Paperback 1174: Superdoll / Leo August (Award Books A427X)

Paperback 1174: Award Books A427X (PBO, 1969)

Title: Superdoll

Author: Leo August

Cover artist: Uncredited [Ron Lesser]

Condition: 7/10

Value: $18

[Encinitas, August 2026]

Best things about this cover: 

• The first thing you gotta consider with a spy jumpsuit is practicality. You gotta be able to pull it right over your high-heeled boots, the belly must be cut out, and under absolutely no circumstances is there to be any significant breast support
• Superdoll liked to wear the hair of her victims on top of her own hair, like a trophy. 
• That scientist banter leaves something to be desired. It's not sexy or funny or clever. It doesn't even have any bad puns. It may as well read: 1st scientist: "Does she have a vagina?" 2nd scientist: "If not, that makes me sad."
• "A hilarious plunge," on the other hand, isi funny, in that it seems to describe the neckline on her jumpsuit, which somehow "plunges" below her bellybutton. 

Best things about this back cover: 

• Love a skimpy dagger. A must-have for summer espionaging.
• OK, "I.N.I.T.I.A.L.S." is genius. The perfect skewering of the '60s spy trend toward clever organizational acronyms, following (among others) The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (see, for instance, Ted Mark's The Man from O.R.G.Y. series). Since I know you want to know, I.N.I.T.I.A.L.S stands for "International Neutral Intelligence Team Insuring Against Lawless Sectors."
• "Sheila was invincible, until she clashed with Number One"—well now they're just stealing from better material (namely, the landmark television program The Prisoner).

Page 123~

Inside Number One's hidden hangar, the grim convoy of culprits boarded their luxuriously-appointed craft. Each of the unsmiling men settled into a wide, comfortable, velvet-covered seat. A white-jacketed houseboy appeared with a tray of tall drinks.

Pure midcentury bad-guy luxury. I assume all these guys die. 

~RP

P.S. Ron Lesser is not credited as the artist of this cover painting, but I stumbled on a credit in, of all places, the comments section of a cover art blog. The comment ... was by Lesser himself:

[Superdoll is also credited to him now on Lesser's own wikipedia page]

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Paperback 1059: It Was The Day Of The Robot / Frank Belknap Long (Belmont 90-277)

Paperback 1059: Belmont 90-277 (PBO, 1963)

Title: It Was The Day Of The Robot

Author: Frank Belknap Long

Cover artist: uncredited

Condition: 8/10 (unread; crease across top, slightest of warps)

Value: $10-15

Best things about this cover:

• This looks less like a robot and more like some kind of novelty tent that the little men are having trouble setting up.
• If this book were a song, the title would be "(It Was The) Day Of The Robot"
• Writer, to publisher: "Well, here's my book. I call it: Day Of The Robot!" "Hmmm ... I mean, I *like* it, but I feel like it's missing something. Maybe we can spice it up a little. What if we called it: The Day Of The Robot!" "Well ... I guess a definite article does add spice, but ..." "No, no, wait! I've got it! It Was The Day Of The Robot!" "So like ... a full sentence?" "Yesssss!""I don't see how ... I mean, it's just more words, really, isn't it? It doesn't add-" "I think it really makes you feel, like, *there*, you know?" "I-" "Not just any day of the robot—THE day of the robot." "Again, I-" "Ooh, and does the robot vape? The robot should definitely be vaping. Very in, very now."
• It Was The Day Of The Robot That Vaped While Little Army Men Shot Sad Lasers At It
• Why does the robot have three legs? Oh god ... that is a leg, isn't it? ISN'T IT!?
• They shot him right in his left nipple. Rude.

Best things about this back cover:

• "MAN AGAINST MACHINE" ... that narrative used to hold such dramatic promise. The sad reality of Actual Future is that most MAN AGAINST MACHINE stuff is just me trying to get the ATM to work or struggling to get past those online dealies where I have to prove (to a robot!) that I am not ... a robot.
• Computers used to be enormous, and life was better that way. It just was. Computers should be ominous and threatening and two stories high and six blocks wide and they should beep and hum and churn out a steady stream of information on ticker tape or paper cards that have to be filed in a giant vault somewhere.
• He counted his strides? Such a weird detail. I mean, if it had been one or two long strides, I can see remembering, but six? 

Page 123~

Disillusion and rage had made them transfer their allegiance to me. I'd dragged a popular hero down from his pedestal and slugged him unconscious with the chain at his wrist. And I'd meshed his gears before he could score another victory in a contest of skill.

I like "meshed his gears" as a kind of all purpose phrase for beating someone up. So much nicer and colorful than "kicked his ass" or "fucked him up." In this case, I think the gears are probably literal, since it is, after all, The Day Of The Robot, but I think any time you soundly drub someone, physically or otherwise, you should try "meshed his gears" on for size. 

~RP

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Paperback 939: The 13th Immortal / Robert Silverberg // This Fortress World / James E. Gunn (Ace Double D-223)

Paperback 939: Ace Double D-223 (PBO / 1st ptg, 1957)

Title: The 13th Immortal / This Fortress World
Author: Robert Silverberg / James E. Gunn
Cover artists: [Ed Valigusrsky / Ed Emshwiller]

Estimated value: $10-15

Best things about this cover:

• Look familiar? (see Paperback 938)
• On line at the Genius Bar: "It won't reboot."
• I wanna do a coffee table book of old scifi art called "When Robots Looked Cool."
• Actually this one only looks cool above the waistline. Down below, things are a little spindly.

Best things about this other cover:

• You do not want to make an illegal throw-in in space soccer. The penalty's pretty harsh.
• Love the guy's double fear-hand (which are really shock-hand, but I'm gonna say "close enough").
• The nose-high black latex suit really completes the "Intergalactic Sexual Sadist" look.

Page 123~ (from The 13th Immortal)

One crushing fact rolled down on Kesley like a shock wave. One fact.

Please enjoy this eternal cliffhanger.

~RP

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Paperback 938: The Silver Eggheads / Fritz Leiber (Ballantine Books F561)

Paperback 938: Ballantine Books F561 (PBO, 1961) ("First published as a novelet in Fantasy & Science Fiction," 1958)

Title: The Silver Eggheads
Author: Fritz Leiber
Cover artist: Richard Powers

Estimated value:  $10-15

Best things about this cover:

• Fish-faced robot wearing a bra and carrying a young Joe McCarthy to the boudoir? Sure, I'm in.
• This is Richard Powers at his wackadoodle best. Love how he can conjure a scifi world with just a few odd shapes and blotches.
• As one of my Twitter followers wrote just now, upon seeing this cover: "'Alien Pietas' would be an alt-metal band that I would TOTALLY listen to..."

Best things about this back cover:

• The mad, gay, heady world of the "arts" is the only place I want to be.
• MISS BLUSHES! "A censor-robix of delicate pink"; I think that's her on the cover, looking not very censorious. Erotica robotica!
• "... a luscious platinum ro-but ..." I was like "What's a ro-but!? What Is A Ro-But!?"" But it's just an awkwardly placed speech-cessation hyphen.Still, as a daring reader, I feel obliged to, uh, go in. This one's going on the "Must Read" pile.

Page 123~

Behind Miss Blushes lurched Pop Zangwell, waving his caduceus and yelling thickly, "Avaunt, by Anubis! No news-robots in here!"

Ask your doctor if your heart is healthy enough for caduceus-waving.

~RP

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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 822: Human? / ed. Judith Merril (intro by Fredric Brown)

Paperback 822: Lion Books 205 (PBO, 1954)

Title: Human?
Editor: Judith Merril
Introduction: Fredric Brown
Cover artist: Rafael DeSoto [R. DeSaint??] [signature in bottom right corner, hard to make out—I read it as "R. DeSoto" because Rafael DeSoto is a famous cover artist. The Internet Speculative Fiction Database has "R. DeSaint," but I can't find any other mention of such a person on the Internet, so …?]

Yours for: $18


Best things about this cover:

• And that's when the 2213 Miss Glotron-X swimsuit competition got a little weird …
• "Um … sir? … your mankini top … it's just … if you could … maybe pull it … a little …"
• "This device allows me to speak to my own jugular veins directly!"
• "'Human?' The game show where you … decide what the answer to that question is. Are you ready, Bill? Let's bring out our first set of subjects!"
• Bill does not look confident. Or else that's just his "ill-fitting mankini-bottom" face.
• I'm all for body modification, but I think I draw the line at chicken-fishing.

Best things about this back cover:

• don marquis is the e. e. cummings of paperback scifi anthologies.
• Some heavy hitters in there. Also, Graham Doar. "My friends call me 'Trap'!" Sure they do, Graham.
• Just how many anthologists are there, Boucher? That's about as ringing an endorsement as "Sammy Hagar is among the very best Van Halen frontmen."

Page 123~

Immediately the room seemed to shake itself; things wavered uncomfortably; then I realized Drip was astigmatic.

~RP

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Paperback 698: Vulcan's Hammer / Philip K. Dick // The Skynappers / John Brunner (Ace Double D-457)

Paperback 698: Ace Double D-457 (PBO/PBO, 1960) 

Title: Vulcan's Hammer / The Skynappers
Authors: Philip K. Dick / John Brunner
Cover artists: Ed Emshwiller / Ed Valigursky

Yours for: Not for sale


Best things about this cover:

• Bang bang Vulcan's space-age hammer came down upon his head
• Prototypes for the robot in "Short Circuit."
• I think a double-flashlight pincer hammer would actually be a pretty cool tool. 
• I like to think they're little styling hammers, making our hero look fabulous.

Best things about this other cover:

• A nice visual representation of what happens Every Time I try to peel a hard-boiled egg.
• That's some pretty sweet quintessential '60s sic-fi goodness. Best rockets always look like they came out of a kit and have a maximum of 8 parts, total.
• They kidnapped the sky! Or else they nap on planes, not sure.

Page 123~ (from "Vulcan's Hammer")

Halfway across the Atlantic they passed an immense swarm of hammers streaking toward helpless, undefended North America.

Other continents had presciently installed anti-Vulcan's Hammer technology decades earlier. Silly North Americans.

~RP

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Paperback 311: Who? / Algis Budrys (Pyramid G339)

Paperback 311: Pyramid G339 (1st ptg, 1958)

Title: Who?
Author: Algis Budrys
Cover artist: Robert V. Engel

Yours for: $10


Best things about this cover:

• Hard to snark — this is one of my favorite scifi covers of all time. That creeptastic design on the robot face is fantastic. Looks like Crow from "MST3K," but way more disturbing.
• The hands on this thing are probably the second-most striking element — they look remarkably alike; very expressive. Amazing articulation in that prosthetic hand. Looks like he might have a large sausage or loaf of bread in those clown trousers of his. Very alarming — and he's coming Right At You — into the heart of the "Allied Sphere." Searchlight + barbed wire completes the dystopic effect. Great design all around.

Best things about this back cover:

• See, this designer knew what the real money shot was on that front cover — The Hand!
• Seriously, I have to give it to Pyramid on this one. The blurbs are gripping and unhilarious. This book may actually go onto my "Read It Someday, You Lazy Oaf" pile.

Page 123~

"But I'll tell you something, Mr. Rogers—" He turned suddenly and faced across the barn. The light was behind him and Rogers saw only his silhouette—the body lost in the shapeless, angular drape of the coveralls, the shoulders square, and the head round and featureless. "Even so, people don't like machines. Machines don't talk and tell you their troubles. Machines don't do anything but what they're made for. They sit there, doing their jobs, and one looks like another—but it may be breaking up inside. It may be getting ready to not plow your field, or not pump your water, or throw a piston into your lap. It might be getting ready to do anything—so people are afraid of them, a little bit, and won't take the trouble to understand them, and they treat them badly. So the machines break down more quickly, and people trust them less, and mistreat them more. So the manufacturers say, 'What's the use of building good machines? The clucks'll only wreck 'em anyway,' and build flimsy stuff, so there're very few good machines being made any more. And that's a shame."

Possibly the best "Page 123" excerpt I've ever offered up. Congrats to Algis Budrys for bringing class and dignity to this blog. Next week, more boobs and bad writing, I promise!

~RP

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Paperback 126: Plan for Conquest / A.A. Glynn (Badger Books SF90)

Paperback 126: Badger Books SF90 (PBO [?], 1963 [?])
Title: Plan for Conquest
Author: A. A. Glynn
Cover artist: My Hero

Yours for: $14


Best things about this cover:

• Robot head doubles as coffee pot.
• He's like a walking tamale - those are corn husks, right?
• Love the midnight background scene!: "Everybody was kung fu fightin'!"
• This book is clearly the beta version of "Battlestar Galactica" - just with Far Less Frightening robots
• Multiple choice quiz!: This robot is sad because:

1. he killed his owner lady
2. he is not programmed to "love"
3. his girlfriend robot rejected his Valentine's Day gift: tasty human corpse

Best things about this back cover:

• His arms are in the same position as on the cover ... but Where Is The Lady!? It looks like he's playing charades and the answer he's going for is "Gondolier"
• "Bath the baby?"
• "Aunt Edie"
• I used to belong to the New (Chaucer) Society

Page 123:

So they made their cautious way through the moorland, ever watchful for the glint of dawn-light on domed metal heads which would betray the presence of the brain's robot warriors.

I would like to announce that my next album will be titled "Dawn-Light on Domed Metal!"

~RP