Paperback 1135: The Twilight Lust / Val Arden (Royal Line 105)

Paperback 1135: Royal Line 105 (PBO, 1965)

Title: The Twilight Lust

Author: Val Arden

Cover artist: [photo cover]

Condition: 7/10

Value: $25

[Newest addition to the Doug Peterson Collection]

Best things about this cover: 

• "Adults Only may see my nipples. Yes, I'm serious, those are the rules. I'm crossing my arms defiantly, so you know that I am serious."
• I want one of you to dress as This Lady for Halloween, insane wig, chainmail underwear, "Adults Only" sign and all. Dying decorative houseplant optional.
• "Twilight" is code for gay/lesbian/queer. Always. Such a great code word. My favorite cover copy word, right up there with "frank" (as euphemism for "dirty")
• There should be more condition ratings for old paperbacks than just Good, Very Good, Fine, etc. There needs to be a word that gets to the specific quality of a book like this, which is unread, square, perfect, but also aged to hell and scuffed and notched by a saw at the top, maybe sun damaged. It's like "Excellent/Poor"

Best things about this back cover: 

• Wow. Wow. . . yeah, wow.
• Who can forget the first stirrings of "girhood?" Not me, that's for sure.
• "Satisfaction in treir seeking." "Treir seeking" was a lesbian spiritual/sexual practice. No one remembers what it was anymore. This book is the only record of its existence. Did they ever find the treir they were seeking? You'll have to get your own copy to find out. 
• It's like someone found a "rejected cover copy" text-file dump and just filed it as final copy. Like, on a dare. "Surely an editor will clean this up." And yet here we are. 
• Somehow the most disturbing thing to me about this back cover is how horribly off-center the copy is. That, and the grime. Oh, and the sad, misaligned final word. Poor "body."

Page 123~

She saw the irritation darkening his face and knew his pride had risen to overrun them. He could not let himself be concerned. He had never come to her with questions. Only with orders. And, certainly, he wasn't about to start now. Especially not now. Finish.

That first sentence starts out great ("She saw the irritation darkening his face") and then just falls off a cliff and never stops falling. This paragraph is like "Notes Toward a Paragraph." I can't stop laughing at "Finish." It's like an annotation or an editor's note that was never supposed to make it to print. Like, "Remember to come back and finish this paragraph because dear lord it is a mess."

~RP

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Paperback 905: Perverted Lust Couple / Val Grasse (Royal Line 118)

Paperback 905: Royal Line RL 118 (PBO, 1965)

Title: Perverted Lust Couple
Author: Val Grasse
Cover artist: photo cover

Estimated value: Infinity dollars (none are offered on Abebooks, so I don't even know...)

[Part of the esteemed Doug Peterson collection]

Best things about this cover:

• "I'm *bored*. This perversion is *stupid*. Why is there a *tree branch* stuck in my hair? You said you were going to get a *nice* birdcage. This one smells like bird. God. It's like 'perverted lust couple' doesn't even mean anything any more..."
• The only kind of sex I can see this cover inspiring is missionary, in the dark, under the covers, weeping.
• My favorite thing about this book so far is not about the book at all, but about my blog: namely that I *already have* a "Birdcages" label/tag. What the hell were those other books?

Best things about this back cover:

• Oddly, the most confusing word on this cover is "one."
• "Hidden"? Check (twice). "Twisted"? Check (twice).
• Sorry, but "lesbian" and "homo" sound positively vanilla compared to whatever avian/oral fetish thing is happening on the cover.

Page 123~

"See, I got everything a man wants. I'm physically a woman. She placed her hands to her lower body and parted herself lewdly.

Missing close quotes here are part of the book's unique "style." This book seems to throw quotation marks in randomly. There are at least three errors (missing quotation marks) on this page alone. I think the book was typeset in some terrible sweatshop where English competence was minimal and desperation was high. And you thought the *content* of the book made you feel dirty...

~RP

P.S. this book is in amazing condition

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Paperback 258: Perverted Love Slave / Adam Calin (Royal Line 127)

Paperback 258: Royal Line RL 127 (PBO, 1966)

Title: Perverted Love Slave
Author: Adam Calin
Cover artist: in witness protection

Yours for: Unavailable


Best things about this cover:

• Worst. Alarm Clock. Ever. "Alright, alright, I'm up ... dang!"
• "In this house we wear bras and *only* bras! No [crack!] bracelets! [crack!]"
• The lady in the bed is, uh, hot. The lady with the whip is, uh, not. She's pasty and misshapen and has one of the Fry Guys on her head.
• Debbie was distracted from her dominatrix duties when she suddenly noticed a mysterious, massive dollop of lemon frosting at the foot of the bed.
• "She was a lust slave to his every depraved desire" — "his?" Wow, "he" managed to get himself a superior boob job.

Best things about this back cover:

• This feels like it was translated from the Bulgarian in some horrible translating forced labor camp.
• I mean, how am I supposed to do my job? This thing is self-parodic.
• I like how that first paragraph appears to be someone writing out loud, in real time. Stop transcribing every thought you have!
• Misspelling "Jekyll" helps them avoid messy fictional defamation lawsuits.
• "Shame Whims" made me literally LOL.
• My god, the font size, the spacing ... it's all so off, so wrong, so tawdry — the cover copy equivalent of a snuff film.

Page 123~

"I mentioned you to Mrs. Tomane. She's interested in writing. She would like to meet you, since you're writing a novel that has a chance to be published."

"Who told you that?"

~RP