Paperback 1154: The 1,000-Year Plan / Isaac Asimov (Ace D-110)

Paperback 1154: Ace D-110 (1st ptg, 1955)

Title: The 1,000-Year Plan

Author: Isaac Asmiov

Cover artist: Ed Valigursky

Condition: 7/10    

Value: $10    

[gift from a reader]

Best things about this cover: 

• John Houseman is ... Mr. Clean in ... The 1,000-Year Plan! 
• Is he just wearing a shitty t-shirt with a worn-out collar? How am I supposed to take Captain Eyebrows here seriously if he can't even keep his uniform tight.
• "Sir, we have a plan for waxing your head?" "Fantastic, how long will it take?" 
• Weirdly, this book was released both as one half of an Ace Double paperback (also numbered D-110, with Poul Anderson's No World of Their Own as the flip side) and in this standalone format. I have no idea why.

Best things about this back cover: 

• That's a nice shade of blue, I guess.

Page 123~

"A priest is at the head. He has been identified as High Priest Poly Verisof. He demands the immediate release of Mayor Salvor Hardin and cessation of the war against the Foundation."

Those names! Was this originally written as space porn? Come on. You're gonna tell me that these characters weren't originally named Polly VerySoft and Salvor Hard-On? I don't believe it.

~RP

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Paperback 892: Dark Laughter / Sherwood Anderson (Pocket Books 878)

Paperbacks 892: Pocket Books 878 (1st ptg, 1952)

Title: Dark Laughter
Author: Sherwood Anderson
Cover artist: Tom Dunn

Estimated value: $15-20

Best things about this cover:

• Her expression is somehow both lascivious and bored. It says "You … sure, you'll do."
• Maybe if you angle your boobs toward him just a little bit more, Lady Chatterley, he'll get the hint.
• The husband … is one of my favorite cover elements of all time. Without him, you've got a pretty typical paperback cover. With him, and his ham-sized pate and his spectacles and his "can't talk, reading" and his vibrant, shlubby boredom, this cover skyrockets to comedy. "What? Sure, fuck him, don't fuck him, whatever. I gotta check my stocks…"
• Reader Michael 5000 sent me this book. Since I hardly ever check my mail at school, I didn't discover this book until very recently. I had, very, very weirdly and coincidentally, checked out Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio that same week. Anyway, Michael sent along a nifty postcard with its own spot-on commentary:

And the back cover:


Best things about this back cover:

• Who wrote that tagline, Douglas Sirk?
• Not "love as few men have ever loved," but "love as few men ever have time to love"—like that's the issue. "Damn my 6pm squash game! I could be LOVING right now, but nooooo…"
• "… when she saw Bruce Dudley  she knew physical desire for the first time." Uh … I challenge. That is simply not a plausible statement.

Page 123~

Being in Rose's apartment that night was, for all the people who had been there, a good deal like walking into a bedroom in which a woman lies naked. They had all felt that.

I really, really wish I … knew what the hell this meant.

~RP

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