Jack Alcott has just published a novel, GRIM LEGION, about two of Richmond's most famous sons -- the Poe brothers, Edgar and Henry.

At least three novels and one non-fiction book have been published this year about Poe. But Alcott's GRIM LEGION was the first, published in February 2006 in the online magazine BewilderingStories.com, where you can still read it.

His just-published trade paperback also is the only one with Henry Poe as a main character. Henry, who died of consumption and alcoholism at the age of 24 (and in Poe's arms), had penned 20 short stories that he published in Southern literary journals before his more famous brother wrote a single tale of terror.

The novel is published by Bewildering Press, the offspring of Bewildering Stories.com. Four other novels are scheduled for release soon under the new imprint, which is based in Moses Lake, Washington, halfway between Seattle and Spokane.

Bewildering Press's forthcoming paperbacks span several genres, including mystery, fantasy and science fiction.

It all started with the Bewildering Stories webzine, founded in 2002 by Jerry Wright and Don Webb as an online showcase for new writers. Wright and Webb initially published science fiction stories overlooked by magazines such as Analog and Asimov's.

 Webb, a college professor who teaches French language and literature, and Wright, a computer network consultant who teaches electrical- technology classes, share a lifelong love of science fiction and met in the Analog magazine's online forum.

"Both Don and I got hooked by Robert A. Heinlein, both with 'Rocketship Galileo', and both at the age of 9," Wright said of their boyhood fandom at the apogee of science fiction's Golden Age.

They started the webzine after questioning whether magazines such as "Analog" and "Asimov's" were printing all the best stories. "For many reasons, too few magazines are printing science fiction these days," Webb said. "The public sees in print only what's funneled through a handful of editors who define the genre as it is today. Such a narrow pipeline risks starving the field of diversity. The consequence may be a narrowing of vision, conformity, and ultimately, stagnation."

Bewildering Stories set out to remedy that situation and soon found its niche, digitally publishing stories that ranged in quality from downright awful, as Wright puts it, to professional enough for later publication in paper-and-ink magazines.

Wright recalls those heady, frantic early days of publishing the weekly webzine, a task often accomplished with help from their online readers and writers.

"Right after the first issue, I got an email from a fellow that had been frequenting the various forums," Wright said. "His pseudonym on the boards was "The Invincible Spud." As it turned out, "Spud" was just the tech-savvy wunderkind they needed, and he volunteered to redesign the Bewildering Stories.com website, giving it a much-needed kick-start.

Stories were soon streaming in from around the world, and the webzine gained an international following. As Bewildering Stories' reputation grew, Wright and Webb began publishing short stories, essays, poems and novels across a spectrum of genres, from hardcore science fiction to horror and sword-and-sorcery -- and yes, even "literary" fiction, such as Cyrano de Bergerac's classic "The Other World" (or "Voyage to the Moon"). Bewildering Stories' annotated translation is the only complete version in English on the Internet.

Wright credits much of the webzine's success to Webb, who he said worked ceaselessly to make it the preeminent publisher of speculative fiction online.

"Without the yeoman work that Don has done the last four years with editing and web redesign, we wouldn't be anywhere near the magazine we are now," Wright said. "In fact, we probably wouldn't be publishing."

And while Bewildering Stories continues to publish online, Wright and Webb want Bewildering Press to put some of the webzine's best fiction between paperback covers. Judging from the sheer amount of new and archival stories available at the webzine, they have plenty to choose from.

"I think we have more immediately accessible material and a much broader scope," Webb said. "In short, we've become a rather vast online literary journal with science fiction roots."

Their publishing lineup reflects that diversity, and first off the Bewildering Press is Alcott's historical thriller, set in 1830 in the Hudson Valley. But even "Grim Legion" contains elements of classic science fiction in the way it explores the impact of the industrial revolution on the nascent United States -- and on Poe, the failed West Pointer whom many consider the father of American horror, mystery and science fiction writing.

And it was Poe, after all, who wrote about a trip to the moon a good half-century before Jules Verne.

Alcott's novel was first serialized in the Bewildering Stories webzine in February, and is now available in paperback at Barnes & Noble, Amazon.com and at the BewilderingPress.com Website.

Bewildering Press promises to follow up in coming months with several trade paperbacks, including: "Katts and Dawgs" by Roberto Sanhueza, a science fiction fantasy set in the not too distant future when genetically modified and intelligent animals are all that remain of man's legacy.

"Observation One" by Michael E. Lloyd, about visitors from afar seeking to learn truths that are little understood on Earth. The novel is a wry satire on the collision between earth-style politics and the cosmos.

"Gilboy's Quest" by Sam Ivey, the dramatized true adventures of one man's single-handed confrontation with the sea.

"Rhiannon's World" by Rachel Parsons, a fantasy novel about Queen Rhiannon, who faces adversaries in a world of witches, lycanthropes, fairies, sorcerers and religious dissenters.

And there's more to come -- Bewildering Press's publishers said they are already considering other titles for print because they relish the opportunity to find a wider audience for the imaginative fiction they've nurtured at BewilderingStories.com.

"We love what we do," said Wright. "Yes, it can be stressful at times, but we are trying to create a new generation of writers."

For more information, please go to BewilderingPress.com and BewilderingStories.com.

» You may also purchase Grim Legion at Amazon.com.