The Heads of Cerberus and Other Stories

“[Stevens] wrote in the early 20th century and anticipated much about where the genre would go.”—Reactor Magazine“An excellent way to rediscover an excellent writer.”—Transfer Orbit“Stevens’ writing is both reflective of the societal upheaval in her time and freshly insightful. And frighteningly, there are intense similarities to tensions today. Her clear-eyed, laser pointed writing strips away any pretense, leaving the simple truth to make the reader queasy… . Anyone who enjoys speculative or science fiction like The Twilight Zone, or steampunk like Jules Verne, or dystopian novels like The Hunger Games needs to be reading Francis Stevens.”—Meaghan Walsh Gerard“The stories in this collection are richly evocative of their time’s vision for our possible future, and their influence on the genre continues to broadly underpin the language by which contemporary works now explore today’s futures.”—Suzanne Palmer, Hugo Award–winning author of “The Secret Life of Bots” and The Finder Chronicles“I am always delighted when I find Francis Stevens ‘booked for a thriller.’”—Reader’s letter to The Argosy (1919)“Those who insist on the close reasoning and the satirical wit of modern science fiction will find surprising amounts of both here.”—Damon Knight, In Search of Wonder“What strikes us in [Stevens’s ‘Friend Island’] is the happy combination of an imagination that is projected into the distant future with a bubbling sense of humor that knows how to turn all the clichés of the hour into a rollicking good laugh. An unusual bit of work, which will be sure to delight all appraisers of the new and the delightful.”—All-Story Weekly (1918)“‘Behind the Curtain,’ by Francis Stevens, is a lot better than Poe’s ‘The Cask of Amontillado,’ if we do say it.”—All-Story Weekly (1918)Re: The Heads of Cerberus: “A highly imaginative work, one of the classics of early pulp fantastic fiction.”—E. F. BleilerRe: The Heads of Cerberus: “Perhaps the first science fantasy to use the alternate time-track, or parallel worlds, idea.”—Groff Conklin

Lisa Yaszek is Regents’ Professor of Science Fiction Studies in the School of Literature, Media, and Communication at Georgia Tech, where she researches and teaches science fiction as a global language crossing centuries, continents, and cultures.

Francis Stevens (Gertrude Barrows Bennett, 1884-1948) was the first American woman to publish widely in fantasy and science fiction. Her five short stories and seven longer works of fiction, all of which appeared in pulp magazines such as Argosy, All-Story Weekly, and Weird Tales, would influence everyone from H.P Lovecraft to C.L. Moore.

This item is eligible for free returns within 30 days of delivery. See our returns policy for further details.