Paperback 363: Fantasy & Science Fiction (Oct. 1957)

Paperback 363: The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, October, 1957

Includes stories by: Fritz Leiber, Richard Matheson, Lewis Carroll, L. Sprague de Camp, Jane Roberts, Anthony Boucher, Poul Anderson, H.P. Lovecraft, etc.

Cover artist: Ed Emshwiller

Yours for: $20


Best things about this cover:

• ... featuring the controversial story, "Anorexic Chicken Whores of The Mogron Valley!"
• Monster designs on this are Fabulous. Emshwiller is a cover art hero.
• Trying to understand, from an evolutionary standpoint, why the bird (background) should require an oxygen helmet while everyone else apparently easily breathes the miasma of peach atmosphere. Also wondering why giant deformed Gumby monster should have to brush his teeth.

Best things about this back cover:

• People were apparently Really excited about satellites in the late '50s.
• We're not really comfortable using slang, so ... we'll just put "top-drawer" in quotations, so you won't think you're actually supposed to store the books in the top drawer of your dresser.
• "Handsome, permanent bindings," to prevent annoying fall-apart.

Page 123~ (from "Full Pack (Hokas Wild)" by Poul Anderson & Gordon R. Dickson)

He was not a bad felino-centauroid at heart.

Can't believe that line is buried at the back of a F&SF Magazine. Should be the first line of some epic space opera.

~RP

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Paperback 351: Solar Lottery / Philip K. Dick & The Big Jump / Leigh Brackett (Ace Double D-103)

Paperback 351: Ace Double D-103 (PBO / 1st ptg, 1955)

Title: Solar Lottery / The Big Jump
Authors: Philip K. Dick / Leigh Brackett
Cover artist: Ed Valigursky / Robert Schulz

Yours for: $80

Best things about "Solar Lottery" cover:

• In space, dodgeball Really sucks
• In space, they like to get high on nitrous and throw shit at stray Star Trek characters.
• First prize was the Earth itself! Second prize: a set of steak knives. Third prize: you're fired.
• Philip K. Dick. Paperback original. Word.

Best things about "The Big Jump" cover:

• God likes to apply his eyeliner with rocket ships.
• Hate this cover, but Leigh Brackett is one of the greatest pulp/scifi authors that time forgot.

Page 123 of "Solar Lottery"~

"I'll stop him," Wakeman repeated. "Some way, somehow."

"Between drinks, maybe." Rita halted for a moment to tie the laces on her boots, and then she disappeared down a descent ramp toward Cartwright's private quarters. She didn't look back.

Whoa, Rita. Nice burn.

~RP

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Paperback 322: The Syndic / Cyril M. Kornbluth (Bantam 1317)

Paperback 322: Bantam 1317 (1st ptg, 1955)

Title: The Syndic
Author: Cyril M. Kornbluth
Cover artist: uncredited (I want it to be Richard Powers, but who knows?)

Yours for: $13


Best things about this cover:

• "Are we not men? We are DEVO!"
• In the background, generic scifi cover ... but in the foreground: Dirk Studly models his Kanye3000 spex and his real boss new flashlight holder.
• I love this guy. The cover dies without him. "I'm here to rescue your cover, ma'am. Don't worry."
• "Syndic?" The "-ate" was just too much of a mouthful? I am pronouncing this title "The Sin Dick," and hope you do the same.

Best things about this back cover:

• More outrageous exclamation point action. Love it! Start with a timid "Tomorrow?" and end with a big fucking exclamation point slamming down on your cover: "Hell yes, tomorrow!"
• Oooh, the "twenty-first century" ... I'm going to look out my window now and there better be little people running frantically through sand pits, away from a dystopic city and toward their badass, flashlight-wielding savior, or I'm going to feel very ripped off.

Page 123~

"I'm Ken Oliver, a figure man in the Blue Department, Picasso Oils and Etchings Corporation. Dr. Latham sent me here for—what do you call it?—a biopsy."

~RP

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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 312: Conan / Robert E. Howard, L. Sprague de Camp, Lin Carter (Lancer 73-685)

Paperback 312: Lancer 73-685 (PBO collection, 1967)

Title: Conan
Authors: Robert E. Howard, L. Sprague de Camp, Lin Carter
Cover artist: Frank Frazetta

Offered without comment, in honor of Frank Frazetta (1928-2010)

• OK, one comment — that is some serious MMA shit going on between Conan and the Phantom of the Apera

Two more Frazetta covers in coming days.

~RP

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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

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57 Books from the University Book Sale: Book 23

Title: Lady into Fox (& A Man in the Zoo)
Author: David Garnett
Cover artist: "Loew" (see signature under the "Lady" — can't find an artist credit)

Yours for: postage

• Yes, if my Lady turned into a (literal) Fox, I would look Exactly like that guy.
• Actually, the fox may be mildly hotter than that lady, whose face and boobs appear to have been oddly pancaked.
• Her veil / neckpiece is awesomely monstrous, like it's eating her head.
• She appears to be twirling those flowers between her palms rather than just holding them.

• The definition of "tore up!" (def. 2)

Page 123~

It was therefore decided that Mr. Cromartie should go straight back to his cage, though it was impressed upon him that he would not be expected to be on view to the public any longer than he wished, and that he must lie down to rest in his inner room for two or three hours every day.

~RP

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Paperback 280: The Female Man / Joanna Russ (Bantam Q8765)

Paperback 280: Bantam Q8765 (PBO, 1975)

Title: The Female Man
Author: Joanna Russ
Cover artist: uncredited

Yours for: $15


Best things about this cover:

• "See, you thought I was a woman, but under these boobs ... no, wait, under these boobs ..."
• You decide: crazy red hair that conveniently hides her (apparently faux) vagina? or monstrous red pubic hair that is attempting to eat her head?
• "Dad, this stripper is scaring me. Can we go home now?"

Best things about this back cover:

• "Reality Times 3" — sounds like a very bad educational / religious rap act.
• Passive voice cavalcade in that fourth sentence is setting my teeth on edge.
• Apparently a reference to Philip Wylie's "The Disappearance" meant something to someone at some point.

Page 123~

I want love. (she dropped her paper cup of lemonade and covered her face with her hands.)

Wow, they really screwed up her order.

~RP

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Paperback 264: The Monster From Earth's End / Murray Leinster (Gold Medal s832)

Paperback 264: Gold Medal s832 (PBO, 1959)

Title: The Monster from Earth's End
Author: Murray Leinster
Cover artist: Muni (anyone got a full name? — my kingdom for a paperback cover artist database!)

Yours for: $14


Best things about this cover:

• More unusualness. An abstract painting — Pollack meets psychedelic meets third-grader — with naked upside-down girl thrown in for a representational, realistic touch. Did I just call a naked woman with gravity-defying breasts hanging from cartoonish green snot vines "realistic?" Yes. I believe I did.
• More hot font action. 1957-62 was like some kind of paperback cover font Golden Age.
• "There was nothing on the island big enough to kill a man..." Nerd raises hand: "Um, excuse me, am I to believe there is nothing on the island bigger than a small spider, because there are small spiders that can kill a man. To say nothing of microbes. Your assertion is highly dubious. Laughable, even. [Chortle]"

Best things about this back cover:

• "And the plane crashed straight into the world's largest whale (not pictured). The end."
• Love how the cover copy is laid out as free verse. "Formatting's for squares, man. You gotta let the words go where they want."

Page 123~

Four Adelie penguins came ashore and washed solemnly up the beach. They'd been feeding on infinitesimal green things in the current that flowed past the island. They regarded the men with zestful interest, their unhappy experience of capture and imprisonment in cages now forgotten. They crowded about the men, uttering the fluting notes of penguin conversation.

Ray, to Joe: "Please tell me you hear them talking too."

~RP

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Paperback 180: Hunters of the Red Moon / Marion Zimmer Bradley (Daw UJ1713)

Paperback 180: Daw UJ1713 (9th ptg, 1973)

Title: Hunters of the Red Moon
Author: Marion Zimmer Bradley
Cover artist: Carl Lundgren

Yours for: $6


Best things about this cover:

• O dear god if he lifts that left knee any higher... First rule of warfare: protect your junk
• Whose blood is on that sword? Or is he posing in triumph after winning the jelly application portion of the PB&J Olympics?
• Are they on some team? Why are they wearing the same uniform?
• "Manitoba Curling Champions, 2210"

Maughta, over at "Judge a Book by Its Cover," very coincidentally featured this very book just last week. I even delayed writing about the book because I didn't want it to be the subject of the one write-up a week that I crosspost on her site. She likened the cover to the movie poster for "Star Wars." I'd like to provide two other movie posters for your consideration:




And now, the back cover:



Best things about this back cover:

• Boring!
• This plot sounds like the plot of "The Most Dangerous Game"
• "This is how adventure should be written" - this is not, however, how book reviews should be written: "Excellently evoked settings and characters"? Who says that??

"You know what I think of her characters?"
"No, what?"
"They are excellently evoked."
"I want to kill you right now."

Page 123~

Dane stood looking after her for a moment, then bent, on a strange impulse, and lifted the long, silky coil in his hands. It clung there, fine and smooth and springy; he coiled it into a roll and thrust it inside his tunic next to his skin. A favor from my lady, he thought.

This is from the chapter entitled "Creepy Guy at the Renaissance Faire."

~RP

Paperback 168: Tales of the Flying Mountains / Poul Anderson (Collier 01626)

***BIRTHDAY EDITION***

Truth be told, this book was not scheduled to be written up today. There was an interesting but visually bland book on tap for today, but I decided I needed something spicy to help me celebrate my birthday, so I skipped forward two books in line and found this. Enjoy!

Paperback 168: Collier 01626 (1st ptg, 1971)

Title: Tales of the Flying Mountains
Author: Poul Anderson
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $8


Best things about this cover:

• "Tales of the Flying Mountains," Or, "Psychedelic Ape Men Visit the Boob Museum"
• I've heard them called a lot of things. "Flying Mountains" is not one of those things.
• More proof that everyone in the early 70s was high. How I survived my infancy is a miracle.

Best things about this back cover:

• How many papers does Washington have?
• This book is apparently a collection of short stories, each of which originally appeared in Analog magazine between the years 1963 and 1965. Anderson published them under the pseudonym "Winston P. Sanders." They are all set in a common futuristic universe in which mankind has colonized the solar system. One of the reviews at amazon starts with the phrase, "Taking his cue from Chaucer..." (!?)

Page 123~

... and yet that spark, together with the dwarfed sun, reached across to grip this orb on which she dwelt and lock it fast for eternity.

This book should be called "Grip This Orb" (see cover painting)

~RP

Paperback 161: Amazing Stories (December, 1956)

Paperback 161: Amazing Stories (December, 1956)

• Contains: "A World of His Own" by Robert Silverberg and "Tracking Level" by Harlan Ellison
• Cover artist: Ed Valigursky

Yours for: $10


Best things about this cover:

• In the future, "Deal or No Deal" is a lot more interesting.
• I'm pretty sure those ladies were not born ladies - it's nice to see that, in the future, transsexual and transgendered people will have steady work as game show hostesses
• Man, that guy really wants to kill Howie Mandel. But then who doesn't?
• This picture does not make it appear as if "Women Were His Pawns." Unless he's forcing them to act out some adolescent fantasy of his - I guess that's possible

Best things about this back cover:

• I own one of these books!
• Never before has the word "ANY" looked so exciting
• If you don't look closely, you can almost miss the flying saucer mountain scape in the background
• Love the unnecessary quotation marks around "top drawer" - do not love the quotation marks that open with "Handsome ... and then never close. Spine-tingling!
• Ad copy always hyphenates "science-fiction," while the book covers themselves Never do. Eeeeerie.
• I love how specific they are about the amount I would normally be paying ... "$8.65, you say ... oh my."

Page 123~

[click image to enlarge]

• "Would you ... become a peeping tom?" - they really know their audience, I think
• The "Space Club" appears to be a kind of asexual personals section for the Nerdiest People On Earth.

~RP

Paperback 160: Galaxy Science Fiction (December 1959)

Paperback 160: Galaxy Science Fiction (December 1959)

• Includes work by: Robert Bloch ("Sabbatical"), Philip K. Dick ("War Game"), Frederick Pohl ("The Snowmen"), Robert Sheckley, Willy Ley, George O. Smith, A.J. Offutt, and others
• Cover artist: EMSH (best cover artist name ever) - real name = Ed Emshwiller

Yours for: $14


Best things about this cover:

• It is aDORable. I want to make Christmas cards out of this cover.
• Martian pyjamas
• Santa has four arms
• I want that rocket that Santa is holding
• Really, the design on this cover is astonishingly beautiful. It's like Norman Rockwell meets mid-century modern meets The Future. The little silver snowflake-stars around the date / price just seal the deal
• How did Robert Bloch and Philip K. Dick get driven off the front cover by ... these guys. A.J. Offutt? He should be banished for name ugliness alone.
  

Best things about this back cover

• Seriously, one of the Worst ads I've ever seen. Shouldn't the NAME OF YOUR PRODUCT be featured ... somewhere? Prominently? I mean, if the title had been "What's In IF For You?" I might have been impressed. Maybe that was the idea and the typesetter just effed up.
• "We often wonder why all our readers aren't subscribers" = "We often wonder why we can't pay our bills each month"
• I imagine the most boring, droning, Hugh Beaumont-esque guy making this would-be sales pitch. "When you subscribe to our magazine, it comes straight to your house via a little bit of magic we like to call: The Mail"
• Who designed this, Luddites!? It's like the anti-ad!

Page 123~

"People are always watching me, Brother," I said. "So now they do it even when they aren't around. I should have known it would come to that."

-from "Charity Case" by Jim Harmon

This is far too prescient for me to snark on.

~RP

Paperback 156: Fantastic Universe Science Fiction, Nov. 1958

Paperback 156: Fantastic Universe Science Fiction, Nov. 1958

• Includes: "Seed of Violence" by Jay Williams and "Operation Cassandra" by Miriam Allen de Ford
• Other authors: Christopher Anvil, Lee Correy, Frank Herbert (!), and Robert F. Young
• Cover artist: Norman Siegel

Yours for: $10


Best things about this cover:

• I have this incredible urge to fill this guy up with unleaded.
• His helmet and sleeves ZIP ON - yeah, I'm sure that's up to outer-space code. "Due to budgetary restrictions, we will be using recycled Levi's zippers in all our spacesuits."
• "Novelet" is a very ridiculous word
• Another "seed" story!? Enough is enough.
• One of the pieces in this magazine is written collectively by "Civilian Saucer Intelligence," or (you guessed it) CSI. It's all about why aliens are prone to reveal themselves to animals first, instead of to humans. No, I'm not kidding.
  

Best things about this back cover:

• Advertising! Yay!
• I think I saw this in my 1930s "Dick Tracy" collection. Or else ... no, maybe it was in the apartment of Mike Hammer in "Kiss Me Deadly." Or the police station in "White Heat." Whatever - if you love dated futuristic gadgetry, you have to love this.
• "Even a child of five can operate it!" - suck it, four-year-olds!
• "Filnor Products" is not a believable name. Clearly a front for an Islamofascist group or some other group that might be less than fully capable of inventing a plausible Anglo-sounding name.

Page 123~

It's at a weird place in the magazine, so I'll just scan it:


Q: What is Mr. Scoliosis Globehead holding? A slightly miniaturized replica of his own head? A Piggy Bank? A bowling ball with a cigarette stuck in one of the finger holes?

~RP

Paperback 151: The Day the Machines Stopped / Christopher Anvil (Monarch Books 478)

Paperback 151: Monarch Books 478 (PBO, 1964)

Title: The Day the Machines Stopped
Author: Christopher Anvil
Cover artist: Ralph Brillhart

Yours for: $8


Best things about this cover:

• Rockets explode! Planes disintegrate into patterns roughly resembling autumn leaves! And ... Wes and Earl have engine trouble.

Wes: "Gee, Earl, I'm stumped."
Earl, wagging finger at car: "Bad car! Bad, naughty car! Oh, why did I buy a used taxi!?"

• If "Nature Reversed Its Laws," shouldn't Wes and Earl and everything else be flying up into space? Either that, or Wes and Earl should be making out.

Best things about this back cover:

• It's all very amusing, but that third paragraph ... it's a little too close-to-home, frankly. All sounds eerily relevant / plausible.
• I hate it when people malign the Dark Ages - they were perfectly serviceable Ages.

Page 123~

"Excuse me a minute." Brian's fists tingled. He was thinking of the last crack on the head, of all the insults and underhanded blows he'd experienced from Carl.

~RP

Paperback 148: The Cosmic Rape / Theodore Sturgeon (Dell 1512)

Paperback 148: Dell 1512 (1st ptg, 1968)

Title: The Cosmic Rape
Author: Theodore Sturgeon
Cover artist : Lehr (Just Lehr, like Cher, only less famous) [damn, he has a first name after all - it's Paul]

Yours for: $6


Best things about this cover:

• It's like a horrid disease, all red and inflamed, with pustules and what not. Yuck.
• I'm guessing (i.e. hoping) that the "rape" is metaphorical.
• I should read this. Sturgeon is a fantastic, inventive author whose work I keep meaning to read more of.
• This appears to be a picture of some kind of Mad Max-ish tractor pull. Only the tractors have tails and are being orbited by small aircraft.
• I just put actress IONE Skye in a crossword puzzle that I co-wrote, so I keep reading "lone" as "IONE." Not sure what an "IONE man" would be.

Best things about this back cover:

• Wow. That's a lot of ... text.
• Apparently I paid $3.50 for this (?!)

Page 123~

Screw that. I just read the opening paragraph and that's what I'm going with...

Page 5~

"I'll bus' your face, Al," said Gurlick. [memo to self - steal that name] "I gon' break your back. I gon' blow up your place, an' you with it, an' all your rotgut licker, who wants it? You hear me, Al?"

If I were Al, I would run. Far.

~RP

Paperback 146: The Gods of Mars / Edgar Rice Burroughs (Del Rey 27835)

Paperback 146: Del Rey 27835 (13th ptg, 1979)

Title: The Martian Tales of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Vol. 2: The Gods of Mars
Author: Edgar Rice Burroughs
Cover artist: Michael Whelan

Yours for: $6


Best things about this cover:

• "Hey, wardrobe, can we get some more groin coverage on set, please? STAT!"
• That hunk of "rock" behind them looks disgusting - like rock candy mixed with snot
• I like the part where the naked ballet dancer disembowels the Cyclopadusasaurus.
• Second sets of arms just look silly. That bottom set looks like the hands of someone who can't see and is flailing wildly because his head is shoved up into the torso of the sabermantis.
• Scifi artists, for whatever reason, seem to get credited a lot more than paperback cover artists working in other genres. It takes real talent to do good scifi covers. Even if the artist is super-talented, there's always the danger (manifested here) that the resulting imaginative landscape will look campy and ridiculous.

Best things about this back cover:

• Ugh, more side-arms.
• Cyclopadusasaurus is open downfield ... looks like she'll catch the moonsphere, but man is she going to take a hit from the safety.
• "Return to Peril" - do I have to?
• Dejah Thoris drops mad beats.
• I don't think you're supposed to want to "escape" from an "Eden" (which is, by definition, perfect)

Page 123~

"The great Thark, I fear, is dead," she replied, sadly.

~RP

Paperback 137: Ten Thousand Light-Years From Home / James Tiptree, Jr. (Ace 80180)

Paperback 137: Ace 80180 (1st ptg, 1973)

Title: Ten Thousand Light-Years from Home
Author: James Tiptree, Jr. (Alice Sheldon)
Cover artist: [Chris Foss]

Yours for: $9


Best things about this cover:

• Well, not a lot. An intergalactic schoolbus dangling an aircraft carrier dangling a Death Star over some exceedingly arid planet, in close proximity to a smoking obelisk. Seriously, what was the author hoping to convey (besides confusion)?
• James Tiptree, Jr. is the pseudonym of Alice Sheldon, a luminary in the world of science fiction from the late 60s until her death in 1987. Her life story is fascinating. Bisexual. Onetime CIA agent. There's a recent-ish bio I've nearly picked up at the library several times now. I've read one novel by her and Loved it (Brightness Falls from the Air).

Page 123~

"Don't say it, baby." The golden body slid close. "Don't down the trip. We love you, No-Pain." They were all petting him now. "Happy, sing him! Touch, taste, feel. Joy!"

But there was no joy.

~RP

PS Starting on Sunday, and every Sunday thereafter, I will be semi-syndicated (in that my post here will also be "broadcast" over at "Judge a Book by its Cover")

PPS To hear a story inspired by this Page 123, go here.

Paperback 136: Night of Masks / Andre Norton (Ace 57752)

Paperback 136: Ace 57752 (3rd ptg, 1973)

Title: Night of Masks
Author: Andre Norton
Cover artist: "JW"

Yours for: $7



Best things about this cover:

It looks a lot like this cover (Paperback 74):

Let's compare

• In our book, the mask is basically the same as the face of the guy holding it, whereas in the earlier book, Wrinkles McGreenhand clearly needs his mask to pass for human.
• Actually, the more that I look at it, our book appears to depict Arnold Horshack holding a Charles Grodin mask.
• Our book has more soothing colors, though the soothing they induce is kinda offset by the scimitar-wielding dance troupe in the background.
• The sky of our book appears to have been finger-painted.
• Verdict: version 1 is way way better. Horrifying and mysterious, where our book just looks silly.

Page 123~

"So you just went out on the surface with the boy to hide out. What did you hope to gain?"

So that's why he needed a mask. Got it.

~RP

Paperback 129: Negative Minus / R. L. Fanthorpe (Badger Books SF88)

Paperback 129: Badge Books SF88 (PBO?, ca. late '50s)

Title: Negative Minus
Author: R.L. Fanthorpe
Cover artist: uncredited

Yours for: $15


Best things about this cover:

• Is "Negative Minus" a thing? I need a math ruling.
• Shouldn't this book just be called "plus?" That, or "The Night I Went Trick-or-Treating Dressed as an Owl and Those Hippies Put LSD in the Candy Corn and The Great Uncle of The Great Gazoo Coaxed Me Into Killing People By Scratching My Nose and Promising Me More Candy Corn..."

Best things about this back cover:

• I believe this write-up was written under the influence of the aforementioned Gazoo juice. It's really vague ... and features a character with the most improbable name of "Stelgen"
• Alpha Centauri?! It's always Alpha Centauri with these people! Pick a new place!
• If "Stelgen" was "born" from a "star," I'm going to barf.
• New title for the book: "Stelgen Was Not a Genius." It would explain a lot about the cover (whichever one of those two folks "Stelgen" is...)

Page 123~

"I've never wanted anything so much," answered Suessydo. "I'm a normal, healthy, red-blooded male, but I've never met any attraction anywhere to equal the power, the pull of that voice. By the eight purple stars of Qoink, I've never heard such melody and such sweetness. By the seven blue dragons of Bfup, there was never such a melody before."

"You are using some strong oaths," returned Suhcolyrue.

"I use them as an expression of strong thoughts," replied the Captain.

I swear to you that none of that is made up. I'm just not that good. And now, inspired by the "Captain's" fantastic name, I leave you with Phil Collins.



Good day.

~RP