Fantastic Stories Presents the Weird Tales Super Pack #2 - A Positronic Book - Hardcover

Howard, Robert E.: - Robert E. Howard (1906-1936) was an American pulp writer whose vivid imagination, relentless narrative drive, and powerful mythic settings helped establish sword-and-sorcery as a major form of modern fantasy. Born in Texas, Howard published widely in the pulp magazines of the 1920s and 1930s, with Weird Tales serving as the most important home for much of his best-known fiction. His most famous creation, Conan the Cimmerian, became one of the enduring figures of fantasy literature, but Howard also wrote horror, westerns, historical adventure, boxing stories, detective fiction, and supernatural tales.Howard's fiction is marked by violent energy, brooding atmosphere, lost kingdoms, ancient evils, and protagonists who move through collapsing civilizations with strength, cunning, and fatalism. Stories such as "Red Nails" and "The People of the Black Circle" show him at the height of his powers, blending adventure, horror, and fantastic world-building into fiction that remains central to classic pulp fantasy. His influence can be seen across heroic fantasy, sword-and-sorcery fiction, role-playing games, comics, and modern adventure fantasy.Leiber: - Fritz Leiber (1910-1992) was an American writer of fantasy, horror, and science fiction, and one of the most versatile figures to emerge from the pulp and magazine tradition. The son of Shakespearean actors, Leiber brought unusual literary range to genre fiction, combining wit, psychological insight, theatricality, and a sharp sense of atmosphere. He is best known for creating Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, one of the defining partnerships in sword-and-sorcery fantasy, and for major works of supernatural horror and speculative fiction.Leiber's fiction helped bridge the world of classic pulp storytelling and the more sophisticated genre literature that followed. His horror stories often turn on mood, urban unease, obsession, and the uncanny presence of the irrational inside ordinary life. His fantasy is equally important, bringing humour, moral ambiguity, and character-driven adventure to a field that had been strongly shaped by Robert E. Howard. Leiber won multiple Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy Awards, and remains essential reading for fans of classic fantasy, weird fiction, supernatural horror, and twentieth-century speculative fiction.Lovecraft, H. P.: - H. P. Lovecraft (1890-1937) was an American writer of weird fiction, supernatural horror, and cosmic terror whose influence on twentieth-century horror is immense. Born in Providence, Rhode Island, Lovecraft published much of his fiction in pulp magazines, especially Weird Tales, where his stories of forbidden knowledge, ancient beings, decaying towns, and humanity's small place in an indifferent universe helped define a new kind of horror. Rather than relying solely on ghosts, vampires, or traditional monsters, Lovecraft developed a vision of terror rooted in deep time, alien intelligence, and the collapse of human certainty.Lovecraft's best-known works include "The Call of Cthulhu," "The Colour Out of Space," "The Shadow over Innsmouth," "At the Mountains of Madness," and "The Dunwich Horror." His fiction has shaped modern horror, dark fantasy, science fiction, role-playing games, film, comics, and popular culture. Though his personal views and racial attitudes remain a serious and troubling part of his legacy, his literary influence on cosmic horror and weird fiction is undeniable. Readers continue to return to his work for its atmosphere of dread, its mythology of ancient powers, and its lasting impact on the language of supernatural and cosmic terror.