel is a rollicking tale by Ray Cummings, “Explorers into Infinity.”  Through an instrument called the myrdoscope, Brett Gryce a distant world, lost in the black immensity of space.  The second novel “Design for Doomsday” is a great sci-fi adventure tale written by Bryce Walton.  The Martian prison was be a cruel and cold place in the post-Solar War era...

Armchair fiction presents extra-large paperback editions of the best in classic science fiction novels.  A.Merritt's "The Face in the Abyss and Other Fantastic Tales" is the seventeenth installment of our "Lost World-Lost Race Classics" series.  After weeks of toiling through treacherous country, Nicholas Graydon and his partners found themselves lost in the Peruvian wilderness on a hunt for lost Incan treasure...

(1938) Evelyn Venable, Craig Reynolds, Reed Hadley, John Kelly. A woman is shocked when she discovers her husband is the head of a truck-hijacking ring. When he forces her to drive their getaway car, she finds herself wanted by the police, too. An OK Monogram crime thriller with an engaging script...

THE FINAL WAR—Widescreen Edition (1960) Tatsuo Umemiya, Yoshiko Mita, Yayoi Furusato.  This is a sci-fi nuclear destruction film that fans have been clamoring to see for years.  And though no English subtitles currently exist, the storyline here isn’t all that hard to follow, even if it is in Japanese only. The scenes of nuclear destruction are pretty well done for the time...

Armchair fiction presents extra large editions of the best in classic science fiction novels, complete with original illustrations.  Here’s a great paperback edition of that space opera class, “The Fire People” by one of the masters of early science fiction, Ray Cummings.  It was a fiery invasion from another planet!  No one could have suspected that Earth was in mortal danger...

(1959) Ken Takakura, Kenji Imai.  This is a terrific film about a mad killer on an airliner.  The film’s initial exposition is great as we get to know all the various passengers who are boarding the plane. The killer, who has just murdered three people, then boards with a gun in hidden in his pocket (no security screening back then).  When one of the passengers discovers his identity, the killer holds the plane at bay (in flight) and threatens to kill anyone who refuses to obey him...

Armchair Fiction presents classic mystery-crime double novels. “Frenzy” is our first grisly tale of murder and mayhem, by James O. Causey.  Shannon...she was a slut with a body like flame—hell’s own angel—wrapped up in murder and mayhem  This double novel’s second tale is a great tale of murder and crime, “In this Corner—Death” by Emile C. Tepperman.  It was a good deed turned into a nightmare...

Armchair Fiction presents classic science fiction double novels with original illustrations. The first novel is David Wright O’Brien’s unusual science-fantasy, “Furlough from Eternity.”  Can one journey back from the dead?  The second novel is Berkeley Livingston’s “Invasion of the Plant Men.”  Smoldering in a “garden” were the seeds of a diabolical alien invasion...

GHOST CAT OF THE CURSED SWAMP—Widescreen Edition (1967) Ryôhei Uchida, Kôtarô Satomi, Kyoko Mikage, Hiroshi Nawa, Tatsuo Matsumura.  In ancient Japan, a treasonous underling overthrows his master.  He buries his former boss, alive, inside a wall.  When he takes after the wife, she drowns herself in a nearby swamp along with her cat, thus cursing the swamp for all time...

THE GHOST OF CHIBUSA ENOKI  (1958) Akira Nakamura, Katsuko Wakasugi, Asao Matsumoto, Hiroshi Ayukawa, Keiko Hasegawa.  This is another Kaidan-style ghost story in which the apprentice of a famous artist rapes the artist’s wife and eventually murders the artist himself, as well as their servants!  The ghost of these tortured souls soon come calling for revenge...

THE GHOSTS OF KASANE SWAMP (1957) Katsuko Wakasugi, Takashi Wada, Noriko Kitazawa, Tetsurô Tanba.  A blind Japnese masseur visits a samurai warrior to ask for the return of a loan. The samurai, arrogant and cruel, slays him in anger.  Later, his servant dumps the masseur’s body in a dreadful swamp.  Howeve,r the masseur’s ghost soon returns to haunt the samurai...

THE GREAT WALL—Widescreen Edition (1962) Shintarô Katsu, Fujiko Yamamoto, Ken Utsui, Hiroshi Kawaguchi.  The time is 221 BC. The place is ancient China.  Warlord Qin Shihuangdi becomes emperor and rules over most of China. This lavish epic depicts the history of Qin's exploits, including the building of the Great Wall.  It’s filled with action and intrigue in the best traditions of epic filmmaking...

Armchair Fiction presents Mammoth Mystery Double Classics—featuring illustrated editions of two all-time mystery-crime standards, with 440 pages or more of whodunit thrills. “The Green Rust” by all time great mystery writer Edgar Wallace is our first classic story. The second tale is another great Edgar Wallace thriller, “The Clue of the Twisted Candle.”

HAUNTED PALACE (1949) Shaw Desmond, Helene Coomey. This featurette is a ghost story vignette. Plus:  WHO KILLED DOC ROBBIN? (1948) Virginia Grey, George Zucco, Don Castle.  Zucco is his sinister self again in this entertaining chiller about a killer ape who terrorizes a gang of kids in a haunted mansion...

HERCULES AND THE TREASURE OF THE INCAS—Widescreen Edition (1964) Alan Steel, Mario Petri, Toni Sailer, Wolfgang Lukschy. This film was originally supposed to be a peplum film, but because of the success of A Fistful of Dollars, the script was changed to a mostly western setting, though there are still definitely moments of peplum action, especially toward the end when Steel yanks his shirt off...

This is the first of two Horror Gems collections celebrating the classic works of “The Unique Magazine,” Weird Tales, featuring Seabury Quinn and others.  The year was 1923 when tales took a turn for the weird with the launch of the world’s first genre pulp magazine, Weird Tales; and here we have a collection of the weirdest and most spine tingling of the first year...