Paperback 768: Star Science Fiction Stories No. 2 / ed. Frederik Pohl (Ballantine 612)

Paperback 768: Ballantine Books (2nd ptg, 1962) (isfdb entry)

Title: Star Science Fiction Stories No. 2
Editor: Frederik Pohl
Cover artist: [Richard Powers]

Yours for: $10


Best things about this cover:

• Beard.
• Seriously, beard. How often do you see beard? Not too often.
• I'm disturbed by his lack of hands. I guess they're inside those little spheres, but it looks like they've replace one of his hand with a giant hypodermic.
• Not the most scintillating cover art, but I do love Powers's fever-dream space shapes and colors.

Best things about this back cover:

• Rocket! Or jet gull! Probably rocket!
• Again, I love when books explain the basics of publishing to you. "We find good stories … and then we publish them!"
• Weird to brag about being an "original publication" and claim that the stories "appear here for the first time" when this is a reprint of the real original, published in 1953.

Page 123~ (from "Conquest" by Anthony Boucher)

"I fly with my synapses, if that's the word I want, and sometimes I guess they don't apse."

I see APSE a lot in crosswords. Never quite like that, though.

~RP

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Paperback 686: No Limits / ed. Joseph W. Ferman (Ballantine U2220)

Paperback 686: Ballantine Books U2220 (PBO, 1964)

Title: No Limits
Editor: Joseph W. Ferman
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $8


Best things about this cover:

• OK, it's not scintillating or sexy, but it's got a preposterous, "Jetsons"-like quality to it that I like.
• Remember when the future was going to be Awesome!? This cover does.
• I like how some of these bridges make sense (with arched, actual bridge-like structure) and others look like loopy whimsical structures that would snap in a strong wind.
• I used to have a Leigh Brackett obsession. I may have it again. She wrote a lot, in a lot of genres, and a lot of it very, very good.  But, with apologies to Asimov fans, Sturgeon is the greatest name on this list.

Best things about this back cover:

• "Acidulous"! Be still my heart.
• I wish I were named "Robert Conquest." I feel as if, with that name, I could do anything.
• The decorative band in the middle of this back cover is odd and pretty.

Page 123~

from "And Then She Found Him" by Algis Budrys

"I'm sorry, Frank," Deerbush said. He stepped back, holding one of Vi's wrists now, and with the other hand he hit Stannard hard on the jaw. As Stannard fell down, Vi began to scream.

~RP

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Paperback 448: Takeoff / C.M. Kornbluth (Pennant P15)

Paperback 448: Pennant Books P15 (1st ptg, 1953)

Title: Takeoff
Author: C.M. Kornbluth
Cover artist: Charles Binger

Yours for: Not For Sale — special donation to the collection from Michael and Sue Handley


Best things about this cover:

• "Bomber jackets half-price at Macy's!? But I paid full price last weekend! Bastards! Vengeance will be mine!"
• That's quite the phallic object.
• I just found out that it pays to check my campus mailbox every once in a while—I just found this book waiting for me (it had been waiting for nearly 2 months) with the following note attached:

Supercool notepad.

And now the back cover:


Best things about this back cover:

• Ugh, just a bunch of blurbs, though now I know where my benefactors got their purple prose from.

Page 123~

Suddenly his voice blazed with passion and the words came like a torrent. "What was I to do? Go ahead and do it the wrong way? [...]"

This selection would be much more evocative and engaging if this were a sex novel.

~RP

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Paperback 322: The Syndic / Cyril M. Kornbluth (Bantam 1317)

Paperback 322: Bantam 1317 (1st ptg, 1955)

Title: The Syndic
Author: Cyril M. Kornbluth
Cover artist: uncredited (I want it to be Richard Powers, but who knows?)

Yours for: $13


Best things about this cover:

• "Are we not men? We are DEVO!"
• In the background, generic scifi cover ... but in the foreground: Dirk Studly models his Kanye3000 spex and his real boss new flashlight holder.
• I love this guy. The cover dies without him. "I'm here to rescue your cover, ma'am. Don't worry."
• "Syndic?" The "-ate" was just too much of a mouthful? I am pronouncing this title "The Sin Dick," and hope you do the same.

Best things about this back cover:

• More outrageous exclamation point action. Love it! Start with a timid "Tomorrow?" and end with a big fucking exclamation point slamming down on your cover: "Hell yes, tomorrow!"
• Oooh, the "twenty-first century" ... I'm going to look out my window now and there better be little people running frantically through sand pits, away from a dystopic city and toward their badass, flashlight-wielding savior, or I'm going to feel very ripped off.

Page 123~

"I'm Ken Oliver, a figure man in the Blue Department, Picasso Oils and Etchings Corporation. Dr. Latham sent me here for—what do you call it?—a biopsy."

~RP

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