Williamson, Jack

Entry updated 18 November 2024. Tagged: Author.

Working name of US author John Stewart Williamson (1908-2006), which he used from the beginning of his career in 1928, though his Seetee stories were originally signed Will Stewart. Williamson was born in Arizona and raised (after stints in Mexico and Texas) on an isolated New Mexico homestead, and spent his last decades as well in New Mexico; he described his early upbringing and his first encounter with sf in the 1920s in his introduction and notes to The Early Williamson (coll 1975), which assembles some of the rough but vigorous stories he published 1928-1933; and amplified this autobiographical material in Wonder's Child: My Life in Science Fiction (1984), which won a 1985 Hugo. These reminiscences reconfirm the explosively liberating effect early Pulp-magazine sf had on its first young audiences, especially those who like Williamson grew up in small towns or farms across an America hurtling out of its rural past.

After discovering Amazing Stories, and specifically being influenced by its 1927 reprint serialization of A Merritt's The Moon Pool (stories 22 June 1918, 15 February-22 March 1919 All-Story Weekly as "The Moon Pool" and "The Conquest of the Moon Pool"; fixup 1919), Williamson immediately decided to try to write stories for that magazine. His first published fiction, "The Metal Man" in December 1928 for Amazing, was deeply influenced by Merritt's lush visual style, but like most of his early work conveyed an exhilarating if sometimes unhinged sense of liberation. Williamson was from the first an adaptable writer, responsive to the changing nature of his markets, and his collaborations over the years seemed to be genuine attempts to learn more about his craft as well as to produce saleable fiction. His first great teacher after Merritt was Miles J Breuer, whom he came across through his early association with fan organizations like the International Science Correspondence Club and the American Interplanetary Society, and to whom he deliberately apprenticed himself. Breuer, he reported in The Early Williamson, "taught me to curb my tendencies toward wild melodrama and purple adjectives"; what Williamson gave Breuer in return was an inspiring fount of energy, and both of their book collaborations – The Girl from Mars (1929 chap) in Hugo Gernsback's Science Fiction Series and The Birth of a New Republic (Winter [ie January] 1931 Amazing Stories Quarterly; 1981 chap) – were written primarily by the younger man, following Breuer's ideas.

Williamson's development was swift. From the very first he was equally comfortable with both story and novel forms; indeed, by 1940 he had published as many as twelve novels in the magazines (the total varying according to estimates of the length thought necessary for a tale to be so designated), including The Alien Intelligence (July-August 1929 Wonder Stories, with two shorter stories as coll 1980 chap [but large pages]); The Green Girl (March-April 1930 Amazing; 1950); The Birth of a New Republic (Winter [ie January] 1931 Amazing Stories Quarterly; 1981) with Miles J Breuer; "The Stone from the Green Star" (October-November 1931 Amazing); Golden Blood (April-September 1933 Weird Tales; rev 1964); "Xandulu" (March-May 1934 Wonder Stories), "Islands of the Sun" (September-October 1935 Astounding); "The Blue Spot" (January-February 1937 Astounding) and The Fortress of Utopia (November 1939 Startling; 1998); and in his later career he concentrated even more heavily on longer forms. Some of these tales – perhaps most noticeably The Green Girl and Golden Blood – display a crude narrative brio, adaptability to various markets, vivid characters, and inklings of higher ambitions. His output over the first decade of his career fills the first five of the eight volumes of The Collected Stories of Jack Williamson, which includes the novel-length tales; the sequence begins with The Collected Stories of Jack Williamson, Volume 1: The Metal Man and Others (coll 1999) and ends with The Collected Stories of Jack Williamson, Volume 8: At the Human Limit (coll 2011), all expertly edited by Stephen Haffner.

The best of his pre-World War Two work was probably the Legion of Space series, which initially comprised The Legion of Space (April-September 1934 Astounding; rev 1947) and The Cometeers (coll 1950); for a breakdown of Legion of Space titles, including The Queen of the Legion (1983), a very late and significantly less energetic addendum, see Checklist. Directly inspired by Alexandre Dumas's The Three Musketeers (1844), the series depicts the far-flung, Universe-shaking, Space-Opera adventures of four buccaneering soldiers. Giles Habibula, the most original of the lot – whose character interestingly harks back not only to Dumas's Porthos but also to Rabelais and to William Shakespeare's Falstaff – became a frequently used model for later sf life-loving grotesques, including Poul Anderson's Nicholas van Rijn. More or less unaided, they save the human worlds from threats both internal and external in conjunction with the woman (see Women in SF) whose hereditary role it is to guard from evil a doomsday Weapon called AKKA. The influence of E E "Doc" Smith's Lensman saga can also be felt throughout; and Williamson's relative incapacity to impart a sense of brute scale was perhaps balanced by a very much greater gift for characterization. Of equal interest, perhaps, was the title novel of The Legion of Time (coll 1952; vt Two Complete Novels: After World's End; The Legion of Time 1963), containing The Legion of Time (May-July 1938 Astounding; cut 1961) plus the unrelated After World's End (February 1939 Marvel Science Stories; 1961). Despite the similarity of title The Legion of Time is unrelated to the Legion of Space sequence. It is one of the earliest and most ingenious Time Operas, involving complex Time Paradoxes and other turns, in which conflicting Alternate Worlds battle through time in an extensive and complicated Changewar, each trying to ensure its own existence and deny its opponent's; the fulcrum around which the conflict wages, the moment where one or another world is made possible, focuses on John Barr, who as a small boy either picks up a Magnet, whose influence upon him makes the world known as Jonbar possible, or picks up a pebble, fades into obscurity, and the world known as Gyronchi is made possible. A toggle of this nature has come commonly to be known as a Jonbar Point or Jonbar Hinge, and eventually inspired one of the most penetrating studies yet written about a pulp-sf novel, Brian W Aldiss's "Judgement at Jonbar" (Spring 1964 SF Horizons).

By the 1940s, however, John W Campbell Jr's Golden Age of SF had begun, and Williamson was suddenly an old-timer. All the same, though he did not much participate in its inception, he did adapt to the new world with commendable speed, and by the end of the decade had published what will probably remain his most significant work, becoming recognized during this period as one of the central authors of Genre SF. A transitional series – the Seetee Antimatter tales – came first: Seetee Ship (July and November 1942, January-February 1943 Astounding; fixup 1951) and Seetee Shock (February-April 1949 Astounding; 1950), both published as by Will Stewart; eventually assembled as Seetee Ship/Seetee Shock (omni 1971; vt Seetee 1979), and designed to be read in the original magazine order. In the sequence, the world is confronted with the engineering challenge of coping with the Antimatter that is found to make up part of the Asteroid belt, and harnessing it as a safe Power Source; more smoothly told than its predecessors, the series still unchallengingly presents its asteroid miners and their crises in the old fashion, with a great deal of action but little insight. Its success led to Williamson's creation of a Comic strip, Beyond Mars, which ran for three years in the New York Daily News.

Far more significant was Darker Than You Think (December 1940 Unknown; exp 1948), a remarkable speculative novel about lycanthropy and other forms of Shapeshifting which early presented the thesis that Werewolves are genetic throwbacks to a species cognate with Homo sapiens (see Supernatural Creatures). Also in the 1940s Williamson published his most famous and respected sequence, the Humanoids series: "With Folded Hands ..." (July 1947 Astounding), The Humanoids (March-May 1948 Astounding as "... And Searching Mind"; rev 1949) – both assembled as The Humanoids (coll of linked stories 1980) – and The Humanoid Touch (1980) [for further details see Checklist]. Once again early in the genre's timetable of speculative insights, the series confronted the near impossibility of assessing the pluses and minuses of a humanoid (i.e., AI-driven) hegemony over the world, however benevolent. In The Humanoids itself it is suggested that humanity's new masters, driven by their Prime Directive, are contriving to force people to transcend their condition; in The Humanoid Touch this ambiguity is lost for, at the end of the Galaxy, long hence, the euphoria induced by humanity's keepers is impossible to perceive while being presented as mandatory.

In the early 1950s – at a point when younger writers in the field were thinking of him as an old master from the beginnings of genre time – Williamson began to suffer from a writer's block which he did not fully escape for more than two decades, though he continued to produce novels of interest like Dragon's Island (1951; vt The Not-Men 1968; exp as coll Dragon's Island and Other Stories 2002), whose presentation of Genetic Engineering once again conceals a prescient numeracy under a bluff, slightly archaic narrative style. Much of his new work during this period was collaborative, and the continued modernizing of his techniques and concerns can be seen as an ongoing demonstration of his remarkable willingness to learn from the world and from others. Star Bridge (1955) with James E Gunn was no more than competent Space Opera, but Williamson's ongoing partnership with Frederik Pohl was of more interest, though always problematic: the effects of their collaboration did not seem entirely comfortable. Their first sequence, the Jim Eden/Undersea series of juveniles – Undersea Quest (1954), Undersea Fleet (1956) and Undersea City (1958), all three assembled as The Undersea Trilogy (omni 1992) – was routine. The second, the Starchild tales – The Reefs of Space (1964), Starchild (1965) and Rogue Star (1969), assembled as The Starchild Trilogy (omni 1977) – also fails to combine space opera and Metaphysics convincingly as it traces the problematic epic of humanity's Evolution into a mature planet-spanning species (see Living Worlds). The Cuckoo series – Farthest Star (fixup 1975) and Wall Around a Star (1983), the latter two assembled as The Saga of Cuckoo (omni 1983) – does not quite succeed in bringing to life its cosmogonic premises or its Linguistic concerns. On the other hand, Land's End (1988) is an enjoyable singleton, featuring a planet-threatening Disaster: a Comet destroys the ozone layer and humanity seeks refuge Under the Sea. The Singers of Time (1991) about a non-violent Invasion of Earth, is also strong.

In the 1950s Williamson embarked on a second career at Eastern New Mexico University, where he took a BA in English and an MA with an unpublished 1957 thesis, "A Study of the Sense of Prophecy in Modern Science Fiction"; he then took a PhD with the University of Colorado in 1964 on H G Wells's early sf, and expanded his thesis into H.G. Wells: Critic of Progress (August 1967-August 1969 Riverside Quarterly; 1973), a book which, despite some methodological clumsiness, valuably examines Wells's complex engagement with the idea of progress and of the World State. He taught the modern novel and literary criticism until his retirement in 1977, being at the same time deeply involved in promoting sf as an academic subject (see SF in the Classroom). In 1973 Williamson received a Pilgrim Award for his academic work relating to sf.

In the meanwhile he began slowly to enter the Indian summer of his writing career, though novels like The Moon Children (1972) and The Power of Blackness (fixup 1976) are surprisingly insecure and the series continuations (see above) lack the force of their models. For some time it seemed that his old age would demonstrate a slow – even though technically productive – decline. But The Best of Jack Williamson (coll 1978) again demonstrated his early strengths, and although Brother to Demons, Brother to Gods (coll of linked stories 1979) was weak, Williamson began in the 1980s to produce work of an astonishing youthfulness. Manseed (1982) uses a space-opera format to investigate, with renewed freshness, the imaginative potential of Genetic Engineering. The Lifeburst sequence – comprising Lifeburst (1984), an exercise in interstellar Realpolitik, grim and engrossing in its depiction of the parcelling out of Earth, sophisticated in its presentation of sexual material; and Mazeway (1990), which has a Young Adult tone through its vivid presentation of the eponymous galactic test that the young protagonists must pass to render humanity eligible for higher things – was various and astonishingly vigorous. Firechild (1986) generates a rhetoric of Transcendence – very much in the fashion of the 1980s – out of developments in Biology. Into the Eighth Decade (coll 1990) serves as a brief resumé of Williamson's post-World War Two career. Beachhead (1992) describes an expedition to a Mars according to contemporary knowledge, although the plot itself is redolent of a much earlier era. Despite its title, Demon Moon (1994) is also – highly coloured – sf, though the tone is Equipoisal between sf and fantasy. The Black Sun (1997), on the other hand, mixes Hard SF and Space Opera: a human Starship is caught by a Black Hole, and discovers artefacts hinting at a Forerunner civilization; and Terraforming Earth (2001), which won a John W Campbell Memorial Award, reworks the concept of Terraforming from the Seetee sequence (Williamson is credited with coining the word in 1942). He continued as well to publish short fiction of merit, "The Ultimate Earth" (December 2000 Analog) winning Hugo and Nebula awards for best novella; and (though work continued to appear through 2007) supplied a touching coda to his long career with The Man from Somewhere (October/November 2003 Asimov's; 2005 chap), a tale whose title deliberately echoes that of The Girl from Mars, his first separate work, seventy-six years earlier.

Williamson was an sf writer of substance for over seventy years, as commemorated in Seventy-Five: The Diamond Anniversary of a Science Fiction Pioneer – Jack Williamson (coll 2004) and in The Worlds of Jack Williamson: A Centennial Tribute (1908-2008) (coll 2008). In his work and in his life he encompassed the field. In 1976 he was given the second SFWA Grand Master Award (his sole predecessor was Robert A Heinlein); in 1994 he received the World Fantasy Award for lifetime achievement. He was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame on its inauguration in 1996. For many, his death served as a symbolic marker of the end of the twentieth-century sf genre, which had begun when he began. [JC]

John Stewart Williamson

born Bisbee, Arizona Territory: 29 April 1908

died Portales, New Mexico: 10 November 2006

works

series

Legion of Space

The Legion of Space (Reading, Pennsylvania: Fantasy Press, 1947) [early version April-September 1934 Astounding: Legion of Space: hb/A J Donnell]
The Cometeers (Reading, Pennsylvania: Fantasy Press, 1950) [coll: including the title novel: early version appeared May-August 1936 Astounding: plus "One Against the Legion": first appeared April-June 1939 Astounding: Legion of Space: hb/Edd Cartier]
- The Cometeers (New York: Pyramid Books, 1967) [cut version of the above: containing title novel only: Legion of Space: pb/Jack Gaughan]
- One Against the Legion (New York: Pyramid Books, 1967) [cut version of the above as coll: adding a new novella, "Nowhere Near": Legion of Space: pb/Jack Gaughan]
- Three from the Legion (Garden City, New York: Nelson Doubleday, 1979) [omni of the above two: plus "Nowhere Near": Legion of Space: hb/Jack Woolhiser]
The Queen of the Legion (New York: Pocket Books/Timescape, 1983) [Legion of Space: pb/Kevin Eugene Johnson]

Humanoids

The Humanoids (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1949) [first version appeared March-May 1948 Astounding as "... And Searching Mind": Humanoids: hb/Leo Manso]
- The Humanoids (New York: Avon Books, 1980) [exp of the above as coll of linked stories: adding "With Folded Hands ..." (July 1947 Astounding): Humanoids: pb/Michael Presley]
The Humanoid Touch (Huntington Woods, Michigan: Phantasia Press, 1980) [Humanoids: hb/Ed Valigursky]

Seetee

Seetee Shock (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1950) as by Will Stewart [first appeared February-April 1949 Astounding: Seetee: hb/Edward R Collins]
Seetee Ship (New York: Gnome Press, 1951) as by Will Stewart [Seetee: hb/Edd Cartier]
- Seetee Ship/Seetee Shock (New York: Lancer Books, 1972) [omni of the above two: Seetee: pb/Jeff Jones]
  - Seetee (New York: HBJ/Jove, 1979) [omni: vt of the above: Seetee: pb/Walter Velez]

Jim Eden/Undersea

Undersea Quest (New York: Gnome Press, 1954) with Frederik Pohl [Jim Eden/Undersea: hb/Ed Emshwiller]
Undersea Fleet (New York: Gnome Press, 1956) with Frederik Pohl [Jim Eden/Undersea: hb/Ed Emshwiller]
Undersea City (Hicksville, New York: Gnome Press, 1958) with Frederik Pohl [Jim Eden/Undersea: hb/Wallace Wood]
- The Undersea Trilogy (New York: Baen Books, 1992) with Frederik Pohl [omni of the above three: Jim Eden/Undersea: hb/David Mattingly]

Starchild

The Reefs of Space (New York: Ballantine Books, 1964) with Frederik Pohl [Starchild: pb/Jacques Wyrs]
Starchild (New York: Ballantine Books, 1965) with Frederik Pohl [Starchild: pb/Bill Edwards]
Rogue Star (New York: Ballantine Books, 1969) with Frederik Pohl [Starchild: pb/Paul Lehr]
- The Starchild Trilogy (New York: Science Fiction Book Club, 1977) with Frederik Pohl [omni of the above three: Starchild: hb/Garvy Viskupic]

Cuckoo

Farthest Star (New York: Ballantine Books, 1975) with Frederik Pohl [fixup/coll of linked stories: first appeared as "Doomship", March-April 1973 If, and "The Org's Egg", April-June 1974 Galaxy: Cuckoo: hb/Philip Perlman]
Wall Around a Star (New York: Ballantine Books/Del Rey, 1983) with Frederik Pohl [Cuckoo: hb/David B Mattingly]
- The Saga of Cuckoo (Garden City, New York: Nelson Doubleday, 1983) with Frederik Pohl [omni of the above two: Cuckoo: hb/Kevin Johnson]

Lifeburst

Lifeburst (New York: Ballantine Books/Del Rey, 1984) [Lifeburst: hb/Don Dixon]
Mazeway (New York: Ballantine Books/Del Rey, 1990) [Lifeburst: hb/Don Dixon]

Beyond Mars

Beyond Mars: The Complete Series 1952-1955 (San Diego, California: IDW Publishing, 2015) [coll: graph: collects cartoon strips first appearing in New York Daily News: Beyond Mars: illus/hb/Lee Elias]
- Beyond Mars (Royal Oak, Michigan: Haffner Press, 2016) [coll: graph: adds one strip omitted from the above: Beyond Mars: illus/hb/Lee Elias]

individual titles

Darker Than You Think (Reading, Pennsylvania: Fantasy Press, 1948) [early version first appeared December 1940 Unknown: hb/A J Donnell]
The Green Girl (New York: Avon Books, 1950) [first appeared March 1930 Amazing: pb/uncredited]
Dragon's Island (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1951) [hb/S Robins]
- The Not-Men (New York: Tower Books, 1968) [vt of the above: pb/uncredited]
- Dragon's Island and Other Stories (Waterville, Maine: Five Star, 2002) [coll: exp of the above as coll: hb/Ken Barr]
The Legion of Time (Reading, Pennsylvania: Fantasy Press, 1952) [coll: containing the title novel, first appeared May-July 1938 Astounding: plus After World's End, first appeared February 1939 Marvel Science Stories: hb/Richard Angerman]
- After World's End (London: Brown, Watson/Digit, 1961) [cut version of the above: containing title novel only: pb/uncredited]
- The Legion of Time (London: Brown, Watson/Digit, 1961) [cut version of the above: containing title novel only: pb/John Pederson, Jr]
- Two Complete Novels: After World's End; The Legion of Time (New York: Galaxy Publishing Corp/Magabooks, 1963) [coll: vt of the above: pb/Ed Emshwiller]
Dome Around America (New York: Ace Books, 1953) [dos: early version July 1941 Startling as "Gateway to Paradise": pb/Ed Valigursky]
Star Bridge (New York: Gnome Press, 1955) with James E Gunn [hb/Mel Hunter]
The Trial of Terra (New York: Ace Books, 1962) ["based" on earlier Quarantine stories, including "Man Down", March 1952 Astounding: pb/Ed Emshwiller]
Golden Blood (New York: Lancer Books, 1964) [first appeared April-September 1933 Weird Tales: pb/Ed Emshwiller]
The Reign of Wizardry (New York: Lancer Books, 1964) [first version appeared March-May 1940 Unknown: pb/Frank Frazetta]
- The Reign of Wizardry (Huntington Woods, Michigan: Phantasia Press, 1979) [rev of the above: hb/Stephen Fabian]
Bright New Universe (New York: Ace Books, 1967) [pb/John Schoenherr]
Trapped in Space (Garden City, New York: Doubleday and Company, 1968) [hb/Robert Amundsen]
The Moon Children (New York: G P Putnam's Sons, 1972) [first appeared July/August-November/December 1971 Galaxy: hb/Paul Lehr]
The Power of Blackness (New York: Berkley Publishing Corporation/Putnam, 1976) [hb/Paul Lehr]
The Birth of a New Republic (New Orleans, Louisiana: PDA Press, 1981) with Miles J Breuer [chap: each page containing circa 2000 words: first appeared Winter [ie January] 1931 Amazing Stories Quarterly: pb/Kenneth Hafer]
Manseed (New York: Ballantine Books, 1982) [hb/Rick Sternbach]
Firechild (New York: Bluejay Books, 1986) [hb/David B Mattingly]
Land's End (New York: Tor, 1988) with Frederik Pohl [hb/Ron Miller]
The Singers of Time (New York: Doubleday Foundation, 1991) with Frederik Pohl [hb/Michael Whelan]
Beachhead (New York: Tor, 1992) [hb/Ron Miller]
Demon Moon (New York: Tor, 1994) [hb/Darrell K Sweet]
The Black Sun (New York: Tor, 1997) [hb/Ron Miller]
The Fortress of Utopia (New York: Gryphon Books, 1998) [first appeared November 1939 Startling: pb/Ron Turner]
The Stone from the Green Star (New York: Gryphon Books, 1999) [first appeared October-November 1931 Amazing: pb/Ron Turner]
The Silicon Dagger (New York: Tor, 1999) [hb/The Chopping Block]
Terraforming Earth (New York: Tor, 2001) [hb/Stephan Martinière]
The Stonehenge Gate (New York: Tor, 2005) [first appeared January-April 2005 Analog: hb/John Harris]
The Angel From Hell (Medford, Oregon: Armchair Fiction, 2023) [dos: first appeared December 1939 Marvel Tales as by Nils O Sonderlund: pb/uncredited]

collections and stories

series

The Collected Stories

The Collected Stories of Jack Williamson, Volume 1: The Metal Man and Others (Royal Oak, Michigan: Haffner Press, 1999) [coll: intro by Hal Clement: contains The Green Girl and The Birth of a New Republic: plus seven additional stories originally published 1928-1931: Collected Stories: hb/Frank R Paul]
The Collected Stories of Jack Williamson, Volume 2: Wolves of Darkness (Royal Oak, Michigan: Haffner Press, 1999) [coll: intro by Harlan Ellison: contains The Stone from the Green Star: plus nine additional stories originally published 1931-1932: Collected Stories: hb/Wesso]
The Collected Stories of Jack Williamson, Volume 3: Wizard's Isle (Royal Oak, Michigan: Haffner Press, 2000) [coll: intro by Ray Bradbury: contains stories originally published 1932-1935: Collected Stories: hb/Margaret Brundage]
The Collected Stories of Jack Williamson, Volume 4: Spider Island (Royal Oak, Michigan: Haffner Press, 2002) [coll: intro by Edward Bryant: contains The Legion of Time: plus ten additional stories originally published 1936-1938: Collected Stories: hb/Rudolph Belarski]
The Collected Stories of Jack Williamson, Volume 5: The Crucible of Power (Royal Oak, Michigan: Haffner Press, 2006) [coll: intro by Frank M Robinson: contains After World's End and The Fortress of Utopia: plus ten additional stories originally published 1938-1940: Collected Stories: hb/Hubert Rogers]
The Collected Stories of Jack Williamson, Volume 6: Gateway to Paradise (Royal Oak, Michigan: Haffner Press, 2008) [coll: contains The Reign of Wizardry plus nine additional stories originally published 1940-1941: Collected Stories: hb/Rudolph Belarski]
The Collected Stories of Jack Williamson, Volume 7: With Folded Hands ... And Searching Mind (Royal Oak, Michigan: Haffner Press, 2010) [coll: intro by Robert Silverberg: contains two original tales later rewritten into the Humanoids sequence: plus thirteen additional stories originally published 1941-1958: Collected Stories: hb/Hubert Rogers]
The Collected Stories of Jack Williamson, Volume 8: At the Human Limit (Royal Oak, Michigan: Haffner Press, 2011) [coll: intro by Connie Willis: contains The Man from Somewhere: plus thirty-four additional stories originally published 1959-2007: Collected Stories: hb/Hubert Rogers]

individual titles

The Girl from Mars (New York: Stellar Publishing Corporation, 1929) with Miles J Breuer [novelette: chap: in the publisher's Science Fiction Series: illus/Frank R Paul: pb/nonpictorial]
- The Girl from Mars (New York: Gryphon Books, 1998) [story: chap: dos: reissue of the above with new introduction by Williamson: pb/Alfred Klosterman]
The Pandora Effect (New York: Ace Books, 1969) [coll: pb/C Gross]
People Machines (New York: Ace Books, 1971) [coll: pb/Enrich]
The Early Williamson (Garden City, New York: Doubleday and Company, 1976) [coll: hb/Gary Friedman]
Dreadful Sleep (Chicago, Illinois: Robert Weinberg, 1977) [first appeared March-May 1938 Weird Tales: Lost Fantasies: pb/Marcus Boas]
The Best of Jack Williamson (New York: Ballantine Books/Del Rey, 1978) [coll: pb/Ralph McQuarrie]
Brother to Demons, Brother to Gods (Indianapolis, Indiana: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1979) [coll of linked stories: hb/Jack Ribik]
The Alien Intelligence (New Orleans, Louisiana: PDA Enterprises, 1980) [coll: chap [large pages]: the title story is close to novel-length: pb/Ken Hafer]
- The Alien Intelligence (Medford, Oregon: Armchair Fiction, 2013) [dos: title story only from the above: first appeared July-August 1929 Wonder Stories: pb/Lawrence Sterne Stevens as Lawrence]
Into the Eighth Decade (Eugene, Oregon: Pulphouse Publishing, 1990) [coll: in the publisher's Author's Choice Monthly series: hb/George Barr]
The Prince of Space (New York: Gryphon Books, 1998) [dos: first appeared January 1931 Amazing: bound with reissue of The Girl from Mars above: pb/Alfred Klosterman]
The Ruler of Fate/Xandulu (New York: Gryphon Books, 1999) [coll: the second story is close to novel-length: pb/Ron Turner]
The Iron God (New York: Gryphon Books, 1999) [novelette: chap: dos: first appeared April 1941 Marvel Stories (see Marvel Science Stories): pb/Alfred Klosterman]
The Blue Spot and Entropy Reversed (New York: Gryphon Books, 2000) [coll: pb/Ron Turner]
Seventy-Five: The Diamond Anniversary of a Science Fiction Pioneer – Jack Williamson (Royal Oak, Michigan: Haffner Press, 2004) [coll: fiction and nonfiction: hb/Chris Kalb]
The Man from Somewhere (Portales, New Mexico: Cacahuete Press, 2005) [novelette: chap: first appeared October/November 2003 Asimov's: pb/nonpictorial]
The Wolves of Darkness (no place given: Wonder Audiobooks, 2007) [story: ebook: firs appeared January 1932 Strange Tales of Mystery and Terror: na/]
The Cosmic Express (no place given: Project Gutenberg, 2008) [story: ebook: first appeared November 1930 Amazing: na/]
Through the Purple Cloud (no place given: Wonder Audiobooks, 2008) [story: ebook: first appeared May 1931 Wonder Stories: na/]
The Worlds of Jack Williamson: A Centennial Tribute (1908-2008) (Royal Oak, Michigan: Haffner Press, 2008) [coll: fiction and nonfiction: hb/Vincent Di Fate]
The Doom from Planet 4 (no place given: Wonder Audiobooks, 2009) [story: ebook: first appeared July 1931 Astounding: na/]
The Pygmy Planet (no place given: Project Gutenberg, 2009) [story: ebook: first appeared February 1932 Astounding: na/]
Salvage in Space (no place given: Project Gutenberg, 2009) [story: ebook: first appeared March 1933 Astounding: na/]
Hocus-Pocus Universe (Medford, Oregon: Armchair Fiction, 2012) [dos: first appeared October 1953 Science Stories: pb/Hannes Bok]
The Lady of Light (Medford, Oregon: Armchair Fiction, 2016) [dos: first appeared September 1932 Amazing Stories: pb/Lawrence Sterne Stevens as Lawrence]
The Masked World (no place given: Project Gutenberg, 2016) [story: ebook: first appeared October 1963 Worlds of Tomorrow: na/]
Mistress of Machine-Age Madness (Medford, Oregon: Armchair Fiction, 2018) [dos: first appeared May 1940 Marvel Tales as by Nils O Sonderlund: pb/]

nonfiction (selected)

Science Fiction Comes to College: A Preliminary Survey of Courses Offered (Portales, New Mexico: Jack Williamson, 1971) [nonfiction: chap: pb/]
- Science Fiction Comes to College: A Preliminary Survey of Courses Offered (Portales, New Mexico: Jack Williamson, 1971) [nonfiction: chap: exp of the above: pb/]
  - Science Fiction in College: A Survey of Courses Offered (Portales, New Mexico: Jack Williamson, 1971) [nonfiction: chap: exp vt of the above: further revised editions were issued: they are not listed here: pb/]
Teaching SF (Portales, New Mexico: Jack Williamson, 1972) [nonfiction: chap: further revised editions were issued: they are not listed here: pb/]
H G Wells: Critic of Progress (Baltimore, Maryland: Mirage Press, 1973) [nonfiction: H G Wells: hb/Greg Bear]
Wonder's Child: My Life in Science Fiction (New York: Bluejay Books, 1984) [nonfiction: hb/Kevin Eugene Johnson]

works as editor

Teaching Science Fiction: Education for Tomorrow (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Owlswick Press, 1980) [nonfiction: anth: hb/Don Simpson]

about the author

Sam Moskowitz. "Jack Williamson" in Seekers of Tomorrow: Masters of Modern Science Fiction (Cleveland, Ohio: World Publishing Co, 1966) [nonfiction: coll: hb/]
Gordon Benson Jr. Jack (John Stewart) Williamson, Child and Father of Wonder (Leeds, West Yorkshire: Galactic Central Publications, 1985) [bibliography: chap: second edition: in the publisher's Bibliographies for the Avid Reader series: pb/nonpictorial]
Richard A Hauptmann. The Work of Jack Williamson: An Annotated Bibliography and Guide (Framingham, Massachusetts: The NESFA Press, 1998) [bibliography/essay: hb/nonpictorial]
Stephen Haffner, editor. In Memory of Wonder's Child: Jack Williamson: April 29, 1908-November 10, 2006 (Royal Oak, Michigan: Haffner Press, 2007) [nonfiction: anth: pb/]

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