From Publishers WeeklyLove gets sealed with the sacrifice of a finger, monsters roam high school hallways and invisible dwarves function as angels of death on a city bus: the fantastical intertwines with the quotidian in James Van Pelt's Strangers and Beggars. The 17 stories, divided into four sections (Teaching, Love, Death, Time), contemplate modern dystopias, offering, in the words of Bruce Holland Rogers's introduction, stories of "things gone very wrong" that still manage to feel uplifting not "new maps of hell... [but] new maps out of hell..Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. From BooklistForeboding stories rarely have upbeat endings, but Van Pelt's do. Edgy and usually creepy, they characteristically let a little light flicker at the end of their dark trajectories because Van Pelt thinks that people can, though they may not, solve their problems. When a teacher is finally caught by the immense spider that no one will remove from her classroom, she begins seeing her new situation as an opening to transcendence. When a businessman of the future doffs the "specs" that keep him perpetually tapped into the markets long enough for a tete-a-tete with his fiancee, he broaches, albeit unawares, the possibility that he can overcome his "infodiction." When Van Pelt re-presents Wells' Time Machine from the point of view of the Eloi girl who becomes attached to the time traveler, he leaves her figuring out how the Eloi can protect themselves from the Morlocks. A refreshingly optimistic bunch of sf-inflected horror tales, all seductive or at least charming, with a futuristic baseball yarn as a delightful comic capper. Ray OlsonCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Jim Van Pelt's first collection, Strangers and Beggars, was voted one of the Best Books of 2003 by the American Library Association. Now, in this new collection, Van Pelt continues to explore the ever-changing boundaries of science fiction, fantasy and horror. The Last of the O-Forms is an important collection filled with stories that transport us to far-flung worlds and to the harder-to-find inner worlds that define the human condition.From BooklistIn the stories of Van Pelt's Strangers and Beggars (2002), civilization as we know it may have gone to smash, but for the characters, tomorrow is still another day. Same here. In the title story, a menagerie of mutant animals is losing business because humans are mutating, too, and don't want to be reminded; on the other hand, humans are mutating, too, so . . . In "A Flock of Birds," perhaps 50,000 people remain in the U.S. after a big biowar, but some other creatures are unaffected--and more. The ghost story "Do Good," about a high-school assistant principal nearing retirement, skirts the maudlin to become heartwarming. Three futuristic crime tales, three stories of sports and games to come, a Lovecraft pastiche set in the Old West, a couple of yarns--one sf, the other a ghost story--spun out of classic movies, and three more stories are just as satisfying for their realistically developed milieus and actions as for their surprises and ironies. They're colorful and flavorful, too: terrific stories. Ray OlsonCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reservedReviewA supple, inventive, and ambitious writer who handles any genre with expert ease -- Gardner Dozois, editor of The Year's Best SF

Mixing straightforward science fiction ideas, such as the search for habitable planets, the terra-forming of Venus, and a time-traveling substitute teacher, along with fantasy concepts, such as saving the Earth from nuclear destruction through supernatural sacrifice, a teen werewolf agoning over attending prom on the night of the full moon, or a young boy who denies his polio by listening to a radio magician, to tales of horror where a pair of fathers have both lost sons, or an inn so vast that a man may never find his wife, The Radio Magician and Other Stories showcases James Van Pelt’s wide-ranging talent as a tale spinner of the fantastic.

James Van Pelt’s fourth story collection Flying in the Heart of the Lafayette Escadrille offers a carnival of science fiction, fantasy and horror tales. Hang on as you fly a WWI fighter plane hanging in a singles’ bar, ride a dragon from a troubled-man’s past, run genetically engineered world record marathons, see Tokyo Rose and the ghost of a romance past, read books before they turn to stone, run with wolves who will not let you go, conduct alien abductions, and swim in a lake of childhood regrets. Van Pelt’s wide-ranging imagination promises a surprise at every turn, taking you into the very heart of your dreams and fears.

What would you do if you controlled powers that were once attributed to gods? What if what you had heard was right: sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic? High school student Peter Van Meer finds an impossible treasure that seems too good to be true. Now, he must work with his two best friends to unlock its secrets before it threatens to spill out its unknown dangers into the world. Chased by the police, the FBI, and men in blue suits, they soon realize that Peter's discovery is much, much more than they bargained for.

When a plague wipes out most of humanity, fifteen-year-old Eric sets out to find his father. Sixty years later, Eric starts another long journey in an America that has long since quit resembling our own, but there are shadows everywhere. Shadows of what the world once was, and shadows from Eric’s past. Blood bandits, wolves, fire, feral children, and an insane militia are only a few of the problems Eric faces. Set in Denver, Colorado and the western foothills, Van Pelt’s first novel is both a coming-of-age tale, and a story of an old man’s search for hope in the midst of disaster. Eric’s two adventures lead him through a slice of modern America and into the depths of one man’s heart.