Paperback 615: Death Is My Comrade / Stephen Marlowe (Gold Medal 986)

Paperback 615: Gold Medal 986 (PBO, 1960)

Title: Death Is My Comrade
Author: Stephen Marlowe
Cover artist: Uncredited (Barye Phillips?)

Yours for: $10


Best things about this cover:

• "You must be this tall to ride this comrade."
• Mad Maxine in "Beyond Oniondome"!
• Not a fan of Gold Medal's late-50s/early-60s "Don't-Finish-The-Painiting" phase.

Best things about this back cover:

• Generic Detective Head Shot!
• "Tune in" — ha ha. It thinks it's TV.
• Hmmm, I'm no Chet Drum, but 'Rodzianko' and 'Rodin' sound awfully similar.
• Ooh, ripe *and* luscious *AND* underage! Just like Chet likes 'em.

Page 123~

Gone was the hail-fellow-well-met attitude, gone the booming voice. The big, shaggy man slouched slowly and wearily across the room. I gave him a cigarette. His big hand shook as he cupped the flame I offered. "For some of us dialectic reasoning makes the difference," he said. 

Silly commies, no longer hailing your well-met fellows. Chet Drum scoffs at you!

~RP

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Paperback 605: The Ambushers / Donald Hamilton (Gold Medal k1333)

Paperback 605: Gold Medal k1333 (PBO, 1963)

Title: The Ambushers
Author: Donald Hamilton
Cover artist: McD (?)

Yours for: $11


Best things about this cover:

• "Isn't my sniper boyfriend dreamy!?"
• "So sorry, señor. The chupacabra, I think she got away."
• What is this "pansy class" and how do I enroll? Sounds fun. Also, I would love to see Matt Helm call Mike Hammer a "pansy." 

Best things about this back cover:

• Murder—in the card catalogue!
• How does one "play God to a beautiful, beat-up girl"? "OK, you be Job, and I'll go hide behind that bush and ..."
• I do like to order my thrillers by the half-dozen.

Page 123~

In my terrible predicament I'd hardly be giving attention to stray blondes. I kept my eyes on the men.

I assume his "terrible predicament" is "being undercover at a gay bar." Or he has some unspeakable injury that makes arousal painful. Either way, don't worry, Matt. It gets better.

~RP

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Paperback 577: Club Tycoon Sends Man to Moon / Felix Mendelsohn Jr. (Book Co. of America 13)

Paperback 577: Book Co. of America 13 (PBO, 1965)

Title: Club Tycoon Sends Man to Moon
Author: Felix Mendelsohn Jr.
Cover artist: [signature illegible] [Brennan? Boorman? Boron?]

Yours for: $20

Best things about this cover:

• That! That is what I want to look like when I'm 75. Like an old Greek rap star supervillain. If I don't end up with a Money Throne, a Soviet missile, and a real-life Modigliani model in my house by the time I die, I will consider my life wasted.
• I assume that throne is also some kind of hovercraft. I mean, why would you go through the trouble of building something that awesome if it couldn't fly?
• I bought this book because it is insane-looking. A silly-sounding title from a very minor press, written by a guy with a ludicrous pseudonym. If I had a "Kabinet of Kooky Kuriosities," I'd put this book there.

Best things about this back cover:

• You have no idea how much I *don't* want to know what "built-in stump" means.
• You can get your "World's Greatest Lecher" mug at CreepyChristmasGifts.com
• I love how "wonderfully gay" is echoed further down the page by "a bachelor by choice" (and, possibly, "Cryptanalyst").
• According to that final sentence, the author and I are 80% alike. This worries me.
• Publishers were correct in their prediction that this would not be Felix Mendelsohn Jr's last novel. He seems to have written one other, "Superbaby," which I Must Acquire:

Page 23~ (the book is exactly 122 pages long)

Wayne: "What's your line, Mr. Dormin?"
Dormin: "Laxatives."

Sure. Why not?

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

P.S. Hope my east coast readers weathered Sandy successfully. We had a state of emergency up here, but nothing happened. Still, I was prepared:


P.P.S. I've been meaning to post this pic of a sign for a local deli — in Endwell (!) NY — just 'cause. I haven't been in yet, but I am ... curious:

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

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

Paperback 308: A Room on the Route / Godfrey Blunden (Bantam 947)

Paperback 308: Bantam 947 (1st ptg, 1951)

Title: A Room on the Route
Author: Godfrey Blunden
Cover artist: Uncredited [Schaare???]

Yours for: $17


Best thing about this cover:

• Soviet singing sensation "Drago" was in constant danger of being mauled by his overzealous, sex-crazed fanbase of lonely Nanas. Here, security moves in quickly to save him.
• This book was apparently published in that narrow window of time when "Soviet" had not yet found a "Union" to modify.
• This guy's like a Soviet Jesus. Look at his beatific face, the halo of light around his head, the way he's being mistreated, the way he appears to be looking plaintively at us, admonishing us to give up our sinful ways... you've got Mary there in foreground, Mary Magdalen in background, Roman centurions coming to take him away ...

Best things about this back cover:

• N.K.V.D. — secret police organization that preceded K.G.B.; not, as I'd originally hoped, the shortened name of 90's boy band New Kids with Venereal Diseases.
• Every book should come with "mounting action."

Page 123~

The men in the factory felt they had made a victory.

The men in the factory then headed to their ESL class to learn more about how to make a sentence that sounds right in English.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

Paperback 170: A Korean Tiger / Nick Carter (Award Books A248X)

Paperback 170: Award Books A248X (PBO, 1967)

• Title: A Korean Tiger
• Author: Nick Carter (who is also the main character...? and who is also, btw, a Backstreet Boy)
• Cover artist: Some McGinnis imitator

Yours for: $17


Best things about this cover:

• Bring me the floating head of Nick Carter! Oh, nevermind. It's right there.
• The disembodied head of Nick Carter thinks you're a swell-looking doll. {wink!}
• If the book is trying to suggest to me that that lady is "Korean," I challenge. She looks like Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, only with somewhat smaller boobs and no shirt.
• I like how she is taking a sidelong glance at the title, as if thinking "WTF?"
• How is it possible that no rapper has picked up the name "Killmaster?" That would be my handle for sure. That, or "Optimum Slim" (a name I derived from the cereal I eat every morning)
• Fake Korean Post-op Elvira Impersonator needs a refill, dammit!

Best things about this back cover.

• Text! Who doesn't like ... that?
• Oh my god, I am in love with this book - any book that features the word "slatternly" is hottt with three t's.
• I hope the "dark underbelly of Asia" is just some really hairy Laotian guy.
• Paragraph indentations are for suckas!

Page 123~

The wide green stare did not waver. Behind those basilisk eyes he thought he could detect a hint of something warmer. Desire? Plain old-fashioned lust? Was this creature really so human?

Oh please dear god don't let him be talking about the "Korean" woman. "Though she was Korean, she seemed oddly human."

~RP

P.S. this book is immaculate. As crisp and new and bright as the day it first hit the shelves. Maybe there's a tiny amount of scuffing, but it's quite negligible. Paperbacks rarely hold up this well.

Paperback 115: 'K' / Leslie Waller (Gold Medal k1319)

Paperback 115: Gold Medal k1319 (PBO, 1963)
Title: 'K'
Author: Leslie Waller
Cover artist: uncredited

Yours for: $15


Best things about this cover:

• The "K", obviously - my favorite letter of the alphabet, by far.
  
• Easily the shortest title in my collection
• They've made Khrushchev look gregarious, drunk, lecherous, all at once. It's a nasty combo.
  
• I do not believe anyone would get up from a chair and leave it in exactly that condition
• The rifle appears to be floating. At that angle it couldn't possibly be propped up by the chair arm.
• Is that "K" supposed to look ... Sovietish? It's certainly Red.

Best things about this back cover:

• "Yes, hello! It's me, Nikita! I am watching you, you naughty minx..."
• In case you forgot that Khrushchev is communist, they have made him red to remind you.
• There's a fine art to near-murder now?
• Are those circles supposed to be bullet holes? Views through a rifle scope? Pips on a defective domino?

Page 123~

Lying at his feet, Ryder saw one meaty finger whiten at the knuckle as Ponamarenko started to squeeze the trigger.

I think that sentence opens with a misplaced modifier. Sounds like Ryder is lying at some other guy's feet, when I think the meaty finger is actually lying at Ryder's feet. These are the kinds of things I spend my life obsessing over. It's sad, really.

~RP