Teenage Dick Sands, shipboard apprentice, must act to save his friends from slavery in this classic tale of a boy hero in exotic surroundings, one of Jules Verne's "Extraordinary Voyages." Includes new cover art and two illustrations from the original French addition. An adventure as fantastic as THE MYSTERIOUS ISLAND

Famed for THE TIME MACHINE, THE WAR OF THE WORLDS, and other imaginative stories, H. G. Wells wrote other such works over his long life that have been little-known and little-read by enthusiasts of the fantastic. This volume of the "Before It Was Science Fiction" series collects: THE CHRONIC ARGONAUTS The mysterious construction of a time machine stirs passion and fear in a small Welsh village. THE SEA LADY In this satire and romantic fantasy, a mermaid enters the lives and loves of the snooty set. MEN LIKE GODS Mr. Barnstaple crosses dimensions to a parallel world built along utopian...

The Tom Swift adventure about his Rocket Ship doesn't tell much of the real tale. In fact it just assumes that things like Fearing Island exist and that his own father, Damon Swift, has nothing better to do than stand aside and watch. The truth is that Damon also built a new, privately-funded rocket as part of an X-Prize competition. His was unique with a whole series of obstacles to overcome and began even before Tom had finished his Flying Lab. This included locating and building out the scrub grass island, Fearing, off the coast of Georgia. That is a story in and of itself and is told...