UPDATED: An interesting and long-running series that I think many might not know about is the Golden Amazon series by John Russell Fearn (1908-1960).
Most of the series is ready available, but there is also a lot of misinformation about it. I have gotten some of the works and plan on doing detailed posts on stories as I read them. So here I basically introduce this series overall.
Fearn was a British author, though surprisingly, many of his works were actually published first mainly in the United States, and then later in Canada. He first created a character named Violet Ray, known as the “Golden Amazon,” in a quartet of stories in Fantastic Adventures, from 1939-43.
This Golden Amazon is more of a Tarzan story, with Violet a child of Earth who survives a crash on Venus that kills her parents. She becomes a sort of superhuman thanks to the Venusian environment and grows up among the natives to later fight the bad guys who caused her ship to crash on Venus.
If you want to read these stories, the Battered Silicon Dispatch Box has reprinted the four, and there is another collection titled The Golden Amazon of Venus from Gryphon Books. Sadly, both are hard to find.
Fearn revamped the character of Violet Ray for a series of books in 1944. Some sources claim he reworked the stories, but that is not so if you take a deeper look at the character. Now, Violet Ray Brant was the subject of a glandular experiment as a baby that turned her into a superhuman during the German Blitz of World War II. She would have increased strength and intelligence, golden skin and hair, with the hope that she’d lead the world into peace. Instead she nearly destroys the world with atomic power, and is able to escape the world’s wraith by creating a synthetic duplicate of herself who dies in her place in the first book.
In the next few stories, she starts working to stop menaces to the Earth, and helps with the conquest of Venus, Mars, and other planets of the solar system. With the seventh novel, a new character is introduced — Abna the Atlantean — and a new direction for the series begins that is more based in the stars, as well as jumping further into the future. The series would be serialized in the Toronto Star Weekly, then later reprinted in book form. But later stories in the series would never originally be published in book form.
Golden Amazon Series:
- “The Golden Amazon” (1944)
- “The Golden Amazon Returns” (1948)
- “The Golden Amazon’s Triumph” (1953)
- “The Amazon’s Diamond Quest” (1953)
- “The Amazon Strikes Again” (1954)
- “Twin of the Amazon” (1954)
- “Conquest of the Amazon/World of Ice” (1949)
- “Lord of Atlantis” (1949)
- “Triangle of Power” (1950)
- “The Amethyst City” (1951)
- “Daughter of the Golden Amazon” (1952)
- “Quorne Returns” (1952)
- “The Central Intelligence” (1953)
- “The Cosmic Crusaders” (1955)
- “Parasite Planet” (1955)
- “World Out of Step” (1956)
- “The Shadow People” (1957)
- “Kingpin Planet” (1957)
- “World in Reverse” (1958)
- “Dwellers in Darkness” (1958)
- “World in Duplicate” (1959)
- “Lords of Creation” (2005)
- “Duel with Colossus” (2005)
- “Standstill Planet” (1960)
- “Ghost World” (1960)
- “Earth Divided” (1961)
- “Chameleon Planet” (2006) with Philip Harbottle
Now, if you want to read this series, it’s a little tricky. Philip Harbottle became the literary executor of Fearn’s works, and helped to bring many of them back into print in book form for the first time for many. Harbottle was the right person for the job, as he had written a bio-bibliography of Fearn (The Multi-Man in 1968).
With the Golden Amazon series, Harbottle worked with reprinting the series at Gryphon Books, along with four sequels by John Glasby. Unfortunately, the Gryphon editions are hard to find, as there were only 500 copies of each printed and the unsold stock was destroyed by Hurricane Sandy. Harbottle later got with Wildside/Borgo Press to re-reprint them, and those should be available. However, Harbottle had this series start with #7, as this started a new phase in the series. And chose not to include the later ones by Glasby.
What about #1 through 6? More recently (around 2016), Harbottle worked with Venture Press/Endeavour Press to bring those back in print (no idea why not Wildside/Borgo). The plan was to have them available in print (via print-on-demand) and ebook editions. An added bonus would have been a forward giving the full history of the Golden Amazon series by Harbottle.
However, as best I can tell, only #1-3 are available in print form, and #1-5 in ebook form and Venture/Endeavour seems defunct, though you can still purchase these via Amazon. I would hope this can be addressed at some point. One of the owners of Endeavour has started a new concern called Endeavor Media that include Venture as their sf line, and they will make the books available in ebook form, with #6 coming soon. Hopefully someone can bring the first six out in print form.
So there you have it. As noted, I hope to start reading these book soon, and will post follow-ups on the series, probably covering a few books at a time.
An enjoyable and informative article. Good to hear that this entertaining stories may become more widely available again. I am somewhat puzzled, however, by the comment that Gryphon did not publish the first 6 novels. The Gryphon print run started with the first book listed above, The Golden Amazon, in 1996, and included all 27 books listed, plus the original 4 stories from Fantastic Adventures (in 2006), as well as 3 new books by John Glasby. I have them all on my bookshelf; I just checked the titles and print dates. Not that that helps with availability….
The Gryphon books are all out of print and hard to obtain. The Wildside/Borgo editions are available and what I am getting.
Per the intro in those books and the recent Venture ones, my understanding is that Gryphon started with #7, same as Wildside, skipping the first 6. Tho they did reprint the 4 “Fantastic Adventures” with the ‘other’ Golden Amazon. Not aware of new books by Glasby. Those don’t appear to have been reprinted by Wildside.
Dear Michael,
I have only just discovered your excellent blog-site–by accident. As well as being the literary executor (and copyright owner) of John Russell Fearn, I operate as the Cosmos Literary Agency, representing many other authors such as E.C.Tubb and John Burke, Syd Bounds, John Glasby, etc., and a number of American writers such as Lawrence Lariar, Bruce Cassiday and Eaton K. Goldthwaite and others. I am currently in negotiation with Bold Venture Press on possible projects, and it was whilst surfing Bold Venture that I came across your name, and saw that you had written a piece on The Golden Amazon…on which I am hastening to send you a few comments.
Ward is of course quite right. Gary Lovisi’s Gryphon Books DID publish every Fearn Golden Amazon novel, 1 to 27, in chronological order, They also did four authorized sequels which I commissioned from the late John Glasby.
The reason that I started the later reprints from Borgo (Wildside) at number 7 was two-fold. Yes, it started a new phase in the Amazon saga when she met Abna, and expanded the action to the stars, but more particularly I did it as a favour to Gary Lovisi, hoping it would help him sell out his own print run of numbers 1 to 6. But then, Gary’s home was struck by Hurricane Sandy, and he lost most of his stocks in flooding. I EXPLAINED THIS EXPLICITLY in my introduction to to the latest GA reprints of books 1 to 6, being issued initially by Endeavour Press in both POD and ebook. I chose to run these with a UK publisher in the hope that they would generate better sales that the Borgo/Wildside editions. As you noted, books 1 to 3 were duly issued in these formats, and are currently easily available from Amazon. Endeavour Press then went into VOLUNTARY liquidation, and emerged without missing a beat as Endeavour Media, who are keeping ALL of their earlier titles in print, in both formats, where the authors or agents have so agreed (as I have). Unfortunately the new firm Endeavour Media issue E-books only (to my great dismay). They have accordingly only issued GA 4 and 5 as ebooks. They are long overdue to issue # 6 as an ebook (I learned they had lost the mss, which I have now replaced). It should be out fairly soon. Paper rights on GA # 4-6 are currently free to any interested publisher, and if I can find a reliable publisher, I should be able to get a reversion from Endeavour for the paper rights to 1-3 (they owe me plenty of favours from the hundreds of books I have placed with them), so a new publisher could issue new paper editions of i through 6.
I have not so far licensed the John Glasby sequels to any publisher, but I am hoping to do so if I can find a decent publisher willing to do them in BOTH pod and ebook.
Maybe, in due time, that publisher might be Bold Venture,,,
Meantime I am VERY grateful for your interest in the GA series, and I look forward to your reviews in due course.
Best regards,
Phil Harbottle
Phil- thanks for the comment and clarification. I’ll have to go back thru my post and fix my errors.
I do hope someone brings the original 6 back in print, as I prefer print over ebook.
Dear Michael,
Now had time to reread your piece, and I’d like to make a couple of corrections and additions I missed on my first reading. Up until 1955, as well as the novels first appearing in the TORONTO STAR WEEKLY (as a Complete Novel, NOT serialized) they were ALSO variously reprinted in syndication by four AMERICAN newspapers a fortnight later: in THE BANGOR NEWS, NEWARK SUNDAY STAR LEDGER, LONG ISLAND SUNDAY PRESS, and BANGOR SUNDAY COMMERCIAL. After the first novel appeared as a UK book and was then reprinted in the Canadian magazine and American newspapers, the rest were all first published in Fearn’s lifetime by the Toronto Star, so that you have the wrong dates shown for three later titles. They should read: Standstill Planet (1960), Ghost World (1960), and Earth Divided (1961, posthumous, Fearn’s last mss being submitted by his wife.) Your dates for Lords of Creation (2005) Duel With Colossus (2005) and Chameleon Planet (2006) are correct–first (posthumous) book publication–because they alone never appeared in the Toronto Star.They appear as novels 20 and 21, and 27 to reflect their chronology,
Best wishes,
Phil
Thanks for the updates. Not sure where the publication dates came from. I used either Wikipedia or ISFDB. I’ll update them.
Dear Michael,
Just confirming that the last outstanding Golden Amazon novel, TWIN OF THE AMAZON (#6) has today been restored to print by Endeavour Venture SF. It’s up and available on Amazon.
The entire 27 Fearn Golden Amazon series is now available, between Endeavour (1-6) and Wildside (7-27, renumbered as 1-21). I do hope that you may now be able to commence your review.
Best wishes,
Phil