Paperback 1057: The Sword of Rhiannon / Leigh Brackett (Ace F-422)

Paperback 1057: Ace F-422 (1st thus, 1967)

Title: The Sword of Rhiannon
Author: Leigh Brackett
Cover artist: John Schoenherr

Condition: 7/10
Estimated value: $8

Best things about this cover:

• This was a very famous Martian deodorant ad campaign. "Shirtless marauding got you feeling ... not so fresh? Well now you can raise your triumphant, blood-soaked hand in confidence with new Martian Sure! Raise your hand if you're Sure!"
• "Hey guys, guys, over here, I think I got her. She doesn't ring like a bell in the night but ... pretty sure she's Rhiannon. No, seriously guys, come over here! I'm using the new deodorant now, it's OK!"
• Digging the pink hues with lime green font. Feel the late '60s...
• What the hell is "Cosmic Peril"? "Cosmic Carol in a Lost World" would've been a way more interesting premise. "Who is Cosmic Carol!?" I'd be forced to wonder!
• Bold move to fill so much of the foreground with just the back of some guy's head. Who is this eggheaded watcher? Wait ... am I the eggheaded watcher!? Existential, man...

Best things about this back cover:

• Ugh, too much text, come on! If I wanted to read, I'd ... well ... buy a book, I guess
• Mars MARS MARS!!!
• Can't help singing "Matt Carse" to the tune of Gary Numan's "Cars": "Here with Matt Carse / I feel safest of all / He's a mythical god / And he's a got a big sword / Matt Carse"
• Leigh Brackett was one of the founders of modern space opera. She wrote the first draft of the screenplay for "Empire Strikes Back" (just before her death). She also wrote the screenplay for "Rio Bravo"! And "The Long Goodbye"! And co-wrote the screenplay for "The Big Sleep"! With William Faulkner. What a career.

Page 123~ (this book's only 128 pages long!)

"The blessings of the gods attend you, stranger," Emer whispered and kissed him gently on the lips.

I like to imagine that Emer's last name is Gency and that she had a minor R&B hit in 1983 called "The Blessings of the Gods Attend You, Stranger." Also, that on the cover of her one major-label album ("S.O.S.!") she's wearing a get-up that can only be described as Disco Chainmail. 

~RP

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Paperback 1056: In Case of Emergency / Georges Simenon (Dell D279)

Paperback 1056: Dell D279 (1st Dell, 1959)

Title: In Case of Emergency
Author: Georges Simenon
Cover artist: photo

Condition: 7/10
Estimated value: $10-15

Best things about this cover:

• If anything was gonna kickstart this blog again, it was gonna be a sudden jolt of "frank"ness (picked this up on Sunday at Autumn Leaves bookstore in Ithaca)
• Is there another way to be "shocking" besides "frankly shocking"? Can you be "coyly shocking"?
• I know there is the suggestion of titillation inside ("8 PAGES OF PHOTOGRAPHS") but you'd think they would've offered up a more (frankly) suggestive shot of Bardot for the cover. Yes, she appears to be naked and in bed, but it's really a rather dull still—as if she were merely eyeing the cover copy and thinking, "yeah, I guess that's OK."
• I want to live in a world where promises of JEAN GABIN photos could move books

Best things about this back cover: 

• "Thoughts of Jean Gabin invaded her mind like ... well, like this red arrow!"
• Yes, "obsessed" with his mistress, we get it, you said that on the cover, come on, thesaurus!
• Nevermind, I just finished reading that first paragraph, put the thesauraus down, I repeat, put the thesaurus down, step away from the adjectives, please
• I know "little slut of the streets" is supposed to sound insulting but I think it's kind of cute ... also, maybe your "traitorous body" is your own problem, pal
• "Degrading," "depravity," "destruction," "desires" ... how about "desist" or "depart the D section of your dictionary, dude"?

Page 123~

"You'll see! She's got a pretty little pussy, with real blonde hair."

OK so that "pussy" is not I repeat not a cat. Frankly, I'm shocked. No, I'm being *real* frank, not boy-who-cried-frank frank. This quotation seems ... well, as explicit as anything I've ever seen in a book from a mainstream 1950s paperback publisher. I guess the French get more leeway. You know how they are.

~RP

Paperback 1055: In Comes Death / Paul Whelton (Graphic 49)

Paperback 1055: Graphic 49 (1st ptg, 1952)

Title: In Comes Death
Author: Paul Whelton
Cover artist: Uncredited

Condition: 7/10
Estimated value: $15

Best things about this cover:

• Death looks kinda down-at-the-heels. Reduced to doing cheap hits. Must need the money.
• I'm obsessed with whatever she's wearing. Is that a ... housecoat? It looks too dressy for a nightgown, but too slovenly for outdoor wear. Lack of undergarments also suggests an indoors-only context, but ... yeah, what is this?
• She is very pretty and beautifully painted and I hate when there are no artist credits!
• Love the way she's wound the cord around her right hand. Nice touch. Fear hand (variation)!
• This scene looks very (Very) familiar ... 

... which is weird, since the movie came out two years *after* this book

and now the back cover:

Best things about this back cover:

• There is nothing intriguing, compelling, or even interesting about this description. Ooh, a "mysterious death." Aah, a "deadly game of wits." How ... specific and not-at-all boiler-plate.
• I want it to be Lonely Frog Lane, named after an actual lonely frog who lived there all alone, froggily
• This "describe the plot in complete but annoying vague sentences" really is bottom-of-the-barrel cover copy.

Page 123~

"Peace!" I intoned, making an exit.

Very slangy! Just like the kids intone it.

~RP

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Paperback 1054: The Raft / Robert Trumbull (Dell 26)

Paperback 1054: Dell 26 (1st ptg, 1944)

Title: The Raft
Author: Robert Trumbull
Cover artist: George Frederiksen
Back cover artist: Gerald Gregg

Condition: 6.5/10
Estimated value: $10

Best things about this cover:

• Everything above the author's name seems very pleasant. Serene, even. Perhaps, as your eyes move down the page, you can even maintain the illusion that these fellows are just out for a weekend jaunt of fun & sun. But that "DELL WAR BOOK" (a kind of book I can't remember seeing before) drives the more dire context home pretty thoroughly.
• I like early Dell covers, and early covers in general, which are far more tied to abstract expressionism than later, more naturalistic covers (which I also love, obviously)
• I also like the early Dell EYEBALL IN THE KEYHOLE logo. "You don't read Dell Books, Dell Books read you!"

Best things about this back cover:

• What is happening here? Why are they spaced so far apart? Why have their arms fused together? Does the dude in the middle need propping up? Is this some kind of Weekend at Bernie's situation?
• The italicizing concept here is ill-conceived. I know alliteration has its charms, but choose parallel construction every time. 
• War bond ads appeared inside early paperbacks with a great deal of regularity. On the outside of early paperbacks?? Far less so.

Page 123~

He seemed more interested in the boat than in his natural prey.

~RP

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Paperback 1053: La Dolce Vita / Federico Fellini (Ballantine S 517 K)

Paperback 1053: Ballantine S 517 K (PBO, 1961)

Title: La Dolce Vita
Author: Federico Fellini (trans. Oscar DeLiso and Bernard Shir-Cliff)
Cover artist: photo cover (Anita Ekberg!)

Condition: 7/10
Estimated value: $12-15

Best things about this cover:

• Best things? I'm going to be polite and say "her armpits! they're breathtaking!"
• I think the stylized color title font against the black-and-white still works very nicely
• Like many paperbacks of the era, this book seems to be promising more hot action than it is going to be able to deliver. "Over 96 pages of photos!" (most of them not showcasing the ample figure of Ms. Ekberg)

Best things about this back cover:

• Only Fellini may wear that hat
• Really laying the sex on thick here. I guess '60s audiences were really titillated by "decadence"
• Holy shit I was so distracted by the hat that I almost missed the KITTEN

Page 123~

~RP

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Paperback 1052: Gold Comes in Bricks / A.A. Fair (Erle Stanley Gardner) (Dell 84)

Paperback 1052: Dell 84 (1st ptg, 1945)

Title: Gold Comes in Bricks
Author: A.A. Fair (pseud. of Erle Stanley Gardner)
Cover artist: Gerald Gregg

Condition: 5/10
Estimated value: $15

Best things about this cover:

• Gold comes in testicles
• It looks like honey, and if you gotta go, I say asphyxiated by honey is the way!
• Really love the early Dell covers, which had no pretensions to realism. Much more interested in evoking feeling with shape and color than in getting the perspective or anatomy right
• Check out the jaunty cursive on the author's name. The early pb was the wild west, from a design perspective. Everyone still experimenting, going nuts.
• This is the Platonic ideal of the "Reading Copy." Beat to hell, but still tight and complete and unfragile. They don't make 'em like they used to!

Best things about this back cover:

• Mapback!
• Uh ... this could be more interesting. Two nondescript hotel rooms! Thrill to the architectural possibilities!
• LOL "Corridor," thanks, map

Page 123~

The machine shops had moved. The office stood deserted. There was an air of funereal despair about the town. Those who were left went dejectedly about their business, moving with the listless lassitude of persons who have lost their chance at winning big stakes and are plugging away simply because they can't figure out how to quit.

Ouch. I feel seen. And accused.

~RP

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Paperback 1051: The Big Sqeeze / Christopher Athens (Chicago House A102)

Paperback 1051: Chicago House A102 (PBO, 1962)

Title: The Big Squeeze
Author: Christopher Athens
Cover artist: Uncredited (!!!?)

Condition: 9/10
Value: $15-20

Best things about this cover:

• Billy woulda taken first place at the 9th grade art show for sure but the judges said his rad painting, which is obviously a commentary on free speech, had "sexual content" and they totally disqualified him, like what is this, Soviet Russia? Bogus.
• Seriously, though, what is happening?
• The dude ... did the dude forget his ... shoe? Is that a shoe? A tipped over bag of groceries? A melted turntable? I know I should be focused on the naked ladies, but...
• Are they going up or down? Also, why? Also, is Red dead? Also, why?
• Protip: cover one of the most important visual elements of your cover with giant block letters so the reader has no idea wtf is going on. It's avant-garde!
• This book is in perfect condition ... is the best thing I can say about this book.

Best things about this back cover:

• OK, right off the bat, I can tell you the cover copy writer has limited experience with what we in the writing business call "verbs."
• BRB, relabeling all my booze "Parts Cleaner"
• "Three-and-a-half bells?" Are we at sea?
• "This pair of chicks tried to pick me up once and ... what? You don't know them. They live in Canada. ANYway, these totally real chicks..."
• Who the f is "Tom Anthony"?

Page 123~

"Brush my teeth," I said, holding a hand in front of my mouth.

"Oh," exhaled Barbara. "When you said 'oral' I thought ... well, nevermind what I thought ..."

~RP

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