Paperback 386: Again, Dangerous Visions Vol. 1 / ed. Harlan Ellison (Signet E7580)

Paperback 386: Signet E7580 (5th ptg, 1972)

Title: Again, Dangerous Visions, Vol. 1
Editor: Harlan Ellison
Cover artist: Ed Emshwiller (illustrations throughout)

Yours for: $8


Best things about this cover:

• Honestly, the cover does nothing for me, but this is a really important collection of so-called "speculative fiction," and Ellison's introduction alone is worth the price of admission. He writes with an elegance, ease, humor, and speed that I covet something awful.
• OK I kind of like the dude with legs of very different lengths. Psychedelia was clearly still the dominant visual style of the day. I just wish the art were more central (throughout), less decorative.

Best things about this back cover:

• I think this book was designed by and/or for someone on mind-altering substances. The promise of an expanded consciousness is a nice touch. Consciousness-raising = political. Consciousness-expanding = acid.

Page 123~

from "The Word for World is Forest" by Ursula K. Le Guin

But when the great ship returned, and he went to Eshsen, Lyubov met him there. He was silent and tenuous, very sad, so that the old carking grief awoke in Selver.

I don't understand any of that, but I want to incorporate "carking" into my vocabulary right away. Is it a real word? Ha, it is—CARK, tr. and intr. v., "To burden or be burdened with trouble; worry."

~RP

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Paperback 161: Amazing Stories (December, 1956)

Paperback 161: Amazing Stories (December, 1956)

• Contains: "A World of His Own" by Robert Silverberg and "Tracking Level" by Harlan Ellison
• Cover artist: Ed Valigursky

Yours for: $10


Best things about this cover:

• In the future, "Deal or No Deal" is a lot more interesting.
• I'm pretty sure those ladies were not born ladies - it's nice to see that, in the future, transsexual and transgendered people will have steady work as game show hostesses
• Man, that guy really wants to kill Howie Mandel. But then who doesn't?
• This picture does not make it appear as if "Women Were His Pawns." Unless he's forcing them to act out some adolescent fantasy of his - I guess that's possible

Best things about this back cover:

• I own one of these books!
• Never before has the word "ANY" looked so exciting
• If you don't look closely, you can almost miss the flying saucer mountain scape in the background
• Love the unnecessary quotation marks around "top drawer" - do not love the quotation marks that open with "Handsome ... and then never close. Spine-tingling!
• Ad copy always hyphenates "science-fiction," while the book covers themselves Never do. Eeeeerie.
• I love how specific they are about the amount I would normally be paying ... "$8.65, you say ... oh my."

Page 123~

[click image to enlarge]

• "Would you ... become a peeping tom?" - they really know their audience, I think
• The "Space Club" appears to be a kind of asexual personals section for the Nerdiest People On Earth.

~RP

Paperback 128: A Touch of Inifinity b/w The Man With Nine Lives / Harlan Ellison (Ace Double D-413)

Paperback 128: Ace D-413 (PBO / PBO, 1960)

Titles: A Touch of Infinity / The Man With Nine Lives
Author: Harlan Ellison / Harlan Ellison
Cover artists: Ed Valigursky / Ed Emshwiller

Yours for: $40


Best things about this cover:

• Harlan Ellison is a legend. A pop fiction legend. Smart, funny, imaginative, and just a great, great, page-turning writer. Hence the price of this book (he's super duper collectible).
• That said, this cover is not the most imaginative scifi cover I've ever seen. By a longshot. Spaceship that looks like prototype for Doctor Octopus shoots its oddly fiery gun at some unseen enemy / turkey buzzard while befuddled and square-jawed man with slinkies on his limbs looks on in what I'm guessing is disgust.
• The front part of the main ship's underside doubles as a waffle iron.

Best things about this cover:

• Scratch that. Eight lives.
• "I'd like to thank the Emmy voters for AAAAAAAAARGH!"
• This is how each episode of "American Idol" will end in Season 116. In fact, this is very much how I remember the moment that Kelly Clarkson beat Justin Guarini in Season 1.
• This painting looks like a still from a futuristic Christian rock video.
• The design and concept here are a mess. He mastered a maze ... but his head is being electrified by a giant statue and some eerily headphoned judges ... and he also is a cat or owns a lot of cat food.

Page 123~

"I still need that job done on my face, Patooch," Cal Emory said to the little cellulist.

-from "The Man with Nine Lives"

~RP