Paperback 314: The Reign of Wizardry / Jack Williamson (Lancer 72-761)

Paperback 314: Lancer 72-761 (1st ptg, 1964)

Title: The Reign of Wizardry
Author: Jack Williamson
Cover artist: Frank Frazetta

Yours for: $15


Best things about this cover:

• Satan conducts the Stygian Philharmonic!
• It's one bad-ass demon who can shoot skulls and naked ladies out of his armpits...
• Is "the Unknown" a genre?

Best things about this back cover:

• OK, how many walls are we going to encounter in this book? Three? That is a terrible pair of bold headings. Are the walls the same in both headings? And who's saying that mystery "quote" in the middle?
• "The man they called 'Captain Firebrand' ..." — that sounds apocryphal. In fact, that sounds like a male stripper.

Page 123~

But the hairy pirate caught his arm again. "I wish you wouldn't leave me, Captain Firebrand."

Two words: Hairy. Pirate.

~RP

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Paperback 135: Aphrodite / Pierre Louys (Avon 113)

Paperback 135: Avon 113 (1st ptg, 1946)

Title: Aphrodite: A Great Pagan Love Story
Author: Pierre Louys
Cover artist: uncredited

Yours for: $9



Best things about this cover:

• Aphrodite is seen here doing an ancient version of the Men Without Hats classic "Safety Dance," only instead of forming an "S" with her arms, she is forming a psi ("Psafety Dance!")

• If you put your thumb over this lady's head (which is to say, her ridiculous headdress), she is almost look-at-able.
• Nice clip art in the background there, Picasso!
• I kinda like how the border of this cover echoes the borders of her robe and negligee. That is about all I kinda like about this cover.
• Pierre Louys was what passed for a soft porn writer in the 40s. Him and Zola.

Best things about this back cover:

• A great example of an early paperback, from an age when publishers were still anxious about the social status of this fledgling product (mass market paperbacks having come into being only 7 years earlier). "GOOD" "GREAT" "SHAKESPEARE-HEAD" ... nothing at all about the content of the book itself; just a lot of weirdly over-reaching sales copy ("can easily be washed clean"???)
• "Rough usage" - HA ha: "We know how you semi-literate peons love to rassle with your reading material"

Page 123~

Her long, thin build was disconcerting in a family where all the women were plump. She ripened like a badly grafted crossed fruit of foreign, obscure origin.

~RP