Paperback 767: This World Is Taboo / Murray Leinster (Ace D-525)

Paperback 767: Ace D-525 (PBO, 1961)

Title: This World Is Taboo
Author: Murray Leinster
Cover artist: [Ed Valigursky]


Best thing about this cover:

• This world is taboo … hence the looooong line to get in.
• I really do love mid-century rocket design. Why does the future-past / past-future always look so much more awesome than the present?!
• I have no idea what I'm looking at here, but I feel like things are not going well for the wee man at the center of it all.

Best things about this back cover:

• That's a pretty mean thing to say about Dara. I'm sure she's lovely.
• I dara you to land on Dara.
• There is something so odd about "dodge" —not the word I expect … plus it's all orphaned there at the bottom. Word choice and layout matter.
• I want a t-shirt with that blue circle design on it. Not even kidding.

Page 123~

The admiral said through stiff lips, "I'll blast—"

I don't know what the admiral's doing, but it sounds kinda taboo.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

Paperback 678: Four From Planet 5 / Murray Leinster (Gold Medal s937)

Paperback 678: Gold Medal s937 (PBO, 1959)

Title: Four From Planet 5
Author: Murray Leinster
Cover artist: [Paul] Lehr

Yours for: $10


Best things about this cover:

• Yes, if I were in Antarctica, these kids would indeed freak me the fuck out. I would make that exact trepidatious gesture with my left hand ("Fear Hand!"). But wait ... he has a camera on a tripod. Maybe they're a singing group and he's their manager and they're terribly lost and he's decided to use this free time to take some promotional photographs. Yes, that makes sense.
• I really, really wish I could see the guy's face. Seems crucial. I need to know how I'm supposed to feel about this Aryan Children's Brigade. My default position is "terrified." 
• The cover copy does imply that "unknown terror" is a given, and we're just waiting around to figure out what kind. 

Best things about this back cover:

• "Utterly invincible telepaths will broadcast your shabby sins to the world! Gird yourselves!"
• I assume this ends with the kids forming a band and singing their way into civilization's heart. Or with the revelation that one of the kids is really Jesus. 

Page 123~

"The kid got past three electric fences, and we don't know how. He must know plenty about electricity."

Brilliant. I'm now rooting for the kid.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

Paperback 635: The Time Tunnel / Murray Leinster (Pyramid R-1522)

Paperback 635: Pyramid R-1522 (1st ptg, 1967)

Title: The Time Tunnel
Author: Murray Leinster
Cover artist: Jack Gaughan

Yours for: $9


Best things about this cover:

• Y'know ... it's pretty standard TV tie-in fair. Network logo. TV title font. A tunnel (presumably of the "time" variety).
• I actually love the tunnel. Diminishing people descending into diminishing non-concentric circles. Simple and cool.
• Wikipedia tells me that Murray Leinster wrote a novel with this title in 1964, the plot of which was quite different. He then wrote this novelization of the TV series three years later, and then a later, final "Time Tunnel" novel called Timeslip: Time Tunnel Adventure #2. There were also two "Time Tunnel" Gold Key comics put out in '66-'67.
• Complete TV series is on Hulu Plus. I'm gonna check it out.

Best things about this back cover:

• Whoa, the "real" tunnel is an op-art nightmare.
• The Scientist Wore Shapeless Chinos (That Made His Ass Look Fat and Flat).
• Who could forget James Darren and Robert Colbert!? (A: everyone)
• "And it's produced by Irwin Allen, so you know it's top-of-the-line TV fare."—something someone somewhere must've thought at some time.

Page 123~

"I'm talking about the time traveller Kirk's assembled," said Doug urgently. "In the Tunnel chamber!" He said apprehensively: "We may be stuck here for always! Tony! The whole Project may turn out a failure!"

Tony roused. 

As terse, momentous sentences go, "Tony roused" is up there with "Jesus wept."

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

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

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]