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 305: Air Bridge / Hammond Innes (Bantam 1125)

Paperback 305: Bantam 1125 (1st ptg, 1953)

Title: Air Bridge
Author: Hammond Innes
Cover artist: Al Rossi

Yours for: $17


Best things about this cover:

• Looks like the final frame in a Douglas Sirk melodrama. "We'll follow that Air Bridge, darling ... follow it ... to Freedom!" [cue music ... and cue credits]
• That is a *lot* of coat he's wearing. Note that it's enveloping not just him, but the adoring, beret-wearing lady he's got his arm around as well — the one who looks like she's thinking: "Forget the airplanes for one second and kiss me, you gorgeous slab of a man!"
• Check out Heckle and Jeckle conspiring in the shadowy background. "To be continued ... ?"

Best things about this back cover:

• Why does all the danger in paperback cover copy descriptions come in "web" form?
• SAETON? ELSE!?!? What, are you using a Ouija Board to name your characters?
• "DIANA, who wanted Saeton with the hard passion of a man..." Hot girl-on- ... whatever SAETON is ... action!

Page 123~

His voice had risen and there was a wild look in his eyes. "Forget about yourself. Forget about me. Won't you do this for your country?"
"No," I said.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]