Johnny Mayhem — Milton Lesser

The complete series of Johnny Mayhem stories.

Johnny Mayhem, created by Milton Lesser (using several of his many pen names), was one of the most poplular series characters to appear in the science fiction magazines of the 1950s. He began life as Johnny Marlow, "a pariah, a criminal, . . . who had been mortally wounded on a wild planet deep within the Saggitarian Swarm, whose life had been saved, after a fashion, by the white magic of that planet. Mayhem, doomed now to possible immortality as a bodiless sentience, an elan, which could occupy and activate a corpse if it had been frozen properly." Now known as Johnny Mayhem, he has "dedicated his life to the service of the Galactic League because a normal life and normal social relationships were not possible for him." Mayhem is literally "the man who saved the universe" â€" and the price he pays for it is a terrible one, for Mayhem's consciousness can move from body to body, but he can inhabit each body only for 30 days, or he and it will die. So Johnny becomes a galactic trouble-shooter who must face the greatest dangers that threaten humanity and triumph over them â€" or perish.

Milton Lesser was raised in Brooklyn and attended the College of William and Mary. After several years writing science fiction under his given name, he legally adopted the pen name Stephen Marlowe. He authored more than fifty novels, including nearly two dozen featuring globe-trotting private eye Chester Drum.