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 158: Dionysus: The Ultimate Experiment / William S. Ruben (Manor Books 15232)

Paperback 158: Manor Books 15232 (PBO, 1977)

Title: Dionysus: The Ultimate Experiment
Author: William S. Ruben
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $6


Best things about this cover:

• This is possibly the most boob-oriented cover I own.

"Do you like them, Steve? I electroded them especially for you?"
"Well ... oh my ... I say ... they're quite ... I'll just ... how does one ... is this ... do I ... like so? ... or ..."

• She is so arched and ecstatic and ready to go, and he is Totally killing the vibe.
• He seems to have made eye contact with the boobs, but his hand!? WTF!? Hey, buddy, you're not supposed to wave at them!
• His junk, while barely visible, is not invisible enough for my, uh, taste.
• Whatever "human emotion" this is, I don't think I care to "experience" it, thanks.

Best things about this back cover:

All this rigmarole about weightless sex is just a front. The REAL "unreportable project" is embedded in the title itself:

Ronnie James DIO will play the New York State (NYS) Fair causing a mass conflagration of rocking out that will engulf the US in madness, allowing a Black Sabbath reunion ... at the highest levels of government! No one can resist the heavy metal keyboard strains of "Rainbow in the Dark!"



Page 123~

This was the time of Eldridge and Grainly, born into a world which accepted without conscience an acknowledgment of the underground. They simply did not think of this sustained nether world.

Funny, I'd rather not think of it either.

"This was the time of Eldridge and Grainly ... Attorneys at Law!"

~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 109: A Hard Day's Knight / Ted Mark (Lancer 73-508)

Paperback 109: Lancer 73-508 (PBO, 1966)

Title: A Hard Day's Knight (The New Man from O.R.G.Y. #9)
Author: Ted Mark
Cover artist: uncredited

Yours for: $11


Best things about this cover:

• Hey Ladies, he's Back! See Steve Victor wipe nervous (but manly) sweat from his neck in "A Hard Day's Knight" - get it? 'Cause he's kinda like a "knight" (if you take a lot of drugs and then squint real hard) ... and then maybe if we make people think of the Beatles he will seem more attractive.
• Nothing turns me on like a housecoat, granny panties, and molded plastic hair of an indeterminate dirt color.
• Not sure what he's planning to do with that gun, but the placement makes me nervous.
• #9 ... is my favorite number. For real.

Best things about this back cover:

• Space Race!
• You had me at "wife-swapping"
• Why will I still be asking "Who is Ted Mark?" even after I've "read his books?"
• "Hip readers are asking 'Who is Ted Mark?" - the rest of us are asking the more pertinent question: "WHY is Ted Mark?"

Page 123~

[brace yourself - last time I quoted from a Ted Mark book, there was "edible root" involved]

Page 123 just doesn't cut it, so here's Page 108:

Her young breasts pointed up at me like two scarlet-beaked doves eager to be fed. Leonard was fumbling at her hips with the buttons of her shorts. His jeans were already down around his ankles. His adolescent lust was a murderous spear catching the moonlight. I revised my opinion as to his lack of maturity. Intellectually I might have been right, but physically he was a grown man-and-a-half.

Oh ... my. "Murderous spear." Still, it's better than "edible root."

~RP

Paperback 39: Ace D-478

Paperback 39: Ace D-478 (PBO, 1960)

Title: Spacehive
Author: Jeff Sutton
Cover artist: Uncredited

"Hi honey, it's me. Yeah, can you tell me how to hold these compass thingies again? I'm pinching it between my thumb and forefinger while holding it in midair, but nothing seems to be happening. Uh oh, I gotta go. A miniature Soviet fighter just threw a gigantic numbered spider web over me. I'll see you tonight." [click]

Mmmm, Space Race anxiety. Thank you, Sputnik!

RP