Paperback 609: Beyond / Theodore Sturgeon (Avon T-439)

Paperback 609: Avon T-439 (PBO, 1960)

Title: Beyond
Author: Theodore Sturgeon
Cover artist: [Sussman?]

Yours for: $11


Best things about this cover:

• It's pretty cool, in an abstract kind of way, even if it does look like the ultrasound of a zebra pregnant with human child.
• That dude is either dead or in utero. Or he's fallen on a mountain of red velvet cake and is gorging himself, presumably to death.
• I am in love this title font. The 60s paradoxically brought us the degeneration of cover art and the awesome-ing of fonts.
• In case you didn't know: Sturgeon rules.

Best things about this back cover:

• Hierarchy of intelligent worms! I already work for that particular org. (just kidding, employers!)
• I like how they've highlighted STURGEON. Otherwise, I like pretty much nothing about this back cover.

Page 123~ (from "Largo")

The only thing that detracted from that symphony of lines on the interior wall was a heavy concrete block that jutted out over a stone chair—high over it. On the other side of the chamber was another such chair, but the wall over it was like all the others. At the exact center of the building was a tiny red tile, set into the floor, and this was the only indication of a stage, a place from which to perform. It was certainly a strange creation; but then, it had been built for a strange purpose.

Must. Know. Purpose. Off to read ...

~RP

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Paperback 570: The Big Bite / Charles Williams (Dell First Edition A114)

Paperback 570: Dell First Edition A114 (PBO, 1956)

Title: The Big Bite
Author: Charles Williams
Cover artist: Arthur Sussman

Yours for: $30


Best things about this cover:

• If, god forbid, I ever get taken hostage, please let it look like this.
• I love this so much. Sexy, menacing, and depraved. Manages to combine realism, abstraction, and surrealism into one hot, delicious tableau. The orange background is inspired. That bed frame is like something out of a Tim Burton film.
• The small details make this painting exquisite—her: the haughty eyebrows, the cocky hand-on-hip, the neglected negligee strap, the ambiguously hovering cigarette hand (Will she offer him a drag? Burn his thigh? Who knows!?). Him: the resigned backward tilt of his head, the perfectly framed limp hand, the perfect-electric-white shirt. This is hall-of-fame cover art, for sure. 

Best things about this back cover:

• MWAH!
• That "life's a jungle" paragraph is about as good an expression of noir philosophy as I've read since the Flitcraft story in "The Maltese Falcon."
• Charles Williams was a paperback hero. Well admired by crime fiction aficionados, long forgotten by most others.

Page 123~

She said nothing. I went on out and got in the car. On the way out of town I stopped at a small grocery and bought a dozen cans of beer and some more supplies for the kitchen. I picked up a roll of the plastic film they use to wrap things in a refrigerator with, and two rolls of scotch tape. I bought fifty pounds of ice, wrapped it in an old blanket, and shoved off for the lake. 

I love the "How-the-fuck-am I-supposed-to-know-what-Saran-wrap-is-called!?" attitude of this paragraph.

~RP

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