Audiobooks by Francis Stevens

Historically, science fiction has a reputation of being created by men for other men. Women who wrote speculative fiction often used their initials or male pseudonyms to conceal their gender. During the '50s and ‘60s, only ten percent of pulp fiction stories were written by women, many of whom have since been lost or forgotten.This anthology attempts to preserve the place of women in American society and imagination by collecting some of the best stories by women pulp writers, including Katherine MacLean, Greye La Spina, Judith Merril, Sonya Dorman, Alice Eleanor Jones, Sophie Wenzel Ellis, and Francis Stevens.

Alice Eleanor Jones, Francis Stevens, Greye La Spina, Judith Merril, Katherine Maclean, Sonya Dorman, Sophie Wenzel Ellis (Author), Rachael Endrizzi (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Citadel of Fear

Gertrude Barrows Bennett’s The Citadel of Fear (1918) is one of the greatest dark fantasy classics, a gorgeously written and imaginatively conceived masterpiece. In a career that spanned a mere three years, Bennett published half a dozen books under the pseudonym of Francis Stevens which came to define a number of later genres. She is most popularly known as the woman who invented dark fantasy, but along the way she also invented a new, creepier kind of dystopian sci-fi. When The Citadel of Fear first appeared in The Argosy, H.P. Lovecraft raved of its “wonderful and tragic allegory,” describing it as a “masterful” and “huge mystery” — a “gigantic tragedy.” Although set during the first world war, the story centres around the forgotten (yet active) Aztec civilisation of Talapallan, tucked away in an eerie underworld of the Mexican wilds. Among its many temples stands the black fetid shrine, where the dark god Nacoc-Yaotl is worshipped. When an Irishman and an American from modern-day United States stumble into Talapallan one falls in love, while the other is possessed by Nacoc-Yaotl. Their return to the quiet suburbs of the US is anything but, bringing in their lucid wake a world of rampaging monsters, mutated civilians, and battling gods. Romance, magic, adventure, and scrumptious writing are embedded in this lengthly, yet unavailable and often overlooked, masterwork. This edition is accompanied by an audiobook, narrated by Chirag Patel, and includes illustrations by Virgil Finlay (from the original editions of Bennett’s work).

Francis Stevens, Gertrude Barrows Bennett (Author), Chirag Patel (Narrator)

Audiobook

Sunfire!: Collected pulp magazine tales from the original mistress of fantasy

Illustrated with images by Virgil Finlay, the artist who illustrated many of Bennett/Stevens' original tales in the strange tales magazines in which they were published. Getrude Bennet has been called the 'most important woman writer of fantasy between Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1759-1797) and C.L. Moore (1911-1987)'. This is a complete collection of short stories by the woman who first explored the dark fantasy worlds of the modern era. this book contains tales that were originally published in Weird Tales, Argosy, and All-Story Weekly between 1918-1923. Also included is the first known sci fi story published by a woman writer in America, 'The Curious Experience of Thomas Dunbar', which was the very first story sold by Bennett, under the pen-name of GM Barrows. This story predates her otherwise 6-year long writing career by 14 years, when she was just 21.

Francis Stevens, Gertrude Barrows Bennett (Author), Chirag Patel (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Heads of Cerberus (Unabridged)

The Heads of Cerberus is a science fiction novel by American writer Francis Stevens. The novel was originally serialized in the pulp magazine The Thrill Book in 1919, and it was first published in book form in 1952 by Polaris Press in an edition of 1,563 copies. It was the first book published by Polaris Press. A scholarly reprint edition was issued by Arno Press in 1978, and a mass market paperback by Carroll & Graf in 1984. - The novel concerns people who, after inhaling a grey dust, are transported to a future totalitarian Philadelphia in 2118.

Francis Stevens (Author), Sam Kusi (Narrator)

Audiobook

Serapion: A tale of Demonic Possession from the Victorian Era

In a career that spanned a mere three years, Gertrude Barrows Bennett (writing as Francis Stevens) published half a dozen books that came to define the genres that followed on. she is most popularly known as the woman who invented dark fantasy, but on the way she also invented a new, creepier kind of dystopian Sci Fi. Today, you would call this a tale of trauma-onset schizophrenia, or perhaps a terrible descent into Dissociative Identity Disorder, foretold by genetics. In 1920, the best way to make sense of it was demonic possession. A true masterwork of psychological horror, from before psychology existed. 'One of the most intense, complete and unrelenting tales of psychological horror ever put together. No gore, guts and physical putrescence so common to horror, but the utter dissolution of a human spirit, as told by the victim. It is also perhaps the saddest book I've ever read, a perfectly realized story of unredeemed personal degradation and its effects on all it touches. Clayton Barbour, the narrator, is a protected bourgeois son just weak enough to allow himself to be overwhelmed by a sly, dissembling force of evil, just strong enough to be constantly tormented by his weakness. Invited to a séance by a casual acquaintance, Moore, who sees in him a psychic force, he becomes the inadvertent victim of Moore's wife's contact with a channeled malignant force. From this point on, the life of Clayton, his family and his friends is slowly, inextricably ripped asunder by events and in ways that seem unconnected but are manipulated by the Fifth Presence within him. Bennett pulls no punches, provides no happy ending. In that, it is her most honest work (and perhaps a summing summing up of her own life to this point, when she had lost a husband, father and invalid mother)... Dark, wrenching, truly horrifying, but a book I can recommend without the least reservation.' [Derek Davis, Goodreads]

Francis Stevens, Gertrude Barrows Bennett (Author), Chirag Patel (Narrator)

Audiobook