Paperback 1001: I, Barbarian / Jay Scotland (Avon T-375)

Paperback 1001: Avon T-375 (PBO, 1959)

Title: I, Barbarian
Author: Jay Scotland
Cover artist: [George Ziel]

Condition: 7/10
Estimated value: $12

Best things about this cover:

• His mind on women, his groin on horses
• I, Shirtless—the flamingest novel east of the Urals!
• His left hand is weird. Like it should be holding something. An ice cream cone, or a lovely bouquet of flowers, perhaps

Best things about this back cover:

• This novel's not frank, but it is frankish
• Adjective every noun!
• I like this little sword-split design

Page 123~

"Didn't you notice the unbounded delight in the eyes of his highest excellency when you gave that last feverish lunge toward the edibles?"

If there's another way to approach edibles, I haven't found it.

~RP

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Paperback 900: Outlaw Guns / E.E. Halleran (Avon 522)

Paperback 900!!!!!!!!!!: Avon 522 (2nd ptg / 1st thus, 1953)

Title: Outlaw Guns
Author: E.E. Halleran
Cover artist: Bill Randall

Estimated value: $10-14

Best things about this cover:

• I call this one "Rampant Horses On Yellow Background For Some Reason"
• Beardy's all "Oh, 'Outlaw Guns' ... I get it now! Yuck yuck yuck .... boobs."
• She has insane murdery dead-eyed vacant 1000-yard stare.
• Bitch eyebrows? Bitch eyebrows.
• This cover is terribly ill-conceived. *She* seems ready to go, right out of the box, but everything else (except the wicked awesome wood font and Beardy's mug!) is a total mess.

Best things about this back cover:

• He looks less like a bandit and more like a guy protecting himself from a smell.
• Still, that sketch is pretty cool. Love the cute yellow inset.
• Well, of course, if you're gonna have "Outlaw Guns," you gotta have Outlaw Bullets. Otherwise you're just running around waving your guns going "pew! pew!"
• "Pronto!"

Page 123~

"Don't jam the chute," Frazer warned him.

Good advice.

~RP

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Paperback 794: Buffalo Bill / Shannon Garst (Pocket Book Jr. J-48)

Paperback 794: Pocket Books Jr. J-48 (2nd ptg, 1955)

Title: Buffalo Bill
Author: Shannon Garst
Cover artist (and illus.): Louis Glanzman

Yours for: $9


Best things about this cover:

• Bed hat.
• Three keys to killing Indians: big-ass hands, mustache wax, and fringe for miles.
• This is a pretty bad cover—a portrait-studio picture mapped onto a generic, over-bright backdrop filled with a montage of tiny, generic "action" scenes.

Best things about this back cover:

• Thanks for the buffalo-killing, dick weed.
• William F. Cody met danger early. Then he had lunch, took a nap, and went to Pilates.
• I like Yellow Hand because it sounds like a 19c. name for a nefarious Chinese criminal organization, rather than what it is—a mistranslation of Yellow Hair, a Cheyenne warrior Cody shot and scalped. "Ever the showman, Buffalo Bill returned to the stage […] his show highlighted by a melodramatic reenactment of his duel with Yellow Hair. He displayed the fallen warrior's scalp, feather war bonnet, knife, saddle and other personal effects" (wikipedia). Again, I say, dick-weed.

Page 123~

The redskins knew the country and were as hard to hunt down as the wild animals of the forest.

Everything you need to know about American attitudes toward Native Americans in one short sentence. (cc Dan Snyder)

~RP

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Paperback 792: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly / Joe Millard (Award Western AQ1495)

Paperback 792: Award Western AQ1495 (4th ptg, 1975)

Title: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
Author: Joe Millard
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $9


Best things about this cover:

• Man, my brain really, Really wants the Oxford comma there.
• This cover manages to be plain vanilla and superbadass simultaneously.
• There should be a word for this style of cover art (prevalent in '60s and '70s) where different elements are montaged into one monstrous blob / human pyramid.
• Facial expressions here are all fantastic, especially on about-to-be-hanged guy.

Best things about this back cover:

• Aha, Tuco! So *that's* where "Breaking Bad" got it. Plagiarism!!
• Oh, Tuco. Why don't you come to your senses? You been out riding fences for so long now.
• This description is making me want to pull this movie out and watch it right now. My morning *is* kind of wide open …

Page 123~

Tuco lifted his own gun out of the concealing suds and shot him precisely through the adam's apple.

"When you're going to shoot somebody," he said coldly to the twitching figure on the floor, "shoot him. Don't stand around trying to talk a man to death."

Oh yeah, I'm definitely watching this Right Now.

~RP

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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 665: Patterns of Sin / Dave Patrick (Saber Tropic 922)

Paperback 665: Saber Tropic 922 (PBO, 1966)

Title: Patterns of Sin
Author: Dave Patrick
Cover artist: Uncredited [Bill Edwards]

Yours for: $26


Best things about this cover:

• How is this book *not* titled "They Cloned Castro!"?
• I think her underwear is pretty. 
• Is it just me, or is it less fun to admire the half-naked lady when she's being gang-raped?

Best things about this back cover:

• Ouch. I have sleaze whiplash. Going from Cuban gang rape to brother/sister incest will do that to you.
• "May I?" Ha ha. So polite, and such proper grammar.
• "Since there were no degrees of sin in her mind..."—the implications of this are staggering. "Oh, well, I already stole a $5 from the till, so I may as well carjack that lady and start running people over."
• "Roddy." Again, HA ha.

Page 123~

"What's going on here?" he demanded, his eyes taking in the Major's body. 

Wow, this book is bound and determined to hit *all* the major "sins" (at least I assume this passage is a prelude to gay sex in the military). Too bad I don't do Page 144—it has a lengthy, clumsy, hilariously clinical description of lesbian 69. "... Estelle knew what the next step was to be, and she was reluctant to take it, until Gizelle's mouth reached its destination and moved on to her partner's thighs in a manner that said the act was to be a reciprocal, if it was performed." Mmm ... tell me less ...

~RP

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Paperback 563: Canterbury Tails / Bjorn Peters (Adam's Gay Readers 148)

Paperback 563: Adam's Gay Readers 148 (PBO, 1986)

Title: Canterbury Tails
Author: Bjorn Peters
Cover artist: yes

Yours for: ... well, I can see exactly one copy of the book on sale, at ebay, for $103, so ... $1,000,000 (or best offer)
Best things about this cover:

• I assume this is a modern version of the Nun's Priest's Tale, since that tale centers on a cock.
• As a friend of mine noted, *that* sandwich will not fit in *that* lunchbox (p.s. that's what she said).
• I love fall weather—cold enough for a down vest, hot enough for a shirt unbuttoned all the way below the navel.
• I love how the artist captured the expression on sandwich guy's face precisely at the moment he realizes what his co-worker is suggesting. [Needle scratching on record!]
• After yet another unsuccessful audition for Village People '86, Raymond needed the comfort that only a fellow hard-hat could provide ...
• "Bjorn" is funny on many levels. Most notably, its first two letters.

Best things about this back cover:

• Really? "Surey?" That's your name? Are you sure? Or sorry? And what kind of circus font is that?
• If this is Adam's Gay Reader #148, how bad, HOW BAD do I want Adam's Gay Readers #1-147!?

Page 123~ (drum roll, please)

Having Jim's cock filling my mouth, and mine filling his, made me feel closer to him than I had ever felt to anyone.

The word "literally!" comes to mind. Understatement, thy name is Bjorn Peters! [slow clap => standing ovation]

P.S. this sample is not atypical. Virtually every sentence of this book is this unintentionally awesome. Who knew words like "gullet" and "starchy" (!?) were erotic!? A revelation. Five stars.

~RP

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Paperback 519: Liza of Lambeth / W. Somerset Maugham (Avon 139)

Paperback 519: Avon 139 (1st ptg, 1947)

Title: Liza of Lambeth
Author: W. Somerset Maugham
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $7

Best things about this cover:

• Liza of Lamboobs!
• Vincent Van Gogh positions himself for optimal boob viewing. "Sunflowers, Shmunflowers. I'm painting these!"
• Vincent Van Gogh, Incompetent Vampire!
• I remember these swirly popsicle thingies that mom used to buy. I associate them with that one time I was so sick (1981) that I couldn't keep much down. Anyway, popsicle color + memory of barfing = where the background of this painting takes my brain.

Best things about this back cover:

• Shakespeare-Head!
• We've seen all this before.

Page 123~

"I never 'ad any money from anyone."
"Don't talk ter me; I know yer did. Yer dirty bitch. You oughter be ashimed of yerself tikin' a married man from 'is family, an' 'im old enough ter be yer father."

This whole scene is like a Cockney Jerry Springer episode.

~RP

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Paperback 452: A Man of Parts / Vivian Connell (Gold Medal 130)

Paperback 452: Gold Medal 130 (PBO, 1950)

Title: A Man of Parts
Author: Vivian Connell
Cover artist: Uncredited (though I can see a signature in lower left ... very elongated ... looks like "drip")

Yours for: $11

Sorry for the week-long publication drought. I've been away for a week at the Minnesota State Fair and other Midwestern attractions (friends, mostly). Plus, I prepared a slide show of covers from this blog for Huffington Post Books, so it *felt* like I was writing. Anyway, back on a 3 book/week schedule now, for the most part, I think. So let's get back to it:


Best things about this cover:

• A Man of Parts ... and the best part, Tracy knew, was the thigh.
• "Well, your leg sounds just fine, so I have no idea what's ailing you. I'll go get my leeches."
• I've never actually heard anyone utter the phrase "How gauche!" but pencil-mustache sure has the face for it.
• "I say, do you know how to work one of these iPod minis...?"

Best things about this back cover:

• For some reason I'm imagining the first two lines here being spoken in the voice of Darth Vader.
• "... and all her womanhood pushed out to him in her warm full breasts": so it's a lactation fetish novel. Cool.
• "... and the women caught in the tempest ... of the tempestuous novel ... that I mentioned at the beginning of this sentence ... what? I like the word 'tempest.' Get off my back."

Page 123~

God, it was good to be alive, in the country, on a night like this. He began to sing gaily. Suddenly he realized what he was singing:

"Then we snuggle in the corner,
An' there's no fire any warmer
Than your mouth all sweet and rosy . . ."

He pulled up with a jerk.

Those are odd lyrics to masturbate to, but ... whatever floats your boat, Man of Parts.

~RP

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Paperback 390: Old Hell / Emmett Gowen (Blue Seal 2)

Paperback 390: Red Seal 2 (1st ptg, 1937)

Title: Old Hell
Author: Emmett Gowen
Cover artist: Howard Simon

Yours for: $35


Best things about this cover:

• The single scariest mustache of all time. Don't believe me? Imagine kissing that guy. Yeah, that's right.
• Two things you don't want to mess with: Ma's toothpicks and Ma's salt.
• I have no idea what this book is about—it's a pre-Pocket Books paperback (pre-1939, rare), put out by Modern Age Books on what appears to be a subscription basis. There is a mint condition Business Reply Card (slash bookmark!) tucked inside the cover:

No point scanning the back cover—just a Blue Seal Books logo on a brown background.

Page 123~

It's so hot I can feel the drops of sweat like something I wouldn't name was a-crawling on my belly.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!? Part of me really wants to know what the "something" is, and the other (bigger) part is thanking god he wouldn't name it.

~RP

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Paperback 347: The Race of Giants / Matt Kinkaid (Dell First Ed. A118)

Paperback 347: Dell First Edition A118 (PBO, 1956)

Title: The Race of Giants
Author: Matt Kinkaid
Cover artist: Sam Bates

Yours for: $10


Best things about this cover:

• "... do you smell something funny? Hmm ... probably just my mustache. No, wait, my ass is on fire."
• Wow, he is a giant—keeps a herd of cattle in his back pocket.
• Love how he Fills the frame; also love the partial view of the horse. Not so keen on being able to see his long johns, but whatever.

Best things about this back cover:

• "Blood on his hands ... money on his mind!"
• Not the most realistic flames, but they are pretty.

Page 123~

Julius made a small sound of grim satisfaction. "Here comes the wagon."

~RP

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Paperback 307: Payment Deferred / C.S. Forester (Bantam 816)

Paperback 307: Bantam 816 (1st ptg, 1951)

Title: Payment Deferred
Author: C.S. Forester
Cover artist: Harry Schaare

Yours for: $6


Best things about this cover:

• The hot new sequel to "Interest Accrued," from the publishers who brought you "Expenses Deducted"
• "They're after me, Gladys! I know they are. You defer *one* payment and they sic the dogs on you. That's why I've put my throne by the window, so I can keep my eye ... hey! What's that? Is someone going through our trash? Oh. No, just a raccoon. Here, get me some more Red Bull, would ya? Gotta stay alert ..."
• I love her face — happy, like she's imagining what she'll do with his money when he's inevitably bumped off.

Best things about this back cover:

• "... will keep you chained to your chair..." — That's pretty vivid. "This book will perform such degrading acts of bondage upon you that you'll be forced to acknowledge its awesomeness."
• Hey, looks like the original hardcover features a guy looking out a window, too. I'll take the cover with the sexily murderous strawberry blonde any day of the week.

Page 123~

For once he was neither the hotel prisoner nor yet was he at home with his father. It was the transition stage. He spent his time deliciously, luxuriously.

Ah, the transition stage from hotel prisoner to home with father. Such a heady time in a young man's life.

~RP

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Paperback 112: Un-Man and Other Novellas (Poul Anderson) / The Makeshift Rocket (Poul Anderson) (Ace Double F-139)

Paperback 112: Ace Double F-139 (PBO / PBO, 1962)

Title: Un-Man and Other Novellas / The Makeshift Rocket
Author: Poul Anderson / Poul Anderson
Cover artist: Uncredited / Uncredited

Yours for: $10


Best things about this cover:

• "This is a sad day indeed for Mexican space wrestling..."
• This painting is actually beautiful and haunting, while also being silly - a combination that goes right to the heart of why I collect these damned things
• I like the combination of genres - it's like scifi, western, and war story all wrapped into one (check out the dog tags hanging from the helmet of his presumably fallen comrade)
• "He could be stilled etc.": More proof that tag-line writers in the 1960s were completely and utterly high

Page 123~

"Ha ha!" bellowed van Rijn. "We spill all their apples, eh? By damn! Now we show them some fun!"

Best things about this cover:

• "Hey, has anyone seen grampa?"
• I can only hope that in the future, that style of mustache does indeed make a flaming comeback
• Um ... there is a pipe-smoking green goblin in that crate. I'm just sayin'...

Page 123~

This book has only 97 pages! So ... Page 23!

As for the longer-range scheme - oh yes, the plan. Well, like most terra-formed asteroids, Grendel had only a minimal gyrogravitic unit, powerful enough to give it a 24-hour rotational period (originally the little world had spun around once in three hours, which played the very devil with tea time) and an atmosphere retaining surface field of 980 cm./sec.².

~RP

Paperback 111: Stars in My Crown / Joe David Brown (Teen Age Book Club T45)

Paperback 111: Teen Age Book Club T45 (1st ptg, 1956)

Title: Stars in My Crown
Author: Joe David Brown
Cover artist: Gould K. Hulse, Jr. (I think ... he's credited with the "decorations" on the inside)

Yours for: $7


Best things about this cover:

• "I'm your new preacher and I aim to give my first sermon right here ... even if I am jaundiced and half-drunk. Or drunk and half-jaundiced. Or dronk and half-jundiced. Point is, I got me a 12-pound Bible and this here gun, so what I says goes. Now if I can just traverse this comically high door frame..." "That's a window, you moron!" "In the name of Jesus, you better shut up!"
• Seriously, who taught this artist perspective? A five-year-old surrealist with bad eyes?
• The colors are so ... life-like. If your life exists only in primary colors and whatever color that guy in the corner is.
• Our hero looks like a sickly, less charismatic Robert Mitchum.
• What is that thing protruding from the chin of the man in the SW corner? A growth? A pouch of some kind? I want to say "beard" but ... it's got oddly regularly molded ridges on the end...

Best things about this back cover:

• "Grandpa"
• Why isn't this book called "Death Stalks the Parish" - it's a bit Agatha Christie, but it's a hell of a lot better than the current title
• Teen Age Book Club: For Teen Agers who are too emaciated to read standing upright.

Page 123~

"They didn't have no lamps when Ah went to school," he said, "an' Ah reckon what was good enough for me is good enough for the chil'lun [... sic!] nowadays."

~RP