Paperback 332: The Cruel Dawn / Alfred Viazzi (Popular Library 440)

Paperback 332: Popular Library 440 (1st ptg, 1952)

Title: The Cruel Dawn
Author: Alfred Viazzi
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $14


Best things about this cover:

• "I said, I'm gonna wash that gray right out of your hair! Hold still!"
• "Demon, I cast thee out!"
• Gloria liked to end every dance with a vicious take-down.
• Normally I find things like garter belts and cleavage quite hot, but between the dowdiness of that nightgown and the oddly porcelain quality of this woman's skin, this lady just isn't doing it for me. Also, maybe it's just me, but she seems a bit standoffish.

Best things about this back cover:

• Her body is blonde? That's more info than you usually get in an opening description.
• Oooh, a "lusty bordello." Not one of those Puritanical bordellos you see from time to time. Those are sooo annoying.
• A decent, non-wanton actress would, of course, have taken the time to get properly dressed before shielding a man with her body. Pfft. Whore.

Page 123~

The last thing he remembered was the thud and pain of a boot kicking hard into the side of his head.

~RP

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Paperback 326: Terror in the Sun / Richard Glendinning (Gold Medal 237)

Paperback 326: Gold Medal 237 (PBO, 1952)

Title: Terror in the Sun
Author: Richard Glendinning
Cover artist: Barye Phillips

Yours for: $15


Best things about this cover:

• Sexy swamp ninja.
• It's a weird cover—eerily still. Not tarted up. Not violent. Works by suggesting the threat of approaching menace. I admire her locks and curves, but the focal point of this painting is clearly her eyes. The sideways/backwards glance. Like someone's following her. Cool.
• Realistically, she's about three seconds from being blindsided and devoured by a crocodile.

Best things about this back cover:

• Leaving aside the nonsensical quality of the simile (original sin just *is*—it doesn't "sweep"), I love that first sentence. And the second. And the last.
• Having read this back cover, I know almost nothing about this novel, but this kind of skeletal, sparse, overdramatic cover copy is far more likely to hook me than a clear or thorough description of the plot might. I don't wanna know what happens. I wanna know what it's gonna *feel* like to read this thing.

Page 123~

"Oh, I'm tough enough, Johnny boy. I have to be hard because I want things the soft can't have. I know the way I've got to go to get them, and I won't mind squaring a few accounts along the way."

Wow. That is pure hard-boiled poetry. Quintessential tough dame talk. I think I love you, Swamp Girl.

~RP

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Paperback 324: Keep Cool, Mr. Jones / Timothy Fuller (Dell 594)

Paperback 324: Dell 594 (1st ptg, 1952)

Title: Keep Cool, Mr. Jones
Author: Timothy Fuller
Cover artist: Robert Stanley

Yours for: $11


Best things about this cover:

• If the ridiculously low-cut blouse didn't get you looking at her boobs, the gun is there to point you in the right direction.
• "Get me a brisket, Mr. Jones."
• "What? We like to be surrounded by cold slabs of meat when we do it. Don't judge us."
• She has an interesting variation on Fear Hand™—like she's timidly waving at the gun-wielder ("uh ... hi honey") or about to sling her web à la Spidey.
• Jupiter Jones ... and ... January Jones ... in ... 'We Meat Again'!

Best things about this back cover:

• "For design inspiration, we're going to give you a hard-boiled egg and two dominoes."
• You'd expect the final tagline to be some kind of outrageous pun or exciting teaser, not a *literal description of what you can see on the cover.*

Page 123~

Bateman put a telephone on the bar. When Jupiter walked up to it Joe nodded quickly at Maney and whispered, "Drunk and ugly. Watch it." And then, normally, "All the comforts of home."

~RP

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57 Books from the University Book Sale: Books 35 and 36

Last two non-fiction (-ish) books from my library sale haul. They make a nice pair, I think.

Title: Jefferson: A Great American's Life and Ideas (Mentor 70 — 2nd ptg, Dec. 1952)
Author: Saul K. Padover
Cover artist: Jonas

Yours for: $5

• Love the way "Abridged" is used as a major selling point — "Finally, our most important Founding Father, in a dose you can manage!"
• Floating Head of Thomas Jefferson backed by the Floating Declaration of Independence. My Most Powerful, Floatingest cover ever.
• "This planting season, why not outfit your team with Dr. E. J. Samuelson's newly patented Invisible Oxen Rigging! Amaze your friends as your oxen appear to pull your plow by sheer force of mind alone ..."

• "Living Words ... written on dead sheep."

Page 123~

For Aaron Burr was not famous for virtue or steadfastness of character, and the idea of such a man's occupying the presidential chair was disturbing to responsible men.

Title: Masters of Deceit (Pocket Books 75099 — 22nd ptg!?!?!, 1966)
Author: J. Edgar Hoover
Cover artist: Ben Feder (designer)

Yours for: $10

• "The Communists Will Spray Our Most Precious Documents with Ketchup, Make No Mistake!"

• "Hello, Frederick's of Hollywood? This is, uh, Edwina Hooverston ..."
• Blurbed his own book. Clever.

Page 123~

Five minutes later, a fourth person, a woman in a dark coat, arrives. Everything is quiet: no loud voices, no cars parked in front, no reason for the neighbors to suspect that a Communist Party meeting is in progress.

This book is really a fantastic window into Cold War paranoia. I might actually read it.

~RP

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Paperback 282: If the Coffin Fits / Day Keene (Graphic 43)

Paperback 282: Graphic 43 (PBO, 1952)

Title: If the Coffin Fits
Author: Day Keene
Cover artist: uncredited

Yours for: $50


Best things about this cover:

• One of the greatest hypo covers of all time (yes, "hypo covers" is a thing — very collectible)
• And the award for "Most Realistic Depiction of Hand Hair" goes to ...
• God that spike is glorious. I almost want to start doing heroin just to experience the feel of something so elegantly designed.
• Joe Shirtless does Not want to shoot up, but stone-faced blond guy can't wait. He has that barely-contained psycho-sadistic look about him. I think it's the posture, plus the intent stare: [Trembling ever-so-slightly] "This is going to be @#$#ing awesome!" Maybe he's a hypo connoisseur. Or just likes handling terrified man flesh.

Best things about this back cover:

• Ugh, small type. Less is More!
• This book should be called "Badger Game" — I'd read it just to figure out what the hell that phrase meant.
• Why is "Jail Bait" capitalized and italicized? Is it a novel? (actually, it is, and I own it, but I don't think the book is what's meant here).
• "Mr. Big" — Ouch. One million points off for lack of originality.

Page 123~

I said that was a lot of heifer dust. He was inclined to argue.

I believe "heifer dust" = "bullshit," but it would be a great street name for some drug ... something way, way worse than "angel dust." "We cut the PCP with cow shit ... try it!"

~RP

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Paperback 279: The Angry Mountain / Hammond Innes (Bantam 1058)

Paperback 279: Bantam 1058 (1st ptg, 1952)

Title: The Angry Mountain
Author: Hammond Innes
Cover artist: Mitchell Hooks

Yours for: $13


Best things about this cover:

• He put his ear to the door. "Shhh. Be quiet, naked Sonia Braga. I think hear the mountain ... and it sounds angry."
• Sonia Braga: The Crappy Casting Couch Years
• Does anyone even know who Sonia Braga is any more? "Kiss of the Spider Woman?" Anyone?
• "A smashing story..." As in, "We smashed one of the louvered blind panels out of the window to enhance your lava-viewing pleasure."
• There are so many folds in that sheet. It's mesmerizing if you look at it for too long...

Best things about this back cover:

• I love the quaint explanation of why this paperback book exists. "See, we published a book in hardback, and it did really well, so we decided hey, we can probably sell enough in softcover to realize a robust profit, even with the smaller margins." The fifties were so earnest and friendly.
• I don't love the repro of the original cover. Book should be called "The Angry Hand."
• "Zina murmured sleepily and sat up, showing me her nakedness." Pardon me while I throw up in my mouth a little. I think you mean "I could see her boobs. Oh man, boobs. Awesome."
• Love love love the Orwellian announcement of the forthcoming Huxley novel. "Brave New World is coming! You will submit to its laws! Resistance is Futile!"

Page 123~

"Do you think I don't know what the man is? That last night in Milan—I lay in bed in the dark and felt his hands on my leg. I knew those hands. I'd known them [sic] if a thousand hands were touching my leg."

"A thousand!?" Seriously, Sonia Braga had to do some terrible shit to get her career underway.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]

P.S. I need your help. Some entity calling itself "Book Blogger Appreciation Week" (BBAW) has notified me that my blog, this blog, has been nominated for one of its annual awards in the category of ... BEST WRITING. Really? Of all the categories (including Funniest Blog, hello) this is the one I'm nominated for? The Big One? Well, OK. Thank you. I'm flattered, even if my nomination is really just the voice of one crank crying in the wilderness (or my mom). I can tell you there is no way I have a chance of even being shortlisted. First, those book blogger ladies are mobbed up tight. They read and write like crazy and all seem to know each other (if the Twitter back-and-forths I see from time to time are any indication). Second, they actually read the books they talk about, whereas yours truly hasn't read a book in years; I can barely get through my Batman comics week to week. Third, my audience, while brilliant and loyal, is still relatively small. But in the interest of ... whaddya call it ... gratitude? Yeah, gratitude, as well as bloggerly community, I'm going to play ball. Here's what I have to do (and how you can help). The following is verbatim from the notification email:

In order to help our panels fairly evaluate your blog, we ask that you submit permalinks (direct links to individual blog posts) for 5 blog posts per category that you consider to be the best representation of your blog. [...] Of the 5 posts submitted please include a minimum of one book review/recommendation/or spotlight post.

So, please help me, if you would, by suggesting (in comments, or by email) which write-ups you think I should submit. I have no perspective. I think even my ugliest children are awesome.

Thank you.

~RP

Paperback 272: Home Is The Sailor / Day Keene (Gold Medal 225)

Paperback 272: Gold Medal 225 (PBO, 1952)

Title: Home is the Sailor
Author: Day Keene
Cover artist: uncredited

Yours for: $25


Best thing about this cover:

• Someone needs to tell him that a captain's hat really does not go with pajama bottoms.
• She is hot in a tawdry bar slut kind of way. The upthrust boobs and hand-on-ass are particularly nice touches.
• I worry that his aggressive and thorny-looking patch of chest hair is going to chafe her delicate boob skin (I am now giggling aloud at the phrase "boob skin")
• She looks lusty, while he looks like he's going to vomit his last daiquiri right in her face.

Best things about this back cover:

• Why aren't guys named "Swede" anymore? Maybe because being named Swede has been shown to cause a remarkable increase in the likelihood that you will die in some miserable, noirish fashion (see Hemingway's "The Killers," for instance).
• Copy writer here is clearly a graduate of the Crappy Metaphor Institute. He seems to have minored in Redundancy (when you've already called her a "tempest," "hurricane" should not be your next go-to image).

Page 123~

That had been in the bar, in a booth, with Corliss sitting opposite me, looking cool and fresh and virginal in white, eating prime ribs au jus, urging me to eat; me unable to eat, nursing a fresh bottle of Bacardi.

Nothing more virginal than a white-clad lady daintily slurping her blood-red meat.

~RP

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Paperback 265: Look Behind You Lady / A.S. Fleischman (Gold Medal 223)

Paperback 265: Gold Medal 223 (PBO, 1952)

Title: Look Behind You Lady
Author: A.S. Fleischman
Cover artist: uncredited

Yours for: $14


Best things about this cover:

• All I can say is: there'd better be a comma underneath her head.
• "For the last time, fella, I'm not 'lost.' I work in this here Mexican restaurant and I'm just takin' a smoke break. And I already looked behind me, and there was nothin' but a newspaper vending machine. Now beat it!"
• Strangely the rainy street tableau in the background is far more interesting / beautiful to me than the Lady in the foreground.

Best things about this back cover:

• Damn, no comma.
• I am currently waiting for the perfect opportunity to use the line: "I'm probably signing my death warrant, baby, but I'm going to listen to you."
• Oh, SHANGHAI FLAME, you don't say ... is that ... something?

Page 123~

"I was licked in Macao."

Well, we've all been there.

~RP

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Paperback 246: The Disenchanted / Budd Schulberg (Bantam A1051)

Paperback 246: Bantam A1051 (1st ptg, 1952)

Title: The Disenchanted
Author: Budd Schulberg
Cover artist: Harry Schaare

Yours for: $11


Best things about this cover:

• Her pose! One shoe! Awesome. I think I love her.
  
• Book should be called "The Dissolute," or "Yeah, I'm Drunk, Whaddya Gonna Do About It, Ya Impotent Bastard? Get Me Another Martini"
• Harry Schaare Loves his Floating Heads — we'll see more in the future.
• Love the little maniacal dancing / jazz club scene in the background
• The novel may be set in the 20s, but these people are not believably from the 20s. Except for emaciated Clark Gable in a tux back there, hitting on the girl who's reclining on the hair of Floating Head. He's 20s all the way.
• "What Makes Sammy Run" is a classic Hollywood novel. Fantastic.

Best things about this back cover:

• LOVE the guy admiring the rack of his drunken lady friend, up-close! "Yes. These will do nicely."
• Toga party or religious visitation? "This angel came into my candle-lit room last night ... man, she was hot."
• I love Michener's precision — like he remembers exactly where he was, three years ago, when he read a novel better than this one.

Page 123~

When he finds out the commercial tie-up he feels like a jerk for having fallen for her. Then, in the finals of the ski-jump, he's injured.

~RP

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Paperback 243: Twilight Women / Les Scott (Beacon 156)

Paperback 243: Beacon 156 (1st, late 50s)*

Title: Twilight Women
Author: Les Scott
Cover artist: uncredited

*[dated 1952, but I don't think Beacon was even publishing then ... probably late 50s, probably first Beacon printing ... and a Gorgeous one at that; slight spine lean, but apparently unread]

Yours for: $25


Best things about this cover:

• "This tree makes my pits smell awesome!"
• If you are going to adopt a pseudonym for your first lesbian softcore effort, might I suggest "Les"?
• They Worshipped at the Shrine of Passion — this either made them gargantuan or shrunk them to the size of a bonzai tree, I can't really tell.
• Free Mini-Twilight Woman with every Twilight Woman purchase!

Best things about this back cover:

• From the Unbelievable Names Department, we bring you ... Lakla! Aletha! and introducing ... Rance!
• "But Lakla soon thrust upon him her adorable little companion Aletha" — So that's who the small woman on the cover is. Wow, they're not foolin' about "little companion." "You'll love her, Rance. She fits right in your pocket. You don't have any cats, do you?"
• "Punishment by death for penetrating ..." — insert lesbian joke here.

Page 123~

On and on the quivering ship staggered blindly, strained to the limit of her brave endurance, the sea bellowing around her, threatening disaster, savagely wrathful.

Oh yeah, just what I want from my vintage lesbian paperback: Hot Nautical Action.

~RP

Paperback 215: Company K / William March (Lion Books 111)

Paperback 215: Lion Books 111 (1st ptg, 1952)

Title: Company K
Author: William March
Cover artist: Rafael DeSoto

Yours for: $13


Best things about this cover:

• DeSoto is one of the great naturalistic cover artists, and this cover is really expertly painted. Beautiful, detailed, evocative of the suffering of war. I'm finding this cover slightly hard to make fun of. Although ... if her stroking and pumping that giant lever isn't innuendo, I don't know what is. That is, if "she" is indeed a woman. The novel is, after all, "flaming."
• I'm afraid of the guy at the front of that line. He looks like he's lost all hope ... or else he is a golem or a droid or something.
• "The Flaming Novel of Men and Women at War" - sounds like a book about the battle of the sexes. "Men Are From Mars ... : WWI Edition!"

Best things about this back cover:

• "Company K is a Knockout"! Letter play not so effective when the "K" is silent. "Company G is a Gnat-infested Gnightmare"
• This back cover is in Love with alliteration. Courage and cowardice ... lustings (!?) and lies, daring, doom, and death.
• It's appropriate that this book is somewhat purple, because check out the prose in that second paragraph. March impales angry moments with his bayonet-pen!?
• I like the little flag, particularly the wacky font of the letters.

This is a pretty famous and well-received novel of W. W. I, organized into micro-chapters about every single man in the company. Blurbs inside from Granville Hicks, Graham Greene, James T. Farrell, and Phyllis Bentley (whoever that is).

Page 123~

On Monday a kid from my company named Ben Hunzinger got fifteen years hard labor for deserting in the face of the enemy, and a long talk from Mr. Fairbrother about justice tempered with mercy.

Whoa, "Mr. Fairbrother?" Is this an allegory?

~RP

Paperback 211: Bedrooms Have Windows / A. A. Fair (Dell 603)

Paperback 211: Dell 603 (1st ptg, 1952)

Title: Bedrooms Have Windows
Author: A. A. Fair (pen name of Erle Stanley Gardner)
Cover artist: Mike Ludlow

Yours for: $8


Best things about this cover:

• "Bedrooms Have Windows" - they sure do. And Blondes Have Mirrors and Peeping Toms Have Trenchcoats.
• That is the see-throughiest blouse I've ever seen anywhere.
• I've always loved that Dell keyhole eye logo.
• I also love the yellow cloth on her ... what do you call that piece of furniture? A vanity!
• Black bra = trouble. I saw "Psycho." I know.

Best things about this back cover:

• Arrows, Ha ha
• "They laugh alike, they walk alike, at times they even talk alike ..."
• Boy, they sure know how to make an author look exciting.
• "Pocket-edition Venus" - that's hot.
• Lam and Cool mysteries are great, and ESG wrote them all (I think) under the A.A. Fair name. Lam and Cool are the Jack Sprat + wife of mystery stories (only they aren't married).

Page 123~

The taffy-haired blonde who was standing in front of the mirror, surveying her partially clothed figure with quite evident approval, was the girl who had picked me up the night before as her escort, and had taken me to the motor court.

~RP

Paperback 206: So Low, So Lonely / Curtis Lucas (Lion Books 91)

Paperback 206: Lion Books 91 (PBO, 1952)

Title: So Low, So Lonely
Author: Curtis Lucas
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $20


Best things about this cover:

• "I'll leave you to your imaginary cup of coffee, then..."
• "A Negro Searches for Love in an Alien World" - "These earth women cannot satisfy me. Damn it [pounds fist on table], I'm going to Mars!"
• That guy is very tan or sooty from working in the mines or relaxing backstage at his one-man minstrel show, maybe, but "Negro?" More like an Italian guy who just finished bobbing for apples in chocolate milk.
• I've apparently hit the part of my collection that's vaguely organized. Two versions of "Cotton Comes to Harlem," two Ace Doubles by Elisabeth Sanxay Holding, and now the second of two early 50s titles by Curtis Lucas.
• This book is beat up and slightly water damaged but completely solid and intact, i.e. beautifully readable. It's got the well-worn, broken-in feel I like. It's also pretty rare - a Lion PBO with miscegenation themes. Hot.

Best things about this back cover:

• This book should be called "Carla's Way"
• Wait, which part was "wrong?" Wanting the white girl or stealing the money? The wording here confuses the issue very, very badly.
• Hey baby, I'm Curtis Lucas, and I will probe your torment with deep and uncompromising sincerity. Aw yeah.

Page 123~

He picked up his glass. She picked up her own glass, looked at it.

"You don't have to do that," he said.

For a moment she held her glass in mid-air, and her hand trembled. Then she smiled at him and they touched glasses. Both tilted their glasses.

If you love glasses, you'll love ... Curtis Lucas!

~RP

Paperback 205: Third Ward, Newark / Curtis Lucas (Lion Books 80)

Paperback 205: Lion Books 80 (1st ptg, 1952)

Title: Third Ward, Newark
Author: Curtis Lucas
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: SOLD (3/12/09)


Best things about this cover:

• "Oh, U.S. 1, please don't leave me! I love you so much! You're the only .... one. For me."
• "... the jolt of her life!"??? Way to make a brutal rape sound like a caffeine high. Jeez.
• If those are her assailants, they're not fleeing very well. "Hurry, let's ... damn! My contact lens! Hang on, Pete."

Best things about this back cover:

• "Wonnie?" Really. That's almost as bad as "Mihie." Is naming characters really That challenging?
• Revenge! Sweet, now I want to read this. I hope it is less brutal than "I Spit On Your Grave," which I never saw, but just hearing about it made me kind of sick.
  
• She "ripened" on "filthy" "pavements." Like all the finest fruit. What an endearing portrayal of your heroine.
  
• "I'm sorry, honey, but I just can't sleep in such a comically small bed. There, there. Let's get out of the kid's furniture section and see what we can find."

Page 123~

Wonnie came back from the kitchen and sat beside Joe. "I'm gonna work here every night, Joe. I'm gonna cook all the corn bread and biscuits, and I'll cook greens with real seasoning in them. In a little while that white man over in the diner will lose all his customers to us."

Worst. Revenge. Ever.

~RP

Paperback 155: Naked Fury / Day Keene (Phantom Books 509)

Paperback 155: Phantom Books 509 (PBO, 1952)

Title: Naked Fury
Author: Day Keene
Cover artist: sadly, uncredited

Yours for: $70 (not a typo - it's super-rare)



Best things about this cover:

• Angry mob!
  
• "I'm gonna beat him with this coffee table leg!"
  
• "I'm gonna pull my pants up to my rib cage and burn the town down with a troupe of my pasty-faced brethren!"
• The title is pure pulp - fantastic!
• One of the greatest pieces of Girl Art I own - her face looks insane, but that dressing gown is gorgeous and the way she's captured in crazy panicked motion is very believable.
• She is giving us some kind of sign with her right hand: "C" ... Uh, Call the Cops? Crazy people are trying to kill me? C-cup!?
• I thought the big palooka with the awesome left Fist of Fury was wearing some kind of jacket and open-collared shirt ... but then I noticed the length of that jacket, which appears actually to be some kind of robe. At night, it seems, he likes to dress up like Joan Crawford. Is that why the mob is chasing him? Hate crime!
• "Revenge" is one of my very favorite words / topics.

Best things about this back cover:

• Too much Fury, not enough Naked, frankly

Page 123~

Malloy speaking:

"You're not tough. You only think you are. If you guys hadn't been chicken, you'd have let me have it out in Reardon's garage. But killing a two hundred pound man who's willing to fight for his life is a hell of a lot different than shooting a drunken cop from a fire escape or strangling a ten dollar tart."

Mmmm, ten dollar tart ...

~RP

Paperback 143: Double, Double / Ellery Queen (Pocket Books 874)

Paperback 143: Pocket Books 874 (1st ptg, 1952)

Title: Double, Double
Author: Ellery Queen
Cover artist: Tom Dunn

Yours for: $10


Best things about this cover:

• Betty's audition for Macbeth was cut violently short...
• Betty's voracious appetite for men's hands knew no limits...
• Extreme Chiropractics!
• Honestly, this is one of the most vivid and memorable covers in my collection. I want to read the book just to figure out what he's doing to her (or vice versa)

Best things about this back cover:

• Super pastel rectangles. Love them.
• "Town Hermit" - is that an official position? It's capitalized!
• There is a "little" too much use of "scare" quotes on this back "cover.
• It seems a little odd that the selling point of this mystery is that it includes SEVEN murders (arbitrary?) and that there were NO CLUES - what the hell does "Double, Double" have to do with anything? This should have been called "Seven Murders, No Clues"

Page 123~

Now the last lingering bong was gone and Dakin was his proper hatchet self again, and Ellery said, "So," like little Hercule Poirot, and he went over and shut one of the windows, shivering.

This may be my favorite "Page 123" sentence ever, if only for "the last lingering bong."

~RP

Paperback 20: Graphic 55

Paperback 20: Graphic 55 (1st ptg, 1952)

Title: A Shot in the Dark
Author: Richard Powell
Cover artist: Unknown

Yours for: $9


Best things about this cover:

• "I'm dancing as fast as I can!"
• "What's a pretty girl like you doing in a grotto like this?"
• Artist has no sense of perspective - assailant appears to be pointing gun at some object well off-screen to the left
• That's some intense light in her ... crotch region
• You know what this cover needs? A boat. Hey, look! I found one - just under her left elbow (honestly, before uploading this picture, I had never noticed the boat, even though the first line of copy on the back cover mentions "salmon fishing in Canada"...)

RP

Paperback 6 - Dell D102

Paperback 6 - Dell D102 (1st ptg, 1952)

Title: Great Smith
Author: Edison Marshall
Cover artist: Robert Stanley

Yours for: SOLD (June '09)


Best things about this cover (Where to begin!?):

• "I'm ... too sexy for this shirt..."
• Peek-a-boo pants!? Why not?
• World's least supportive bra: "Keeps your breasts from floating up toward your face!"
• "Great Smith"??? "Smith" somehow doesn't go - it's anticlimactic, like "Fabulous Jones." Unless this guy is, in fact, one hell of a blacksmith.
• I want all of you who read this to start using the exclamation "Great Smith!" in your daily lives in place of profanity.

This is definitely from the cheesier regions of my collections. Despite its bad condition, and its ordinariness, its cheapness, its run-of-the-millness, I love this book - or this cover, I should say; I certainly haven't read it. Stanley is a great realist cover artist, and though his women always look the same, his art has a softness to its edges that makes it very easy on the eye, very pleasant to stare at. Still, it's hard to imagine someone, anyone, looking at this book in line at the supermarket and thinking, "Wow, that guy is Hot!" That said, I would kill to look like him from the neck down.

This book also has a painted back cover! More art!


Best things about this back cover:

• "I bring you ... maize" (which here looks like a giant puff of smoke, likely the result of a sticker pull)
• "Magnificent, lusty love-making" - that's both graphic and oddly tepid
• I believe that knight to be quite anachronistic, unless Great Smith is jousting in some early RenFest

RP