City of the Beast

Wednesday, July 18, 2007

As the second book to be released by Planet Stories, City of the Beast couldn't be more perfect for the line. First off, you've got Michael Moorcock, arguably one of the most important sword and sorcery authors of all time, the man who created the original fantasy anti-hero, Elric of Melniboné, and popularized such concepts as the "multiverse." Now add in the fact that City of the Beast, the first in Moorcock's Kane of Old Mars trilogy, sends this aspect of his Eternal Champion to the red planet in an epic homage to Edgar Rice Burroughs, and you've got the makings of an epic sword and planet romp.

In City of the Beast, an accident in a high-security government lab sends top physicist and expert fencer Michael Kane hurtling through space and time to a Mars of millions of years ago, in an age when the planet was still rife with life. There he meets the beautiful princess Shizala, as well as the merciless blue giants who besiege her home. Using the sword training of his youth and a tactical mind earned in the jungles of Vietnam, Michael Kane bolsters the city's defense against the barbarians, earning the respect of the locals with his quick wit and wrist. But when Shizala is betrayed by one of her own and kidnapped by the giants, Earthman Michael Kane must set out across a hostile planet in order to bring her home.

With fantastic cover art by Andrew Hou and an introduction by Kim Mohan, former editor of Amazing Stories, City of the Beast is a work of love by a master of the field. Watch for it here and in stores everywhere this September.

James Sutter
Editor, Planet Stories