Paperback 1023: Children of the Void / William Dexter (Paperback Library 52-357)

Paperback 1023: Paperback Library 52-357 (PBO, 1966)

Title: Children of the Void
Author: William Dexter
Cover artist: Uncredited ("The artist is not credited, no visible signature [Jack Gaughan ?]" (isfdb)) 

Condition: 8/10
Estimated value: $10-12
Best things about this cover:

• Used Spaceship Salesmen of the Void
• When the humans you're using for biceps curls suddenly get a mind of their own...
• My favorite word on this cover is "Violently." Like, how else is an Earth going to be "torn from its sun"? "Affectionately"?
• Grafton can't even get to his damned spaceship. How's he gonna halt a runaway world when this animatronic Chuck E. Cheese reject makes him run in terror?
• Not at all sure they didn't mean "Children of the Noid"; the similarities are uncanny:

And now...
Best things about this back cover:

• Wow, superdumb title replication, but super cool sketch of '60s scifi futurism. Spaceships were awesomest when they were entirely fanciful. I don't want to live in a future that isn't a mid-century future.
• That is a particularly dull and detail-free opening paragraph.
• Wow, Denis Grafton (!) is a recurring character? The basis of a series? He's like Chairman of the Board of Space Heroes That Time Totally and Utterly Forgot

Page 123~

But there was always something at the back of the adult mind that whispered to us that we should shun these strange creatures.

O great, a treatise on right-wing immigration policy. No thanks.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

Paperback 826: Haunted Lady / Mary Roberts Rinehart (Dell 361)

Paperback 826: Dell 361 (1st ptg, 1949)

Title: Haunted Lady
Author: Mary Roberts Rinehart
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for : $11


Best things about this cover:

• Drunk bat photobomb!
• Stop hitting yourself. Stop hitting yourself. Seriously, stop. It's weird.
• This is what happens when you keep bats as pets, lady. WTF?
• Seriously, Drunk Bat's like "What up, bitches! I'm all up in your fotoz!"

Best things about this back cover:

• Mmmmm …. mmmmapback!
• "Porte-cochere" is a hilarious word to me. You find them mainly on rich people's houses in mid-century crime novels (see esp. Chandler). Still, sounds like an hors d'oeuvre to me.
• This novel must be heavy on interior detail and in-house action, because that is one superabundantly labeled map.

Page 123~

It took her by surprise. She stared at him. Then a look of horror spread over her face. She looked wildly about the room, at Hilda, at the door. She even half rose from her chair. "I don't know what you mean," she managed to gasp.

What's the opposite of "poker face"?

~RP

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Paperback 580: The Black Angel / Cornell Woolrich (Avon Murder Mystery Monthly 27)

Paperback 580: Avon Murder Mystery Monthly 27 (1st ptg, 1944)

Title: The Black Angel
Author: Cornell Woolrich
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $30

Best things about this cover:

• She-Bat!
• I do love Skeleton Warhol.
• This book's kind of beat up, but it's complete, it's intact, and a 1944 Woolrich is a 1944 Woolrich (this was part of a stash of books I pulled out of a coastal Oregon bookstore this past summer—the rest of the stash to be covered in the books that follow)

Best things about this back cover:

• That's a pretty rare Chandler right there. I don't really have anything else to say about this back cover. You can see the foxing and tanning near the spine there ("foxing" and "tanning" being fun words I learned in the process of collecting).

Page 123~

"Don't ever call me that name," I said shakily. "Don't even say it over a second time now to remind yourself what ti was. Don't use it again, Ladd, or I'll — you'll never see me again. Call me any other name, anything you want. Anything but that."

Rejected lyrics from Paul Simon's "You Can Call Me Al."

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]