Paperback 833: The Door Through Space / Marion Zimmer Bradley // Rendezvous on a Lost World / A. Bertram Chandler (Ace F-117)

Paperback 833: Ace Double F-117 (PBO / PBO 1961)

Titles: The Door Through Space / Rendezvous on a Lost World
Authors: Marion Zimmer Bradley / A. Bertram Chandler
Cover artist: Ed Emshwiller / Ed Emshwiller

Estimated value: $10-15


Best things about this cover:

• "40 Demons!?" "No, 4-D Demons!" "…?"
• Even the giantest Fear Hand could not protect the galaxy's skinniest spaceship from the flamboyant-yet-savage robot birds!
• *That's* your "Door Through Space"? Looks more like "Archway To Pool Party."
• Emshwiller's covers are awesome to look at. He likes to include all this random ornate decoration and machinery. Here, I particularly admire the oil rig/water slide/clock tower gizmo in the lower right. The people in the party seem to dig it, too. Maybe it is their god.

Best things about this other cover:

• Damn Ikea ceiling fans! Come on!
• #LostWorldProblems
• Imaginary space suits are So Much Cooler than real ones. I think I found my next Halloween costume.
• I did not know the word "cybernetic" (or "cyber-" anything) went this far back.

Page 123~

It cannot possibly have produced the illusion of two figures, Captain and Captain's lady—and which Veronica was it?—walking, arm in arm, up the ramp to the yelllow-lit circle of the airlock. And the most impossible illusion of all, perhaps, was that of the man who stood there to greet them. I saw his face plainly as I approached, just before the odd scene winked out into nothingness.

It was my own.

End of story! Whoa, did not see that coming. P.S. spoiler alert. P.P.S. "Which Veronica Was It?" is a scifi Archie story waiting to happen.

~RP

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Paperback 180: Hunters of the Red Moon / Marion Zimmer Bradley (Daw UJ1713)

Paperback 180: Daw UJ1713 (9th ptg, 1973)

Title: Hunters of the Red Moon
Author: Marion Zimmer Bradley
Cover artist: Carl Lundgren

Yours for: $6


Best things about this cover:

• O dear god if he lifts that left knee any higher... First rule of warfare: protect your junk
• Whose blood is on that sword? Or is he posing in triumph after winning the jelly application portion of the PB&J Olympics?
• Are they on some team? Why are they wearing the same uniform?
• "Manitoba Curling Champions, 2210"

Maughta, over at "Judge a Book by Its Cover," very coincidentally featured this very book just last week. I even delayed writing about the book because I didn't want it to be the subject of the one write-up a week that I crosspost on her site. She likened the cover to the movie poster for "Star Wars." I'd like to provide two other movie posters for your consideration:




And now, the back cover:



Best things about this back cover:

• Boring!
• This plot sounds like the plot of "The Most Dangerous Game"
• "This is how adventure should be written" - this is not, however, how book reviews should be written: "Excellently evoked settings and characters"? Who says that??

"You know what I think of her characters?"
"No, what?"
"They are excellently evoked."
"I want to kill you right now."

Page 123~

Dane stood looking after her for a moment, then bent, on a strange impulse, and lifted the long, silky coil in his hands. It clung there, fine and smooth and springy; he coiled it into a roll and thrust it inside his tunic next to his skin. A favor from my lady, he thought.

This is from the chapter entitled "Creepy Guy at the Renaissance Faire."

~RP