Paperback 398: Sinful Cities of the Western World / Hendrik De Leeuw (Pyramid 27)

Paperback 398: Pyramid Books 27 (1st ptg, 1951)

Title: Sinful Cities of the Western World
Author: Hendrik de Leeuw
Cover artist: Frederick Meyer

Yours for: $18


Best things about this cover:

• Touchdown! The Giantesses win again! Suck it, Lilliputians!
• Few people know that the Aurora Borealis is actually caused by a giant radioactive woman named Aurora. Here she is in the little Canadian fishing village where she grew up (before being bitten by that spider...).
• I love how nonchalant the little people are: "Ugh, her again. What a drama queen."

Best things about this back cover:

• Look at you, Hartford Courant, working the paradox angle. Look out, big city papers, there's a new kid on the blurb block, and he's hungry!
• The U.N. had a committee on "White Slavery???"
• Berlin, why must you be excessive in your sadism and homosexuality? Why can't you just be moderately sadistic and homosexual, like Luxembourg?
• Memo to copywriter re: last line—"arouse" and "alert" are not synonyms. So unless you really mean to encourage people to engage in the "horrible barter of human flesh," maybe a rewrite's in order.

Page 123~

Even the breath of the woman in my arms, as we danced again, was honey flavored.

"Hey, buddy, why do you keep licking the air around my head? ... well, you sound like a dog, so cut it out or I ain't dancin' with you no more."

~RP

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Paperback 260: Stairway to Death / Bruno Fischer (Pyramid 29)

Paperback 260: Pyramid 29 (1st ptg, 1951)

Title: Stairway to Death
Author: Bruno Fischer
Cover artist: I have it labeled "Meyer" but name visible in very lower left corner is "Frederick"...

Yours for: $10


Best things about this cover:

• Death has some fierce fucking heels. But also some pretty lifeless-looking legs. Coupla upside-down bowling pins with seams drawn on. I've seen sexier gams in the window of Ralphie's house in "A Christmas Story"
• Well if you build stairs like that, with a vertiginous drop and stairs nowhere close to perpendicular to the wall, then yes, someone's inevitably going to die.

Best things about this back cover:

• This book is like an ex-fighter who had a long, brutal career, won more than he lost, and somehow managed to survive with this brains intact. It's got a lot of wear — stains and scratches and what not — but it's absolutely tight and solid and readable. More "broken in" than "busted." I would not get into the ring with this book. To say that it has "character" or "personality" is a polite way of saying it could still kick your ass, sonny.
• It's interesting to me how much Fischer is being pushed here as a recognizable name. I didn't know he ever achieved real name recognition (except among later fans and collectors of hard-boiled lit).
• Why are the quotes on these books such suckfests most of the time? "Plenty of Mystery"? It's a fucking mystery, NYT? What did you expect, a History of Prussia?

Page 123~

There was a tense silence. Oscar drank down the applejack.

~RP

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