Basil Eugene Wells (1912-2003) was a hobbyist SF writer, working at a zipper factory in Pennsylvania for thirty years
as well as farming. He wrote what he wanted, not necessarily what editors asked for. He had that luxury. (I won’t try to summarize his whole career since Richard Simms does it wonderfully here.) SFE calls his stories “workman like” and has little to say about him but as Simms points out Wells was very good at getting inside the skins of alien creatures. He didn’t write for John Campbell’s Golden Age Astounding but for editors like Donald A. Wollheim, Robert Lowndes and Malcolm Reiss at Planet Stories. I find his work fun and his ideas exciting even if it is space opera. I was delighted to learn that he and his wife, Margaret, were friends with Leigh Brackett and Ed Hamilton when they lived in Kinsmen, OH. Leigh selected (quite rightly) “Quest of Thig” for The Best of Planet Stories.
Unlike the other other Mr. Wells, Hal K. Wells, Basil deserves a lot more attention than he received. In fact, that whole Planet Stories crowd, including Vaseleos Garson, J. Harvey Haggard, Henry Kuttner as C. H. Liddell, Fredric Brown and Frank Belknap Long and others, are all part of SF despite what the Astounding snobs say (yes, I mean Lester Del Rey).
1940
“Rebirth of Man” (Super Science Stories, September 1940)
1941
“Biped” (Cosmic Stories, March 1941)
“New Moon” (Cosmic Science Fiction, May 1941)
“Human Mice of Kordar” (Stirring Science Stories, June 1941)
“Factory in the Sky” (Astonishing Stories, September 1941)
“Queen of the Blue World” (Planet Stories, Winter 1941)
1942
“A Matter of Time” (The Fantasite Vol. 2, No. 1, 1942)
“The Giant” (Stirring Science Stories, March 1942)
“The Rebel Slug” (Future Combined with Science Fiction, April 1942)
“Quest of Thig” (Planet Stories, Fall 1942)
“The Half-Man” (Science Fiction Quarterly, Fall 1942)
1943
“The Swift People” (Future Fantasy and Science Fiction, February 1943)
1944
“Quest’s End” (Planet Stories, Spring 1944)
“The Jinx” (Crack Detective Stories, July 1944)
“Prison Rock” (Double Action Western, November 1944)
“The Hairy Ones” (Planet Stories, Winter 1944)
1945
“600 W” (Crack Detective Stories, January 1945)
“Fact and Fantasy” (Crack Detective Stories, July 1945)
“Raiders of the Second Moon” (Planet Stories, Summer 1945) as Gene Ellerman
1946
“Survival” (Planet Stories, Spring 1946)
“Top it Off With Death” (Ten Detective Aces, June 1946)
“Poison Brown” (Crack Detective Stories, September 1946)
“The Hammer-Mill Horror” (Ten Detective Aces, October 1946)
“Sons of Abrm” (Boojum No. 2, November 1946)
“Fog of the Forgotten” (Planet Stories, Winter 1946)
1947
“Scrambled World” (Planet Stories, Spring 1947)
“Salvage of the Grassy Sea” (Thrilling Western, May 1947)
“Among the Scented Ones” (Planet Stories, Winter 1947)
“Satan Picks a Winner” (10-Story Detective, December 1947)
1948
“Caverns of Ith” (Fantasy Book, Vol. 1, No. 2, 1948)
“Prison Rats” (Fantasy Book, Vol. 1, No. 4, 1948) as Gene Ellerman
“Wall of Darkness” (Fantasy Book, Vol. 1, No. 4, 1948)
“Rat’s Brother” (Crack Detective Stories, May 1948)
“Valkyrie from the Void” (Planet Stories, Fall 1948)
1949
Planets of Adventure, Fantasy Publishing Company Inc., 1949, includes:
“Gateways”
“Animat” (Planet Stories, Spring 1949)
“Crusader” (Fantasy Book, Vol. 1, No. 5, 1949) as Gene Ellerman
“Empire of Dust” (Fantasy Book, Vol. 1, No. 5, 1949)
“The Flesh Eaters” (Space Trails No. 2, 1949(?)
“Queens of Space” (Dawn No. 5, 1949)
1950
“Lure of the Grass Sea” (Western Action, March 1950)
“Power for Darm” (Fantasy Book, No. 6, 1950)
“World of Misters” (Fantasy Book, No. 6, 1950) as Gene Ellerman
“Planet of New Men” (Fantasy Book, No. 7, 1950)
“The Twisted Men” (Fantasy Book, No. 7, 1950) as Gene Ellerman
“Under Martian Sands” (Out of This World Adventures, December 1950)
1951
“A Knight for Miss Merkins” (Fantasy Book, No. 8, 1951)
“The Unseen Nine” (Famous Detective Stories, February 1951)
“The Last Word” (Famous Detective Stories, May 1951)
Doorways to Space, Fantasy Publishing Company Inc., 1951, contains:
“The Sudden Forest”
“Exiles of the Forbidden Planet”
“Conquest”
“Chrysalid”
“The Chair”
“Barren World”
“The Aliens”
“The Elfin Hills”
“Space Woman”
“The Singer”
“Rebellion on Venus”
“Planet of Mist”
“Martyr from Mars”
“The Lurkers of Burm”
“Lord of the Desert Planet”
1952
Sons of Thrane (1952)
“Draftee” (TLMA #5, 1952?)
“A History of Thrane” (TLMA #6, October 1952)
1953
“Monster No More” (Orbit Science Fiction, No. 1, September 1953)
“Shadows in a Void” (poem) (Fantastic Worlds, Fall 1953)
“Zealot” (Fan Warp, Vol. 1, No. 1, 1953)
1954
“All the Angles” (Smashing Detective Stories, September 1954)
“Stalemate” (If, November 1954)
1955
“Ship of the Fog Seas” (Spaceway Science Fiction, April 1955)
“Wired For a Shooting” (Cavalacade, April 1955)
“Red is the Tower” (Smashing Detective Stories, May 1955)
“The Pioneers” (If, June 1955)
“Cop Killer” (Famous Detective Stories, August 1955)
1956
“Cards of Death” (Smashing Detective Stories, January 1956)
“Memorium” (Fantastic Universe, March 1956)
“The Munk Hour” (Science Fiction Quarterly, May 1956)
“Hiding Place” (Smashing Detective Stories, May 1956)
“The Flaw” (Famous Detective Stories, June 1956)
“Hot Mix” (Crack Detective and Mystery Stories, December 1956)
1957
“Blackmail?” (Fast Action Detective and Mystery Stories, August 1957)
“Never Put it in Writing” (Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, August 1957)
“Second Sight” (Fantastic Universe, September 1957)
“Sole Survivor” (Satellite Science Fiction, December 1957)
“Moment of Truth” (Fantastic Universe, December 1957)
“Final Voyage” (Science Fiction Adventures, December 1957)
1959
“Utility Girl” (The Original Science Fiction Stories, May 1959)
1960
“Murder Motel” (Double-Action Detective Stories, May 1960)
1965
“Blind Alley” (If, February 1965)
“The Followers” (If, June 1965)
1966
“Umpty” (Worlds of Tomorrow, March 1966)
1969
“Thud and Blunder, Then and Now, or Now and Then” (The Pulp Era #67, May/August 1967)
1968
“From Distant Earth” (If, January 1968)
“The Soft Shells” (If, July 1968)
1969
“Father Image” (Spaceway Science Fiction, October 1969)
“Blueprint” (Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, December 1969)
1970
“All Brothers Are Men” (If, March 1970)
“Prosthete” (Venture Science Fiction, August 1970)
1971
“Born to Burn” (Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, August 1971)
1974
“The Mini-Books of Basil Wells” (Xenophile #9, December 1974)
1975
“Inside Outhouse” (Weirdbook 9, 1975)
1976
Little Monsters, 1976 includes:
“Gift of U’Thang”
“Axtan of the Kags”
“The Serenity of Hroon”
“Tinikin”
“Tears for a Plast”
Silverskin and Other Little Monsters, 1976, includes:
“Silverskin”
“The Best Laid Plan” (Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, October 1976)
“The Brittle People” (Weirdbook 10, 1976)
1977
“Zulla” (Weirdbook 11, 1977)
“Htaroo” (Weirdbook 12, 1977)
1977
“Shape in the Shadows” (Weirdbook 13, 1978)
1980
“Devil’s Bone Pile” (Skullduggery, No. 2, April 1980)
1982
“Returnee” (Weirdbook 16, 1982)
1988
“They Shoot Back” (Blazing Armadillo Stories, No. 3, August 1988)
“I Remember Planet” (Other Worlds #2, December 1988)
1989
“The Good Neighbors” (Other Worlds #3, July 1989)
1991
“Rubber-Tired Gauntlet” (Weirdbook 26, Autumn 1991)
1992
“The Improbable Vandals” (Space and Time, No. 80, Summer 1992)
“Gift of Life-Gift of Love” (Fantastic Collectibles Magazine, No. 109, 1992)
“Scourge of the Silver Seas” (Fantastic Collectibles Magazine, No. 110, July 1992)
“Ashes” (Fantastic Collectibles Magazine, No. 111, September 1992)
“Man in Limbo” (Fantastic Collectibles Magazine, No. 113, December 1992)
1993
“The Westward Tide” (The Pulp Era #76, 1993)
“No Room” (Fantastic Collectibles Magazine, No. 115, April 1993)
“Other Flesh” (Fantastic Collectibles Magazine, No. 118, September 1993)
1994
“The Laws of Juss” (Expanse, Vol. 1, No. 3, Summer 1994)
“Welcome Back…?” (Fantastic Collectibles Magazine, No. 123, August 1994)
“The Stainers” (Fantastic Collectibles Magazine, No. 124, November 1994)
“Folk Tales” (Fantastic Collectibles Magazine, No. 125, December 1994)
1995
“Starsnow” (Fantastic Collectibles Magazine, No. 128, May 1995)
1997
“The Gift of Life” (The Fifth Di…, March 1997)
“Gateways/Thrane” (The Sixth Sense, November 1997)
“The Golden Age of Scifi ‘Gateways'” (The Sixth Sense, November 1997)
1998
“Starkol” (Fantastic Collectibles Magazine, No. 137, August 1998)
2011
The Basil Wells Omnibus: Planets of Adventure and Doorways to Space (2011)
