Paperback 1063: Tama of the Light Country / Ray Cummings (Ace F-363)

Paperback 1063: Ace F-363 (PBO, 1965)

Title: Tama of the Light Country

Author: Ray Cummings

Cover artist: Podwil

Condition: 7/10

Value: ~$5

Best things about this cover:

• She's back! Well, actually, this book is earlier than the last one (Paperback 1062), so ... she's here! For the first time! And yet again! Tamagain! Tamalamadingdong! Slicing her way through the planetary system, god knows why...
• Tama, Queen of Forgotten Serial Characters!
• Those blood-soaked wings are phenomenal, why didn't she catch on / take off!? Fewer Marvel movies, more Tama movies!
• Once again I identify with the nondescript dude in the background urging Tama on while staying safely back
• Caught between two space volleyballs, Tama braces for she knows not what!
• I see no evidence that she has been or is about to be "Kidnapped by a spaceship," let alone "Kidnapped by a spaceship Exclamation Point!"

Best things about this back cover:

• Not much
• LOL satellite paranoia! Nice.
• "Furore"—when it's spelled like that you are required to pronounce it with three syllables like "Volare!"

Page 123~

I do not find it pleasant, nor does Rowena, nor do any of the rest of us.

It's settled, then—I won't bother with this book. Thank you, Mr. Narrator.

~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 976: Century of the Manikin / E.C. Tubb (Daw No. 18)

Paperback 976: Daw Books No. 18 (PBO, 1972)

Title: Century of the Manikin
Author: E.C. Tubbs
Cover artist: Jack Gaughan

Estimated value: $8-12
Condition: 8/10

Best things about this cover:

• The latest anti-Hillary ad is pretty intense.
• Not sure whom I'm supposed to support here, but I'm going with Tron-Medea over the nameless faceless horde of enrobed white dudes. History says: roll the dice on the tough broad.
• Those spaceships are super-cool. Simple design, spooky design.

Best things about this back cover:

• "Drugs that controlled warlike emotions"—Ask your doctor about Negroni
• Of course the feminist doesn't *really* want peace, she just wants to bitch you to death, [sigh] [shakes head] women, amirite? [trips over shoelaces]
• You can't make an omelet without shattering a few civilizations.

Page 123~

A remarkable woman, he mused, leaning back, the skin sagging on his heavy features. Hard and strong and, in a way, ruthless, but they were qualities he could admire. A person who had fought all her life and was still fighting. And was still doomed, he thought bleakly. The disease from which she had run could not be cured.

I really didn't need this just 7 hours before the debate. I really didn't.

~RP

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Paperback 975: The House That Stood Still / A.E. Van Vogt (Paperback Library 63-016)

Paperback 975: Paperback Library 63-016 (2nd ptg, 1968)

Title: The House That Stood Still
Author: A.E. Van Vogt
Cover artist: Uncredited

Estimated value: $8-10
Condition: 9/10

Best things about this cover:

• "Pete... do you see that?" "What?" "That house ... it's not moving. It's just ... sitting there." "Dear God! You're right! Call for backup."
• "DO NOT LOOK BEHIND THE MASK OR YOU WILL SEE THE TERRIFYING VISAGE OF ... Shelley? Shelley from Accounting? What are you doing here?"
• That ziggurat is gonna want to have that growth looked at.

Best things about this back cover:

• "Obliterate the universe from the heavens"? This doesn't sound ... right.
• Immortals are always trashing shit and running away.
• That last sentence needs a huge spoiler alert. Why would I want to read now?

Page 123~

"What's the good of having a forty-year-old heart and a ninety-year-old liver?"

~RP

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Paperback 974: Escape to Earth / ed. Ivan Howard (Belmont L92-571)

Paperback 974: Belmont L92-571 (PBO, 1963)

Title: Escape to Earth
Editor: Ivan Howard
Cover artist: Ed Emshwiller ("emsh")
Designed by: Irving Bernstein

Estimated value: $15
Condition: 9/10

Best things about this cover:

• Love the "Barbarella" vibe on this one (though "Barbarella" is still several years in the future).
• This is late Emshwiller. Still great Emshwiller. Beautiful, decorative, intricate space-tech surfaces. Bottom half is not much to look at, but the top is lovely.
• Novelets! Is that how you spell that? Reminds me of when I first saw "cigaret" (Raymond Carver). Disorientingly defrenchified.
• Hilariously, Google dictionary flags "novelette" as "derogatory."

Best things about this back cover:

• I like the red-bordered spreadsheet look. Very early-80s / "Stranger Things"
• Hey, look!: credits not just for Emshwiller, but for the *designer* as well!? Why can't all books be this good about crediting the art people!?
• Manly Banister is the politest porn name.

Page 123~

[from "Temple of Despair" by M.C. Pease]

"You're dressed like a priest," Brandis said; "I don't want to get stoned."

One of the great out-of-context lines in Pop Sensation history.

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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 753: The 1,000-Year Plan / Isaac Asimov // No World of Their Own / Poul Anderson (Ace D-110)

Paperback 753: Ace D-110 (1st ptg / PBO, 1955)

Title: The 1,000-Year Plan / No World of Their Own
Author: Isaac Asimov / Poul Anderson
Cover artist: [Ed Valigursky] / Uncredited

Yours for: $25


Best things about this cover:

• The Minister of Eyebrows is not pleased.
• Rocket-shooting epaulets! Sign me up.
• I saw this sitting on top of the pull boxes at my comic book store and asked the owner if I could look at it. She said, "You like it? Take it." So there's one more benefit to buying local.

Best things about this other cover:

• Are we not men? We are Smear-Face.
• This looks like a very polished sci-fi artist's sketchpad. Buncha vaguely space-y stuff, no real concept.
• The capitalization scheme here is irking me. Titles capitalized, great. Uncapitalized, ok. First two words only … that just adds to the half-baked feel of this entire cover.

Page 123~

Through the shrieking din and confusion, Wienis' bull voice sounded, "Get the flares! Get the flares!"

~RP

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Paperback 678: Four From Planet 5 / Murray Leinster (Gold Medal s937)

Paperback 678: Gold Medal s937 (PBO, 1959)

Title: Four From Planet 5
Author: Murray Leinster
Cover artist: [Paul] Lehr

Yours for: $10


Best things about this cover:

• Yes, if I were in Antarctica, these kids would indeed freak me the fuck out. I would make that exact trepidatious gesture with my left hand ("Fear Hand!"). But wait ... he has a camera on a tripod. Maybe they're a singing group and he's their manager and they're terribly lost and he's decided to use this free time to take some promotional photographs. Yes, that makes sense.
• I really, really wish I could see the guy's face. Seems crucial. I need to know how I'm supposed to feel about this Aryan Children's Brigade. My default position is "terrified." 
• The cover copy does imply that "unknown terror" is a given, and we're just waiting around to figure out what kind. 

Best things about this back cover:

• "Utterly invincible telepaths will broadcast your shabby sins to the world! Gird yourselves!"
• I assume this ends with the kids forming a band and singing their way into civilization's heart. Or with the revelation that one of the kids is really Jesus. 

Page 123~

"The kid got past three electric fences, and we don't know how. He must know plenty about electricity."

Brilliant. I'm now rooting for the kid.

~RP

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Paperback 623: Alien Planet / Fletcher Pratt (Ace F-257)

Paperback 623: Ace F-257 (1st ptg, 1964)

Title: Alien Planet
Author: Fletcher Pratt
Cover artist: Ed Emshwiller

Yours for: $11


Best things about this cover:

• In many ways, a rather generic scifi title / cover (I mean, come on, Alien Planet? That's the best you can do?). But all of this intricate techno-organic Rube Goldberg-esque machinery is gorgeous. There's man, there's monster, and then there's the in-between—which I'm gonna call the "Psychotic Fish Rollercoaster."
• Also love the design on the dude's spacesuit. It's ornate, clean, and confectionary. I wanna lick him real bad.
• That monster thingie is super-creepy if you really look at it. Looks like generic "alien" until you notice the humanoid features; that's what makes it really nightmarish. The face. The opposable thumbs. All floating in their own haze of stink. Good stuff.

Best things about this back cover:

• Humanish hands harder to see here. Also, this thing's a lot less scary out of context. 
• Apparently this is a "classic novel." I checked the original publication date. 1932.
• I would've sworn "Murashema" had to be based on "Hiroshima," but the original publication date suggests not. Too early for that name to be very evocative in the west. 

Page 123~

The big man gave a heave that threw me on my side. I clutched him desperately, but at that moment the prisoner won free, snatched up the javelin and calmly and accurately plunged it into the throat of the man who was now trying to down me.

If unintended sexual subtext is your thing (you know, plunging "javelins" into throats and what not), this is your book. "I shifted position to bring the big man under me," etc. etc.

~RP

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Paperback 534: Lords of Atlantis / Wallace West (Airmont SF3)

Paperback 534: Airmont SF3 (1st ptg, 1963)

Title: Lords of Atlantis
Author: Wallace West
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $10

Best things about this cover:

• To judge by this cover, Lords of Atlantis were a short-lived New Wave band who died of ennui.
• "The camera's over here guys ... guys? ... aw fuck it, just take the shot."
• You can tell the dude with the '60s iPod / '80s cell phone attached to the back of his space helmet wrote all their music and is just biding his time until he can go solo / write the score for "Inception 5: The Receptioning."

Best things about this back cover:

• More like "Snores of Atlantis"—this story would be a lot more interesting if Jeannie were in that bottle.

Page 123~

"There's a screen in the Bab El engine room," she exclaimed as she manipulated the visor dials. "I must try to tell Refo that I do forgive him. I'll never sleep again if I don't."

"They say this cat Refo is a bad mother... / SHUT YOUR MOUTH! / I'm talkin' 'bout Refo! / NO SERIOUSLY SHUT YOUR MOUTH THAT GUY'S AN IDIOT!"

~RP

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Paperback 492: Alpha Centauri or Die! / Leigh Brackett (Ace 01770)

Paperback 492: Ace 01770 (1st ptg, 1970)

Title: Alpha Centauri or Die!
Author: Leigh Brackett
Cover artist: Uncredited [Carlos Ochagavia]

Yours for: $5

Best things about this cover:

• "Uh ... I don't think they're home." "Did you ring the doorbell?" "Of course I rang the doorbell. What did you think, I'm just gonna stand here and ... wait, I hear something. Someone's in there. 'Hello! Hello?!'" "This is ridiculous. Who needs this much security?" "Don't be rude. 'Hello!' Maybe there's a dress code or something. I told you not to wear that stupid egg costume..."
• Space Station Security—powered by Simon and some reel-to-reel tape.
• I went through a Leigh Brackett phase in the late '90s, after I found out that she a. co-wrote "The Big Sleep" screenplay (with William Faulkner), and b. wrote the screenplay for "The Empire Strikes Back." She's a very competent writer who should probably be better known.

Best things about this back cover:

• Wow, that is some stain. I think that stain is now home to some microbial life forms. Appropriate for scifi.
• I thought the dude's name was "To [rhymes with 'Bo'?] Kirby"
• In space, no one can hear you complain about the tryranny [sic!]

Page 123~

They sweated it out crouched under their tarps, and after it was over they wallowed on through the mud to make a camp where they had stopped before, clear of the forest.  Damp and tired, they huddled around a hopeless little fire and chewed a cold supper.

Lollapalooza is the same no matter what planet you're on.

~RP

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Paperback 448: Takeoff / C.M. Kornbluth (Pennant P15)

Paperback 448: Pennant Books P15 (1st ptg, 1953)

Title: Takeoff
Author: C.M. Kornbluth
Cover artist: Charles Binger

Yours for: Not For Sale — special donation to the collection from Michael and Sue Handley


Best things about this cover:

• "Bomber jackets half-price at Macy's!? But I paid full price last weekend! Bastards! Vengeance will be mine!"
• That's quite the phallic object.
• I just found out that it pays to check my campus mailbox every once in a while—I just found this book waiting for me (it had been waiting for nearly 2 months) with the following note attached:

Supercool notepad.

And now the back cover:


Best things about this back cover:

• Ugh, just a bunch of blurbs, though now I know where my benefactors got their purple prose from.

Page 123~

Suddenly his voice blazed with passion and the words came like a torrent. "What was I to do? Go ahead and do it the wrong way? [...]"

This selection would be much more evocative and engaging if this were a sex novel.

~RP

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Paperback 388: Magazine of Science Fiction & Fantasy, August, 1955

Paperback 388

Title: Magazine of Science Fiction & Fantasy (August, 1955)
Authors: Poul Anderson, Henry Kuttner, C.L. Moore, Anthony Boucher, and Elisabeth Sanxay Holding
Cover artist: Ed Emshwiller

Yours for: SOLD!


Best things about this cover:

• Farmer Ted Goes to Planet Blortron
• If Norman Rockwell did paintings about interstellar, interspecies sexual confusion, they might look something like this: "Wheeeere are youuuuuu goinnnng!? Youuuuu sed youuuuu luvved meeeeee... Take this hellllmet off riiight nowwww..."
• I love the highly underrated Elisabeth Sanxay Holding, and I'm pretty sure I bought this magazine ONLY because she had a story in it (she's more an eerie thriller writer than a scifi writer, normally)

Best things about this back cover:

• Well if Eva Gabor and Guy Lombardo say so, who am I to disagree?
• Love the font on "IMAGINATION."
• "Better newsstands" ... ??? "Man, this is one classy newsstand! ... it's got an awning and everything!"

Page 123~

from "The Tiddlywink Warriors" by Poul Anderson and Gordon R. Dickson

Too late, Alex remembered that he had left Toka without a supply of the potent liquor which was so much a part of everyday Hoka life. Whether known as wine, red-eye, rum, grog, uisgebeatha or Old Spaceman, it was always present in wholesale quantities. Now, for the first time, Alex found himself with a bunch who had it not.

When I am a very elderly man, living on some lunar outpost because of nuclear war / End Times, I will drink "Old Spaceman." Proudly.

~RP

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