Weird Heroes


Weird Heroes, subtitled "New American Pulp", was an American series of novels and anthologies produced by Byron Preiss in the 1970s that dealt with new heroic characters inspired by pulp magazine characters.
The series was 'packaged' by Byron Preiss Visual Productions and was published by Pyramid/Jove/HBJ. Four of the books are anthologies, four are novels. During the same time, Preiss also produced the Fiction Illustrated series with the same publisher.
Most of the characters were never seen after the demise of Weird Heroes. Preiss did write one novel about his character Guts, and planned a second. This was published by Ace Books, maybe as part of a 'revival' of the concept as single novels. Tor Books reprinted Philip José Farmer's Greatheart Silver stories in a single volume with new art and Reaves's character Kamus appeared in two books by other publishers. Ron Goulart's "Quest of the Gypsy" was meant to be a series of novels but only two have been published.
The first volume was reprinted by iBooks, but no word if further books will be reprinted as iBooks went gone bankrupt following Preiss's death.

Series

Weird Heroes #1

Reprints and follow ons

  • I, Alien Ace Books, 1979.
  • Guts Ace Books, 1979.
  • *Produced by BPVP for Ace. Illustrated like WH was, in many ways a continuation of WH. "Guts" first appeared in WH#1. A second Guts book and a second `I--Alien' book were promised, but not published.
  • Darkworld Detective Bantam Books, 1982.
  • *Reprints first 2 Kamus stories from WH#8 plus 2 `new' ones.
  • Kamus of Kadizhar: The Black Hole of Carcosa St Martin's, 1988.
  • *contains character from WH#8.
  • Greatheart Silver Tor Books, 1982.
  • *reprints GHS stories from WH
  • Orion
  • Dragonworld Bantam Books, 1979.
  • *Actually planned as fifth "Fiction Illustrated" work.
  • Oz Encounter Marv Wolfman, based on an idea by Ted White, Hungry Tiger Press,
  • * hardback reprint of the Doc Phoenix novel