Pseudonyms used by JOHN NEWTON CHANCE throughout his career included John Drummond, John, Lymington, David C. Newton, Desmond Reid ('Sexton Blake') and Jonathan Chance. During his lifetime, John Newton Chance's imagination and remarkable talent for storytelling made him a worldwide bestseller and brought plaudits from the newspapers of the time.

A CALLER FROM OVERSPACE

The old vicarage in a small Cornish fishing town is at the centre of some very mysterious happenings — the unexplained appearance of a small, female figure, crudely modelled out of children's plasticine; a weird, hypnotic force that exhilarates and lures; optical illusions that place familiar objects where they should not be.

Is the human race being used in some kind of extraterrestrial experiment? And what would have happened without the suspected presence of a curious and protective spirit?

The John Lymington SciFi/Horror Library Book 21
Published January 16, 2024 ... Recommended Price: £1.99

THE WAKING OF THE STONE

What was the secret of the flat black rock, unlike any other rock in the Cornish landscape where it lay? And where was Josiah Baswell, who had sat down to rest some three hundred years earlier, and simply disappeared?

For generations, the Stone at Trelynn had exerted some malevolent kind of influence on the Baswell family. And now the children, John Baswell and his friends Angie, Raven and Liss, could see lights shimmering in its depths. The locals called it the "wishing" stone, but regarded it with a fear beyond superstition.

Grandfather Norton, wiser than the rest, had more than an idea of where the huge, dagger-shaped rock had come from. But even when it gave up its secret, nobody really knew whether the danger within the Stone was past ... or still to come.

The John Lymington SciFi/Horror Library Book 20
Published January 16, 2024 ... Recommended Price: £1.99

STARSEED ON EYE MOOR

While travelling in India, novelist John Waring gave a lift to a strange-dressed, all-knowing native who called himself Jassy. And it was no accident that on his return to England he found himself drawn to an old farmhouse on Bodmin Moor where, together the Maclain family, he witnessed eerie, inexplicable events which defied comprehension.

What might be the connection between the stone circles on the Moor and the terrifying phenomena Waring experienced at the house?

Between an Indian djinn and a remote Cornish farmhouse?

Between the Maclains and alien beings from another time and place?

Between earthly beliefs and a whole new way of being?

The John Lymington SciFi/Horror Library Book 19
Published January 16, 2024 ... Recommended Price: £1.99

THE LAXHAM HAUNTING

Ever since Ludwig was a boy he had been experiencing something strange in his home in Augsburg, Germany. But that was hardly surprising to many, because Ludwig's grandfather had been the local eccentric.

But one day, his grandfather's experiments got out of hand and the whole house was gripped by some incredibly strong external force—and Ludwig only just survived to tell the tale.

Many years later, when David Howard arrives at Laxham Rectory (where Ludwig's grandfather had spent his childhood) to take up his new post as curate, he is immediately aware of the strange sensations that fill the building. The village is rife with rumours of the light that seems to emanate from the rectory and even the vicar, not to mention his wife and daughter, are unusually tense and expectant. And when, for no apparent reason, a wall of the rectory collapses, leaving a single brick suspended in mid-air, everybody realises that the power surrounding them is of no earthly origin.

But David Howard is sure that is only the beginning.

The John Lymington SciFi/Horror Library Book 18
Published December 16, 2023 ... Recommended Price: £1.99

A SPIDER IN THE BATH

A Cornish village abandoned in the middle of the night …

a terror-stricken community that dare not explain its mysterious behaviour …

a hotel guest who finds an enormous spider in her bath …

Silently, relentlessly, an army of spiders spins its web of fear, and the people of Dormouth are powerless to halt an invasion that threatens the world …

The John Lymington SciFi/Horror Library Book 17
Published December 16, 2023 ... Recommended Price: £1.99

THE HOLE IN THE WORLD

Something peculiar was happening in the grounds of Dr Liskard's remote country home. It was surrounded by enormous, near-prehistoric creatures that could only be seen through the telescope he usually used to study the stars.

Before he could announce the phenomenon to the authorities, he needed independent corroboration—so he invited his publisher to join his niece and her husband at the isolated house to see for themselves. They quickly discovered that, as incredible as it seemed, the doctor was right.

But what did these strange visitors want? Why did they surround the house every night and just … watch? What were they looking for?

Then Dr Liskard vanished, and so did his pretty German housekeeper. Psychic phenomena began to manifest itself until the Government sent its top scientist to solve the mystery.

But it wasn't going to be as simple as that. Something equally terrifying was happening below ground. Something that might just spell the end for humanity.

The John Lymington SciFi/Horror Library Book 16
Published December 16, 2023 ... Recommended Price: £1.99

THE YEAR DOT

The Government decided that Christopher Jay was an enemy of the people. In fact, he was an enemy of the Government, and that meant he had to die.

So Jay became a casualty of the New Capital Punishment Act, and was duly executed on a series of trumped-up charges of treason.

But this was also the age of the Blind Scientist, the Transplanter, the Organ Switchers and the breeders of babies in bottles. And once Jay's organs had been harvested, they found some very interesting places to resume life.

They also enabled Jay to fulfil his final wish—that if he was to die, then the entire planet was going to die with him.

This was the time of reckoning. This was the Year Dot.

The John Lymington SciFi/Horror Library Book 15
Published November 16, 2023 ... Recommended Price: £1.99

GIVE DADDY THE KNIFE, DARLING

When John came to the inn, Fear was host. Fear that no one could describe or explain. Fear of a man upstairs, a guest locked in, who would not speak or eat or sleep or move; yet from outside whose locked door the silence moved with weird sensations of life growing within. Life that seemed to have come with the landing of UFOs in the river mist.

"You're a lemming, John," his father had told him. "You're rushing to your own destruction." But he bought the inn and the secret above him anyway; a secret he could not touch or see or hear. He bought the inn knowing it would destroy him, but as he came near to madness he began to realise that the thing upstairs was growing into a knife pointed at the belly of civilisation.

He did nothing as he felt the knife pushing through him, skewering him as the first victim of a new invasion. He did nothing.

But how can you get away from the edge when you know you must? Or does something push you on, closer, closer?

The John Lymington SciFi/Horror Library Book 14
Published November 16, 2023 ... Recommended Price: £1.99

THE NOWHERE PLACE

A small English village wavers on the edge of destruction. It seems that someone can make Weston Abbas disappear and reappear at will.
The mystery is further complicated when the townspeople begin turning against each other as a result of poison pen letters. Suddenly a close community becomes disparate and nearly self-destructive. And nature turns chaotic. Early ripening fields turn brown and brittle overnight, making harvesting impossible. Gardens become a tangle of weeds and dead summer flowers. The heat becomes appallingly oppressive.
The town and its people seem doomed to a slow and tortuous death unless someone can work out what exactly is happening. One man, Joss Darke, believes he has the answer, barring one possibility ... And if an extra-terrestrial force is responsible, then Weston Abbas is doomed to a painful death.

The John Lymington SciFi/Horror Library Book 13
Published November 16, 2023
Recommended Price: £1.99

THE LIGHT BENDERS

Can incoming metals from outer space bring with them some form of contamination that can kill mankind?

Are rockets safe from picking up invading germs?

The V2 rocket had been lost in the midst of its own desolation for nearly thirty years when a piece of its metal came into the hands of the only occupier of the bomb site.

Then, suddenly, the metal began to come alive, to writhe, to scream, to terrify the holder and the man who had come to find out why this whole deserted place had somehow gathered to itself the mark of Cain...

The John Lymington SciFi/Horror Library Book 12
Published October 16, 2023
Recommended Price: £1.99

TEN MILLION YEARS TO FRIDAY

It began with the sound of a beating heart … four thousand feet below the surface of the earth.

Something was living down there, in a strange void that refused to respond to science’s probings: an impossible life living in an impossible place.

An impossible life that had known birth in a time before Earth’s fiery surfaces had cooled!

And now that life was awakening, stirring under the probe of men who were unable to refrain from questioning the unexplained … stirring, and preparing to come forth from its ages-old resting place. Men wanted to believe that the creature would be friendly … but it came from a world that existed before men were created.

How could it find kinship with such totally strange creatures … and would it even be able to recognize that men were intelligent, rational beings?

The John Lymington SciFi/Horror Library Book 11
Published October 16, 2023
Recommended Price: £1.99

THE STAR WITCHES

Just before the horror, the Reverend David James discovered that a coven of witches was using his church for worshiping Satan and calling up the dead.

Alone in his mansion, scientist Harry Royce was employing electronic devices to reach the outer limits of the Universe.

When the invasion began, it was not known whether the invaders were aliens from a contaminated star or lost souls erupting out of Limbo. Two things became clear: It could not be stopped, and once it was completed, there would be no sane person left on Earth.

The John Lymington SciFi/Horror Library Book 10
Published October 16, 2023
Recommended Price: £1.99

THE GREEN DRIFT

It began on a fine summer's morning that was just like any other. There was nothing unusual about it, nothing unusual about the solid, comfortable house, except that in the heat haze it seemed hover a couple of feet above the ground.

But outside a great crowd had gathered, people who had been drawn to the village because they were puzzled, curious and downright scared.

They watched the house, just waiting for something to happen, all of them staring — and continuing to stare ... until the nightmare that had been forecast actually became a terrible, terrible reality …

The John Lymington SciFi/Horror Library Book 9
Published September 16, 2023
Recommended Price: £1.99

FROOMB!

John Brunt was an irresponsible, thrill-seeking globetrotter. No adventure was too outlandish for him. But then he met Professor David Packard, who made the most outlandish proposal of all ... to send John all the way to Heaven — by killing him and then bringing him back from the dead.

Now a cold chill was creeping through Brunt. He was a captive in a terrifying alien land, and his interrogator treated him like a mental case. There was nothing of Heaven here … in fact, it was more like Hell.

And suppose Professor Packard couldn't bring him back from wherever it was he'd been sent? Suppose he really was dead and had to stay in this world of madness forever?

The John Lymington SciFi/Horror Library Book 8
Published September 16, 2023
Recommended Price: £1.99

THE SLEEP EATERS

He was the first victim of the Sleep Eaters — a mental invasion force that attacked him as his mind travelled over the edges of sleep.

Their plan was to clear Earth of Man so as to pave the way for a physical invasion.

And the method they employed was a simple one: they persuaded Man to use his own genius for self-destruction ...

The John Lymington SciFi/Horror Library Book 7
Published September 16, 2023
Recommended Price: £1.99

THE SCREAMING FACE

It began with the sudden disappearance of the world's political and religious leaders.

Then strange objects were seen floating in the sky, followed by a terrifying scream of sound that filled the air all around the world.

The people were told that the world's leaders were attending a summit at the North Pole; that the objects were just high cloud formations, or spots before the eyes. And the scream? Just a scientific device that had gone astray.

The truth, however, was very different. The Big Sound signalled the beginning of the total extinction of Earth.

And the world's leaders had found a way to escape to another planet while the rest of humanity perished.

The John Lymington SciFi/Horror Library Book 6
Published August 16, 2023
Recommended Price: £1.99

A SWORD ABOVE THE NIGHT

The missiles came from a long way out in space. They weren't explosive. Maybe there were people in them. Things from somewhere else.

Man always thought he was the Only Man in all the million worlds in a Universe that might itself be one of a million. But now men from one of those other worlds had come to Earth. That was all that had happened.

But who were they, the night-comers?

And what horror had they brought with them?

The John Lymington SciFi/Horror Library Book 5
Published August 16, 2023
Recommended Price: £1.99

THE COMING OF STRANGERS

The missiles came from a long way out in space. They weren't explosive. Maybe there were people in them. Things from somewhere else.

Man always thought he was the Only Man in all the million worlds in a Universe that might itself be one of a million. But now men from one of those other worlds had come to Earth. That was all that had happened.

But who were they, the night-comers?

And what horror had they brought with them?

The John Lymington SciFi/Horror Library Book 4
Published August 16, 2023
Recommended Price: £1.99

THE GREY ONES

The shadows gave the impression that one moment the people were there, and the next, that they were nothing but shade pools.

They were trapped, in the one oasis of peace in a world gone mad. Surrounding them were people who thought and acted like savages. But at least they were human, more or less.

It was the other thing that brought horror - the non-human, inexorable thing, slowly creeping...

The John Lymington SciFi/Horror Library Book 3
Published July 16, 2023
Recommended Price: £1.99

THE GIANT STUMBLES

Strange storms suddenly appear out of (literally) a clear blue sky, and disappear just as rapidly. And only one scientist, Nigel Rhodes, understands what's going on: "the sum total of all nuclear fission has created a charge within the earth's composition, in just the same way as electricity can be charged in a storage battery."

The result will be that in five days time the spin of the Earth will—for a short period—slow down, almost certainly bringing humanity to an end.

How is he to convince people that what he has to say is neither a stunt nor a lunatic's imaginings, but the simple, horrifying, inevitable truth?

The John Lymington SciFi/Horror Library Book 2
Published July 16, 2023
Recommended Price: £1.99

NIGHT OF THE BIG HEAT

And so the nightmare began …

… the nightmare that started with the dreadful, mind-draining heat and continued with one death, and another, and another … each almost too horrible to contemplate.

The Experimental Spiders were sent to Earth from another planet—as man had sent monkeys and dogs on their space probes.

That meant a race superior to man was planning to make an invasion. And in the meantime, the spiders were on Earth, destroying everything they touched—eating men alive—making the result of the invasion almost a foregone conclusion …

The John Lymington SciFi/Horror Library Book 1
Published July 16, 2023
Recommended Price: £1.99