FPW Works
The Secret History of the World
The preponderance of my work deals with a history of the world that remains undiscovered, unexplored, and unknown to most of humanity. Some of this secret history has been revealed in the Adversary Cycle, some in the Repairman Jack novels, and bits and pieces in other, seemingly unconnected works. Taken together, even these millions of words barely scratch the surface of what has been going on behind the scenes, hidden from the workaday world. I've listed them below in chronological order. (NB: "Year Zero" is the end of civilization as we know it; "Year Zero Minus One is the year preceding it, etc.)
The Past:
- "Demonsong" (prehistory)
- "Aryans and Absinthe" (1923-1924)
- BLACK WIND (1926-1945)
- THE KEEP (1941)
- REBORN (Feb-Mar 1968)
- "Dat Tay Vao" (Mar 1968)
- JACK: Secret Histories (1983)
Year Zero Minus Three:
- SIBS (February)
- "Faces" (early summer)
- THE TOMB (summer)*
- "The Barrens" (ends in September)
- "A Day in the Life" (October)
- "The Long Way Home"
- LEGACIES (December)
Year Zero Minus Two:
- CONSPIRACIES (April) (includes "Home Repairs")
- "Interlude at Duane's" (April)
- ALL THE RAGE (May) (includes "The Last Rakosh")
- HOSTS (June)
- THE HAUNTED AIR (August)
- GATEWAYS (September)
- CRISSCROSS (November)
- INFERNAL (December)
Year Zero Minus One:
- HARBINGERS (January)
- BLOODLINE (April)
- BY THE SWORD (May)
- THE TOUCH (ends in August)
- The Peabody-Ozymandias Traveling Circus & Oddity Emporium (ends in September)
- "Tenants"
- yet-to-be-written Repairman Jack novels
Year Zero:
- "Pelts"
- REPRISAL (ends in February)
- the last Repairman Jack novel (ends in April)
- NIGHTWORLD (starts in May)
*Some of you who read pre-1998 editions of THE TOMB have questioned (and rightfully so) how LEGACIES, so obviously a contemporary novel, could take place only months after THE TOMB, which was definitely set in the mid 1980s.
The answer is simple: I cheated. I changed THE TOMB for the 1998 edition and edited it yet again for the 2006 reissue.
You see, I never planned to bring Jack back. But when I did, I realized I'd either have to set his new stories in the eighties, or go back and change THE TOMB. I chose the latter and removed all references that would moor THE TOMB in a specific era. All editions published since 2006 are what we authors like to call "the preferred text."
All the new Repairman Jack novels loop out from THE TOMB and will weave their way back toward NIGHTWORLD, where the Repairman Jack stories (and just about everything else) end. I don't know how many there'll be at that point, but they won't go on forever. When they stop being fun to write or when I notice I'm starting to repeat myself, I'll quit and move on to something else. Until then . . .
Current Fiction
"F. Paul Wilson's first YA novel is a page-turner-an action-packed
thriller with an awesome teen hero and an ending that will leave
you hungry for more."
Ridley Pearson
The limited edition is sold out, but you can pre-order the regular trade edition hardcover for the ridiculous price of $10.85.
Jack has been on hiatus since the events in Harbingers. With his lover Gia's encouragement he dips a toe back into the fix-it pool.
Christy Pickering’s eighteen-year-old daughter is dating Jerry Bethlehem, a man twice her age. Christy sensed something shady and sinister about him, so she hired a private investigator to look into his past. But the PI isn’t returning her calls. Will Jack find out why?
Jack learns there’s a very good reason for the unreturned calls: The PI is dead, a victim of a bizarre water-torture murder. As Jack delves into Jerry Bethlehem’s past he learns that the man is not who he says he is. Who—and what—he is will have a devastating effect on Jack’s life and future, adding another piece to the puzzle of who he really is and why he’s been drafted into this cosmic shadow war.
I'm very proud of BLACK WIND. Looking at it in terms of character development and sweeping plot, it's probably my most accomplished work. I'm delighted it will be back in print. It's got a high price tag, but it's high-quality bookcraft.
Order Now:
A two-thousand-year-old scroll is found in the Negev Desert. It describes what might be the final resting place of Mary, the mother of Jesus. To the disappointment of all, the ink is dated as less than a dozen years old. A fake. But one woman believes and goes searching. What she finds will change the world – forever.
VIRGIN is a religious thriller of international scope, traipsing through the Judean Wilderness, the shore of the Dead Sea, the River Lee in Ireland, the Lower East Side of Manhattan, Big Sur, and the Central Pacific. It's peopled with various believers and skeptics: a priest and nun who are lovers; a cardinal who has spent his life debunking miracles and is now desperately in need of one; a US Senator with a son dying of AIDS; his vicious chief of security; and Kesev, the mysterious Israeli Shin Bet officer who was derelict in his unofficial life task of guarding the remains of "The Mother" and is determined to retrieve her at any cost.
A trade paperback edition at $16.95. The limited edition hardcover is almost sold out, but the good folks at Borderlands Press have decided to make the novel available to the non-collector at a fraction of the hardcover price. It’s now in large-format paperback.
Heroes don't always
look the part.
He was a tery, a lean, bearish creature with no name.
The human soldiers left dead. Just another dumb animal on their extermination list. But he didn't die.
Animals weren't the only beings on the list. Certain humans were marked for extinction as well.
A fugitive band found him and brought him back from the brink. He became their pet, their mascot. And still he had no name. He was simply "the tery."
He soon learned that these were no ordinary humans, and learned too that he was no ordinary tery. The humans had no idea that the creature they fed table scraps and patted on the head would soon turn their world upside down and change it forever. By then he had a name.
THE TERY - A beauty-and-the-beast fable that only F. Paul Wilson could tell, full of wonder and horror, brimming with strange landscapes and hideous mutations from science run amok. An unforgettable tale of the extremes of the human spirit--of bravery and depravity, of innocence and evil.
A fun Yellow Peril story (with the most lurid title I could think of) originally in RETRO PULP TALES edited by Joe Lansdale.
I inserted a number of cameo appearances by famous characters; if you can’t identify them you are banned for life from reading anything else I write.
Mark of Lavendier Books hit me up at NECon to do a Jack short-short for a broadside. Since I'd never been involved with anything like this before, I knocked out a piece for him.
It's a single large sheet - illustrated with a woodcut - designed to be framed. A very small edition (200) of a very small story (700 words). Might not be any left by the time you read this.
For completist nuts only.
This revision is unique in that I've combined the original short story (in which Vicky is present) with the new material written for ALL THE RAGE (in which Vicky is not). So this should be a new experience.
But be warned: If you've read ALL THE RAGE, you've pretty much read this story.
New large-size, trade paperback editions of the core science fiction novels of the LaNague Federation series (which include all the LaNague short fiction).
THE KEEP
RAKOSHI
(formerly THE TOMB)
THE TOUCH
REBORN
REPRISAL
NIGHTWORLD
Borderlands Press has reprinted the Adversary Cycle in a matching set of limited-edition hardcovers. The six volumes fit into a single large slipcase. There are no titles on the spines, only icons to identity each book. The spines of the books, when lined up in order, form a single large painting that integrates all the icons and wraps around the sides of the slipcase. The set includes the 20th anniversary edition of THE TOMB under my original title, RAKOSHI. Once again I've revised the text and contributed a foreword recounting how the title was changed. Here's a chance to own a hardcover edition for a sensible price.
In The Pipeline
February
SECRET HISTORIES
A 500-copy signed first edition of the first of three Repairman Jack novels for young adults. Scheduled for February.
May
BY THE SWORD
A 500-copy signed first edition of the first of the 12th Repairman Jack novel. Scheduled for spring.
June
JACK: SECRET HISTORIES
The trade hardcover of the 1st young adult RJ novel.
October
BLOODLINE
The paperback edition of the 11th RJ novel November BY THE SWORD - the trade hardcover edition of the 12th RJ novel