Paperback 1062: Tama, Princess of Mercury / Ray Cummings (Ace F-406)

Paperback 1062: Ace F-406 (PBO, 1966)

Title: Tama, Princess of Mercury

Author: Ray Cummings

Cover artist: Podwil

Condition: 9/10

Value: ~$10

Best things about this cover:

• Carving Jack O' Lanterns is a bloodsport on Mercury
• Monster looks surprised to find out that the "princess" has blood-tipped wings and a big fucking dagger
• I relate to the dude on the ground pointing and going "oh hell no, I don't want any of this, run away!"
• Author Tama Janowitz is now not the only Tama I've ever heard of

Best things about this back cover:

• Guy Palisse, Space-Explorer—gonna get some business cards made up and just hand them out to everyone I meet
• Guy Palisse, Space-Explorer / President, Bolton Flying Cube, Inc.
• Move over Gay Talese, it's ... Guy Palisse!
• "...warded off war between the two worlds" is a terrible mumbly mouthful
• Guy Palisse and the Frenzied Mercurians were the toast of New York's early-80s post-punk scene

Page 123~

The infuriated, reckless girls hurled themselves down like frenzied birds.

Is anyone on Mercury *not* frenzied? Seems like a stressful place to visit. Probably gonna take my Flying Cube somewhere else this summer.  

~RP

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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

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Paperback 917: The Fall of the Dream Machine / Dean R. Koontz // The Star Venturers / Kenneth Bulmer (Ace Double 22600)

Paperback 917: Ace Double 22600 (PBO / PBO, 1969)

Title: The Fall of the Dream Machine / The Star Venturers
Author: Dean R. Koontz / Kenneth Bulmer
Cover artists: Jack Gaughan / John Schoenherr

Estimated value: $20

Best things about this cover:

• That water slide needs cleaning. Badly.
• I love the incongruous whimsy of the polka dots. It's like the ghoul faces are all angrily thinking "What Is This Silliness!?!?!"
• Q: What do you get when you cross Edgar Winter with a blow-up doll?

Best things about this other cover:

• When Car Grilles Attack.
• Tentacled floating beast ripping apart stupid flimsy human ... Now *that's* a scifi cover!
• Galactic Haystack had some minor psychedelic rock hits in the late '60s. Then they joined a cult. I hear the lead singer's a hedge fund manager now.

Page 123~ (from "The Fall of the Dream Machine")

The man's face disappeared in a spray of unmentionable things.

This conjures up either terrible carnage or a man being assaulted by lingerie.

~RP

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Other Books, Other Covers: Grendel / John Gardner (Ballanatine 28865)

Title: Grendel

Author: John Gardner

Cover artist: Michael Leonard

Illustrated by: Emil Antonucci

Estimated value: a few bucks

[Happy belated Halloween!]

[Wraparound! Medieval King Kong's got some flexible toes.]

Page 123~

I snatch up a stone and hurl it. It smashes his mouth, spraying out teeth, and penetrates to the jugular. He drops to his knees, gets up again. The air is sweet with the scent of his blood. Death shakes his body the way high wind shakes trees. He climbs toward me. I snatch up a stone.

~RP

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Paperbacks 780 and 781: The Unknown and The Unknown 5 / ed. D.R. Bensen (Pyramid R-851 and R962)

Paperbacks 780 & 781: Pyramid R-851 & R-962 (PBO, 1963 & 1964)

Titles: The Unknown and The Unknown 5
Editor: D.R. Bensen (both)
Cover artist: John Schoenherr (both) / Illus. by Edd Cartier (both)

Yours for: $12


Best things about these front covers:

• Two for one today, as these appeared back to back on my bookshelf and seemed to go together.
• The adorableness of Winky Peek-a-Boo Demon is considerably undermined by his unholy thumbnail.
• I'm classifying that bony limb on The Unknown 5 as "Fear Hand," though honestly, it's more like "Hey. 'Sup? Hand."
• Can't tell if that bird has no head, or if it's just set completely within its squat little torso.
• I don't know what became of The Unknowns 2-4, but I fear the worst.

Best things about this back cover:

• Weird that 3/5 of the names on The Unknown 5 are legendary and 2/5 I never ever saw before just now.
• Everybody must name something "Cleve," the next opportunity you get. I insist.
• I like that the back cover of The Unknown 5 believes there is such a category as "Fine Paperbacks." Adorable.

Page 123~ (from "Hell Is Forever" by Alfred Bester)

"Ego—" mused the voice. "That is something which, alas, none of us can understand. Nowhere in all the knowable cosmos is it to be found but on your planet, Mr. Braugh. It is a frightening thing and convinces me at times that yours is the race that will—" The voice broke off abruptly.

Don't tase me, Braugh.

~RP

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Paperback 363: Fantasy & Science Fiction (Oct. 1957)

Paperback 363: The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, October, 1957

Includes stories by: Fritz Leiber, Richard Matheson, Lewis Carroll, L. Sprague de Camp, Jane Roberts, Anthony Boucher, Poul Anderson, H.P. Lovecraft, etc.

Cover artist: Ed Emshwiller

Yours for: $20


Best things about this cover:

• ... featuring the controversial story, "Anorexic Chicken Whores of The Mogron Valley!"
• Monster designs on this are Fabulous. Emshwiller is a cover art hero.
• Trying to understand, from an evolutionary standpoint, why the bird (background) should require an oxygen helmet while everyone else apparently easily breathes the miasma of peach atmosphere. Also wondering why giant deformed Gumby monster should have to brush his teeth.

Best things about this back cover:

• People were apparently Really excited about satellites in the late '50s.
• We're not really comfortable using slang, so ... we'll just put "top-drawer" in quotations, so you won't think you're actually supposed to store the books in the top drawer of your dresser.
• "Handsome, permanent bindings," to prevent annoying fall-apart.

Page 123~ (from "Full Pack (Hokas Wild)" by Poul Anderson & Gordon R. Dickson)

He was not a bad felino-centauroid at heart.

Can't believe that line is buried at the back of a F&SF Magazine. Should be the first line of some epic space opera.

~RP

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