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The spaceship landed on the planet Earth to bring it the message of a new religion and a new way of life that would fit the terrestrial barbarians to take their place in the great community of the Galaxy.

Their motives were beyond reproach. Their objectives were honourable. It was not their fault that humanity distrusted their motives, repudiated their objectives – and did its best to drive the missionaries back into space . . .

Honolulu: Port of Call is a unique collection of short stories of the Hawaiian islands brought together by Joe Gores: thirteen tales by legendary writers including Jack London, Herman Melville, W. Somerset Maugham, Robert Louis Stevenson, Joseph Conrad and Joe Gores himself.

Yet these are tales chosen to entertain, rather than literary gems. They paint a picture of a Hawaii before the high-rise buildings went up; an era of missionaries and merchants, sailors and whalers, of the drama of East meeting West before, finally, urbanisation and the tourist buck killed off the Polynesian way of life almost completely.

Gores brings us a flavour of that lost way of life; a breath of the romance that still draws Western visitors to the islands in search of the exotic and, perhaps, of an innocence long lost.

Seventeen of writer Michael Bishop’s favorite stories were handpicked from his previously uncollected works to create this compelling collection, providing an excellent overview of a career that includes award-winning science fiction, horror, fantasy, satire, space opera, and mystery. In “A Tapestry of Little Murders, ” a murderer attempts to escape along a literal road to self-destruction. A medical missionary, tortured by government thugs, reveals her dying wish in “With a Little Help from Her Friends.” In “The Procedure, ” an operation to remove a tumorous growth will hopefully excise from the patient’s mind and body all tendencies toward faith and superstition. From futuristic mystery and Vietnam-era dark fantasy to theological speculation on Christ’s death, a variety of lyrical voices speak through these haunting stories. An essay by the author divulges the genesis of each story.

In the aftermath of World War II, 8-year-old Luellen Enright is orphaned and shipped to San Francisco and the care of a covetous aunt, over-friendly uncle, and adolescent male cousins.
Her only friend is a neighbor boy-the sickly and eccentric “Chickweed”, who writes in his “Book of Dreams” and makes home movies. Lulu suffers indignities and all manner of abuse, is finally accused of murder, and sent to juvenile detention.
Years later Lulu sets out to reclaim what was taken from her-a priceless Sung vase left by her missionary father, baldly stolen by her aunt.
One of four Jack Vance mystery novels which never found a mainstream publisher, The View from Chickweed’s Window tells in delicate detail the misery of a defenseless child in the hands of unpleasant adults, and cruel older children. In typical style Vance gives us a robust heroine who, rather than crushed by hardship-is instead motivated strongly to restore justice, with a focus on result over scruple!

When Sarah McKensie’s parents are murdered, the young girl is saved by a mother wolf and raised in the pack. Part Mowgli, part Tarzan of the Apes, Sarah becomes the Wild Angel of the Sierras, rescuing those in need, while eluding her parents’ killer, a man who still wants to see her dead.

An amazing young savage, Sarah lives with the wolves, hunts with the wolves, fights for dominance in the pack. She watches people from a distance, but she does not think of herself as one of them. She belongs to the pack. How can such a child be reclaimed for civilization?

Sarah’s struggle for survival brings together a fascinating assortment of characters: Max Phillips, who found her parents’ bodies and never gave up the search for the missing child; Audrey North, Sarah’s aunt, who wants nothing more than to find her niece; and, ultimately, a young Temperance missionary, Professor Serunca’s travelling circus, and a mysterious itinerant fortune-teller named Gitana.