OBE in Fiction

Single copies of this file, with copyright notice, in any form, are permitted for non-commercial use.

1878 Poe, Edgar Allen. "The premature burial" in his The prose tales of Edgar Allen Poe. J. Widdleton, New York. [fiction]

1883 Phelps, Elizabeth Stuart. Beyond the gates. Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1883. [Fiction. The spirit of the heroine, who is suffering from 'brain fever', leaves her body and roves the Astral Plane.]

1914 London, Jack. The star rover. [fiction]

1927 Macmillan, Armour. This incredible adventure. Hodder and Stoughton, London. [fiction. Modern American banker who is thrown back in time and visits ancient Greece, Carthage and Rome during a medical experiment.]

1929 Hemingway, Ernest. A farewell to arms. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York. [fiction]

1934 Gerhardi, William. Resurrection. London. [fiction]

1939 Westcott, G. Images of the truth. Harper & Row, New York. [fiction]

1944 Crume, P. "Katherine Anne Porter, Pale horse, pale rider", Southwest Review, 25:213-218.

1944 James, Henry. The beast in the jungle, in The Great Short Novels of Henry James, Dial Press. [fiction]

1952 Eliot, T. S. The dry salvages. In his, The complete poems and plays of T. S. Eliot (pp.117-149). Harcourt, Brace, New York. [fiction]

1962 Dante Alighieri. Paradiso. [translated by P. Wicksteed] Dent, London. [fiction]

1965 Blake, William. "Eternity" in D. H. Erdman (Ed.), The poetry and prose of William Blake. Doubleday, Garden City NY. [fiction]

1970 Baum, Thomas. Out Of Body. St Martin's Press, New York. [214 p Fiction. Denton Hake has just been paroled from prison for a rape he has no memory of committing. Moving in with his reluctant brother and sexually restless sister-in-law, he tries to rebuild his life while surrounded by a distrusting community. At the same time, he begins to experience terrifying and bizarre memory lapses during which he seems to travel outside his body to see events happening to other people in other places.]

1971 Hurwood, Bernhardt J. The Invisibles. Fawcett, Greenwich CT. [fiction]

1971 Simak, Clifford D. Time is the simplest thing. Leisure Books, New York. [Fiction. Millions of light years from Earth, a telepathic explorer found his mind grasped and possessed by an alien.]

1973 L'Engle, Madeleine. A wind in the door. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York. [fiction]

1975 Rankine, John (pseudonym of Douglas R. Mason). Space 1999: astral quest. Futura Publications, London. [fiction]

1975 Wieman, Arend. Gable Clark [sic.]. Vantage Press, New York. [fiction. 12 year-old Gable Clark has a dream that leads him to his grandfather's diary, which contains a map of a great swamp. Gable enters the swamp and comes upon a beautiful meadow where he meets…]

1977 Plumly, Stanley. Out-of-the-body travel. Ecco Press, New York. [48p, poetry]

1978 Nelson, John. Starborn: a mystical tale. Donning, Virginia Beach VA. [115p. Through a cosmic mishap, Edward Doolittle was born with his spiritual memory and psychic faculties intact. Though given a grand opportunity for spiritual growth, Edward is more interested in play, at least until a mad scientist threatens the world.. 2^nd ed published by Hampton Roads, Charlottesville VA, 1993, 133p]

1978 Swann, Ingo. Star fire. Dell/Eleanor Friede, New York. [314p, fiction]

1979 Knight, Stephen. Requiem at Rogano. Methuen, Eyre. [fiction. Thriller set in fifteenth-century Italy and Edwardian London involving reincarnation and astral travel]

1979 Porter, Katherine Anne. "Pale horse, pale rider" in her The Collected Stories, Harvest-Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, New York. [fiction]

1980 Bradley, Marion Zimmer. The House Between the Worlds. Ballantine Books/Doubleday, New York. [fiction]

1981 Appleton, Victor. The astral fortress. Wanderer Books, New York NY. [191 p, fiction. When Tom Swift and his crew jump back from the Alpha Centauri system through hyperspace to the Earth's galaxy, they are captured by their arch enemy David Luna and taken prisoner aboard his astral fortress.]

1981 Duncan, Lois. Stranger with my face. Little, Brown; Boston. [fiction]

1982 Fahy, Christopher. Nightflyer. Jove Publications, New York. [fiction]

1983 Moore, Brian. Cold heaven. Cape, London. [271p]

1984 Brennert, Alan. Kindred Spirits. Tom Doherty Associates, New York. [fiction. Boy meets girl while both are OBE in a coma.]

1984 Marlin, J[effrey]. Getting out the ghost. Pacer Books, New York. [160p. Fiction. Though the ghost who comes to live in a high school student's body brings her some interesting new talents, unpleasant aspects of the ghost's personality make havoc of her personal relationships.]

1985 Rosen, Steven M. The mobius seed: A visionary novel of planetary transformation. Stillpoint, Wallpole NH. [fiction]

1986 Martin, Les. The invisible castle: a Thundercats thriller. Random House, New York NY. [64 p, ill, fiction. Lion-O experiences dangerous adventures when he goes to the rescue of Jaga, fellow thundercat held prisoner in a castle in the Astral World.]

1987 DeClements, Barthe. Double trouble. Viking Kestrel, New York. [fiction]

1991 Pinto, Russ. Somewhere within. A-1 Publishing, Sherman Oaks CA. [fiction]

1992 Palwick, Susan. Flying in place. TOR (Tom Doherty Associates), New York. [fiction]

1989 Rice, Anne. The queen of the damned [in the series, The vampire chronicles. MacDonald & Co. [fiction, 573p. Also published by Futura Books, 1990]

1992 Kaye, Marvin. Fantastique. St Martin's Press, New York. [262p. Fiction. A theatre director has everything but also has strange nightmares, and gets involved in a love triangle that takes him through hell itself.]

1992 Rice, Anne. The tale of the body thief [in the series, The vampire chronicles]. Chatto & Windus. [607p. Also published by Penguin, 1993]

1993 Ramsland, Katherine. The vampire companion: The official guide to Anne Rice's The Vampire Chronicles. [fiction] Ballantine. [577p. Also published by Little, Brown & Co, UK, 1994; revised edition, 1995.]

1995 Jay, Robert. Consciousness: the magic lantern of light—Andar's message. Awareness Publications, Pokomoke MD. [98p. Fiction. Andar is here simply to deliver a message from the universe. He cannot hurt anyone, he can only speak the truth, but the world leaders will do anything to stop him.]

1995 Martin, Stephen Hawley. Out of body, into mind: a metaphysical adventure. Oaklea Press, Richmond VA. [223p. Fiction]

1996 Griffin, Peni R. Margo's house. Margaret K. McElderry Books, New York. [122 p, fiction. After her father has a serious heart attack, Margo awakens to find herself in the body of one of the dolls that he recently made for her and she desperately tries to contact her father's soul.]

1996 Moss, Robert. The firekeeper. Forge, New York. [688 p, fiction. An epic adventure based on the extraordinary historical story of Sir William Johnson, and the author's dreams of a Mohawk "woman of power" and a warrior shaman who lived three centuries ago.]

1997 Jeffers, H. Paul. What mommy said: a novel. St. Martin's Press, New York.

1997 Greenburg, Dan. I'm out of my body-- please leave a message. Grosset & Dunlap, New York. [57p, fiction, illustrated by Jack E. Davis. When his friend Spencer, the class genius, spends the night, he and Zack discover how to leave their bodies and travel around New York City, but they have one problem—how to get back inside themselves.]

1997 Rowley, Brent. My body fell off.: a novel. Covenant Communications, American Fork UT. [187 p, fiction. After his family moves to Utah, sixteen-year-old Bart Elderberry has to adjust to a new school and new friends, as well as to the discovery that he can travel out-of-body—an ability that proves useful when he discovers a gang of dangerous criminals in his "travels."]

1997 Russell, Barbara T. Blue lightning. Viking, New York. [fiction. When a bolt of lightning provides twelve-year-old Calvin with an out-of-body experience, he meets the spirit of the father he never knew and brings a troubled ghost named Rory back to the living world with him—only to threaten his chances of pitching in a baseball game.]

1998 Moss, Robert. The interpreter. Forge, New York. [420p, fiction. A visionary journey into the crucible in which America was born, a tale of love and war and of a master shaman who folds time to seek the key to the survival of his people.]

1999 Fraser, William. Hartshorn. Handmade Books, Burlington, Ontario, Canada, 1999. [fiction. An epic quest through astral levels.]

nd Moore, Brian. Cold heaven. Cape, London. [271p]

Go to the introduction of these bibliographies.