Titles: The Door Through Space / Rendezvous on a Lost World
Authors: Marion Zimmer Bradley / A. Bertram Chandler
Cover artist: Ed Emshwiller / Ed Emshwiller
Estimated value: $10-15
Best things about this cover:
- "40 Demons!?" "No, 4-D Demons!" "…?"
- Even the giantest Fear Hand could not protect the galaxy's skinniest spaceship from the flamboyant-yet-savage robot birds!
- *That's* your "Door Through Space"? Looks more like "Archway To Pool Party."
- Emshwiller's covers are awesome to look at. He likes to include all this random ornate decoration and machinery. Here, I particularly admire the oil rig/water slide/clock tower gizmo in the lower right. The people in the party seem to dig it, too. Maybe it is their god.
Best things about this other cover:
- Damn Ikea ceiling fans! Come on!
- #LostWorldProblems
- Imaginary space suits are So Much Cooler than real ones. I think I found my next Halloween costume.
- I did not know the word "cybernetic" (or "cyber-" anything) went this far back.
Page 123~
It cannot possibly have produced the illusion of two figures, Captain and Captain's lady—and which Veronica was it?—walking, arm in arm, up the ramp to the yelllow-lit circle of the airlock. And the most impossible illusion of all, perhaps, was that of the man who stood there to greet them. I saw his face plainly as I approached, just before the odd scene winked out into nothingness.
It was my own.
End of story! Whoa, did not see that coming. P.S. spoiler alert. P.P.S. "Which Veronica Was It?" is a scifi Archie story waiting to happen.
~RP
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]
5 comments:
Ah, gotta love Ace Doubles. Also gotta love those fifties SF spacesuits.
Prisoners of a Paradise, Cybernetic or otherwise, doesn't sound too bad to me.
From the aliens' joyous reactions, I think it's clear that the gizmo in the right hand area is a still!
Don't forget the chains! The Giant Fearhand is wearing some kind of robo cuffs with chains! That's gotta mean ... well, something.
I first ran across the word cybernetics in 1967, and I was kind of slow to oick up trends (I'm still the last person to hear anything cool) so I don't think it's that unusual C'mon! These kids today with their iTelephones and computer gizmos didn't invent EVERYTHING! It just seems that way.
Norbet Wiener coined the term cybernetics in 1948. The adjective apparently came along 3 years later.
That hand is wearing all kinds of bling, but the jeweled manacle is definitely the thing that raises the most questions. My favorite thing on the cover, though, is the mecha-pterodactyl.
On second glance, BOTH covers feature bondage themes! The chained manacles and the robot grasping the astronaut's wrists! There's something kinky going on in this volume!
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