Paperback 666: Dark Quarters / Stella Hampton (Fabian Z-117)

Paperback 666: Fabian Z-117 (PBO, 1957)

Title: Dark Quarters
Author: Stella Hampton
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $25


Best things about this cover:

• "Uh, yeah, I got a letter here addressed to "Sidewalk"—that you?"
• "... newspapers were her bed; her hair, a badger pelt." 
• "Dark niches" HA ha. Subtle.
• "As a child, dancing for her grandparents earned her shiny pennies ... but as a young woman, she earned naught but DARK QUARTERS."

Best things about this back cover:

• Mmm, early Fabian books had such an awesomely low-rent, DIY vibe. 
• Victims of their own success—"So many of you want the sleazy, badly written books we produce that we can't keep up w/ your orders! Long live barely literate perverts!"
• This is from the era before publisher Sanford Aday got convicted of trafficking in obscenity—when the end matter of his books was chock full of long disquisitions on free speech and obscenity laws, and clippings of news about Supreme Court decisions, etc. Also, he occasionally documented his own legal struggles: "... the jury acquitted as to the book Rambling Maids and voted nine to three in favor of The Strange Three and Turbulent Daughters!" Take that, Ulysses!

Page 123~ (nah ... way too boring ... here's p. 27)

"Put your hand on my breast, Steve. You want to, don't you?"

"Yes, but ..."

"Just a little,—feel it like it's something you've never felt before."

"Squeeze it like a pastry bag, you cowardly bastard!," she cooed.

~RP

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Paperback 665: Patterns of Sin / Dave Patrick (Saber Tropic 922)

Paperback 665: Saber Tropic 922 (PBO, 1966)

Title: Patterns of Sin
Author: Dave Patrick
Cover artist: Uncredited [Bill Edwards]

Yours for: $26


Best things about this cover:

• How is this book *not* titled "They Cloned Castro!"?
• I think her underwear is pretty. 
• Is it just me, or is it less fun to admire the half-naked lady when she's being gang-raped?

Best things about this back cover:

• Ouch. I have sleaze whiplash. Going from Cuban gang rape to brother/sister incest will do that to you.
• "May I?" Ha ha. So polite, and such proper grammar.
• "Since there were no degrees of sin in her mind..."—the implications of this are staggering. "Oh, well, I already stole a $5 from the till, so I may as well carjack that lady and start running people over."
• "Roddy." Again, HA ha.

Page 123~

"What's going on here?" he demanded, his eyes taking in the Major's body. 

Wow, this book is bound and determined to hit *all* the major "sins" (at least I assume this passage is a prelude to gay sex in the military). Too bad I don't do Page 144—it has a lengthy, clumsy, hilariously clinical description of lesbian 69. "... Estelle knew what the next step was to be, and she was reluctant to take it, until Gizelle's mouth reached its destination and moved on to her partner's thighs in a manner that said the act was to be a reciprocal, if it was performed." Mmm ... tell me less ...

~RP

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Paperback 664: Sex Without Marriage / Jonathan Starr and Bonnie Golightly (Lancer 72-648)

Paperback 664: Lancer Books 72-648 (PBO, 1962)

Title: Sex Without Marriage
Authors: Jonathan Starr & Bonnie Golightly
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $20


Best things about this cover:

• This design is cool in an abstract art kind of way. Still can't help but wish I could see more of Jon and Bonnie than just their hastily sketched heads, though.
• I keep reading "the real estate of non-marital relationships," which would be cool—a picture book of cool '60s apartments where people could just go at it.
• "Bonnie Golightly" is the most made-up of made-up names. "Breakfast at Tiffany's" came out ... in 1961.
• If I were a single woman I would have a t-shirt made that read simply "Bachelor Girl." I might have one made anyway.
• Bonnie Golightly is my kind of woman—"unusually frank"!

Best things about this back cover:

• That first line is brought to you by Dr. Seuss.
• A. Yes, B. No (a guy's gotta sleep)
• "Candidly" shmandidly! I want more "frank"!

Page 123~

This female, this hard sister, usually persuades herself that she has some good sensible reason for her self-perversion: to get some capital to go into business for herself, to put baby brother, or her own baby,  through college, to save herself from Mama's miserable fate of poverty and a sadistic husband, etc. She prides herself on being brutally frank with herself, on being shrewd, on being strong enough to be hard.  Quick money and big money is worth the sacrifice.

Oh dear god yes ... "brutally frank" ... that's the stuff. Also, this whole book is written in this florid, nutty style. Opening to random pages yields unexpected delights. Here, let's see ... p. 63: "If you have been spending most of your time at the lady's flat then an occasional bottle of hooch would be in order. You've probably been consuming most of hers." I think I'm going to tweet this whole book over the course of the summer. It's absolutely loaded with Frank Dating Advice For Cool Moderns. Also, thinking of adding "Hard Sister" t-shirt to my custom t-shirt order.

~RP

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Paperback 663: Women / Ed. A. M. Krich (Dell First Edition D3)

Paperback 663: Dell First Edition D3 (PBO, 1953)

Title: Women
Editor: A. M. Krich
Cover artist: Walter Brooks

Yours for: $7


Best things about this cover:

• Women—can't live with 'em, can't tear their arms off.
• Women—how to tell a real one from a sculpture.
• Women—baffling us with their arcane "experiences" since the times of the ancient Greeks
• I'm familiar with the green "women" symbol, but I'm having trouble with the mysterious pink thing they've thrown around her neck. Is that a diaphragm?

Best things about this back cover:

• "Prepuberty in Women" seems self-contradictory.
• "The Unmarried" sounds like a horror film.
• "Menopause: It's Scary So Here's A Comforting Euphemism."

Page 123~

Among the Arapesh, the problem is seen not as maintenance of potency but as resistance of seduction by strong positively sexed women. "She will hold your cheeks, you will hold her breasts, your skin will tremble, you will sleep together, she will steal part of your body fluid, later she will give it to the sorcerer and you will die."

Sorry, I'm still giggling at "She will hold your cheeks..."

~RP

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Paperback 662: The Saint in Europe / Leslie Charteris (Avon 611)

Paperback 662: Avon 611 (1st ptg, 1954)

Title: The Saint in Europe
Author: Leslie Charteris
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $10


Best things about this cover:

• The Saint, starring in ... a PSA about V.D.
• Her shoes are amazing.
• Her dress isn't bad either.
• I like how they're both standing in their own little pools of light. It's not a dynamic painting, but it's got an ambiguity and tension and sexiness that I like.

Best things about this back cover:

• "Gayest!"
• Cows that wear diamonds? Oh, Europe. 
• I always did like that little Saint icon.

Page 123~

"Just think of me," said the Saint, "as a guy with a weakness for puzzles, and an incorrigible asker of questions."

~RP

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Paperback 661: The Cinnamon Murder / Frances Crane (Bantam 130)

Paperback 661: Bantam 130 (1st ptg, 1947)

Title: The Cinnamon Murder
Author: Frances Crane
Cover artist: Gillen

Yours for: $12


Best things about this cover:

• Nooo! Not Cinnamon! She was our best pole dancer!
• The space priestess kneeled to anoint the body—as The Hat commanded.
• Warren Beatty in "Dick Tracy" called ... yeah, he's gonna need his jacket back.
• Seriously, unless she's going to be hiding among taxis later, that dress is a bit much.

Best things about this back cover:

• HA ha. The hat! — at least I think that's what that drawing by the "M" depicts; unless it's a very knobby hand holding a very stout wine glass. 
• "The Pat Abbotts" sounds like a '50s folk music outfit.
• "Her best John Frederics' hat"! O man, the hat is a character. There's a niche market: hat crime. It's like hate crime, only with a short 'a'.
• I haven't read this, but I'm imagining a very low-rent Nick & Nora. And instead of Asta—a hat.

Page 123~

Mr. Couch's blue eyes rested on me and then, looking back at Patrick he said, "I'm afraid I'm being pretty frank."

Oh, sweet, sweet 'frank.' I've missed you.

~RP

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Paperback 660: The Plague of Sound / Con Steffanson (adapting Alex Raymond's story) (Avon 19166)

Paperback 660: Avon 19166 (PBO, 1974)

Title: The Plague of Sound (Flash Gordon 2)
Author: Con Steffanson (from orig. story by Alex Raymond)
Cover artist: G. Wilson

Yours for: $10


Best things about this cover:

• "You call that a Bach organ fugue!? Argh, your sound plagues me! Get out of my space church, Redbeard!"
• "It's OK, honey. You're safe now," he said, after bravely firing at nothing.
• I proclaim that to be the thinnest shirt ever worn by man or beast.

Best things about this back cover:

• Wow, that is one awesomely self-parodic damsel in distress. She's got the dramatic arms and the proud, heaving bosom and the blow-up doll mouth and everything.
• That first paragraph may as well say: "First, a bunch of random shit happens..."
• In the future, there will be sciences. Plural. Be there!

Page 123~

Sawtel's stunpistol flashed out of his tunic and quietly whirred.

Hmmm. Is that a whirring stunpistol in your tunic or are you just glad to see me?

~RP

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