Paperback 496: The Jewels of Aptor / Samuel R. Delany (Sphere 28894)

Paperback 496: Sphere 28894 (1st ptg, 1971)

Title: The Jewels of Aptor
Author: Samuel R. Delany
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $6

Best things about this cover:

• Image lifted from a "Welcome to the Wonderful World of Scientology!" poster
• "Let's get high and listen to the new Phallus Eruption album!"
• I always thought the Washington Monument could stand to be a little ... gayer.

Best things about this back cover:

• This font is killing me. That "w" is totally making out with that "e."
• If there's one way I like my vivid images, it's crammed.
• "Denouement," Ha ha. I haven't seen that word since high school. So Shakespearean.

Page 123~

The knot's invention was ingenious. At the vibration, two opposed loops shook away from a third, and a four millimetre length of rubber band that had been sewn in tightened and released a fourth loop from a small length of number four gauge wire with a holding tonsure of three quarters of a gram, and the opposing vibration returning up the cord loosed a similar apparatus on the other side of the plug.

Dang. Sex toys of the future are complicated.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

Paperback 99: The Einstein Intersection / Samuel R. Delany (Ace F-427)

Paperback 99: Ace F-427 (PBO, 1967)

Title: The Einstein Intersection
Author: Samuel R. Delany
Cover artist: Jack Gaughan

Yours for: $10


Best things about this cover:

• "Red Bull - gives you gorings and talonous scrapings wings!"
• "Sorry, sir, Hideously Mutated Bovine Night is Thursday. Tonight is Ladies' Night."
• "I have seen the future ... and it has fancy vending machines."
• Sadly, that pasty discothèque bouncer / ATM guard looks a lot like me.

Best things about this back cover:

• "Cordwainer" is possibly the best first name in human history.
• I can only hope that "Lobey" has Gigantic ears.
• "They call me 'Kid Death' ... on account 'a I kill people."
• Editor me says: "'Millennia' has two 'n's"

Page 123!~

Suddenly he tossed the skull gently. It passed me, hovered a moment, then smashed on the stones and Spider laughed. It was a friendly laugh, without the malicious flickering of fish scales and flies' wings that dazzled the laughter of the Kid. But it nearly scared me to death. I ran out the door. For one step bone fragments chewed at my instep. The door slammed behing me. The sun slapped my face.

I must give a ton of credit to the very accomplished Mr. Delany, who made sure that the cover artist got credit on this book by including him in the Dedication! Awesome:

"for Don Wollheim
a responsible man
in all meanings
to and for what is
within and
Jack Gaughan
for what is
without"

~RP