Paperback 978: Pemmican / Vardis Fisher (Cardinal C-253)

Paperback 978: Cardinal C-253 (1st ptg, 1957)

Title: Pemmican
Author: Vardis Fisher
Cover artist: Daniel Schwartz

Estimated value: $7-10
Condition: 7/10

[from the Laura R. Braunstein Collection]

Best things about this cover:

• The only thing scarier than her fright makeup is her linebacker hands. Look at those meat claws, dear god!
• Why would you kneel in the river like that? Serious question.
• Her mouth! We get it, she's "savage," dial it back.
• I do like the way the light shines off her hip.
• Chief Wahoo on Cleveland Indians uniforms. Dakota Access Pipeline. This dehumanizing shit must be exhausting.

Best things about this back cover:

• Ah, the "savage white girl" trope. See Natalie Wood in "The Searchers."
• I wish this were titled "A Virile Young Scotsman, or, The Debauchery"
• Rawboned! The bones of this book have not seen fire! Like sushi, are these bones!

Page 123~

"Coming!" he whispered.

He whispered with an exclamation point? Wow. Graphic.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

Paperback 977: The Weirwoods / Thomas Burnett Swann (Ace 87941)

Paperback 977: Ace 87941 (PBO, 1977)

Title: The Weirwoods
Author: Thomas Burnett Swann
Cover artist: Stephen Hickman

Estimated value: $5-10
Condition: 8/10

[Part of the Laura R. Braunstein Collection]

Best things about this cover:

• Where woods? There woods.
• Slow your roll, fantasy fiction Teri Garr.
• That dress is pretty hot.
• She doesn't have Fear Hand™but somethin' ain't right.
• "Welcome ... to the Land of Towering Sex Toys. The pegasi will be here shortly to take you to pleasures unknown..."

Best things about this back cover:

• Those are some respectable blurbs right there. Makes me wanna read this. LADY OF THE BEES also sounds promising.
• This back cover's sense of the boundary between reality and fantasy seems a little feeble. Rome, real, Etruscans, real, Centaurs, uh ...
• Well, sure, you name a guy Lars Velcha, what do you expect him to become?

Page 123~

She skittered down the trunk with the speed of a hungry squirrel.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

Paperback 936: The Black Rose / Thomas B. Costain (Perma Books M-7501)

Paperback 936: Perma Books M-7501 (1st ptg, 1961)

Title: The Black Rose
Author: Thomas B. Costain
Cover artist: Uncredited

Estimated value: a few bucks

[Part of the Laura R. Braunstein Collection]

Best things about this cover:

• Shirtless Barbers of Medieval England!
• This dude is totally thinking "m'lady."
• "Cut this lock. The one I'm pointing to. With my pointy digits that give my arm the appearance of an angry swan ... yes, that one."

Best things about this back cover:

• Ooh, side by side! That's the hottest kind of lying!
• Engaine, LOL. "Oh, are you having 'Engaine' trouble? Here, I can help you start your motor..."
• "Their love was as wrong as this putrid green color you're looking at right now!"

Page 123~

"And now, John-Put-Upon, will you be good enough to run downstairs and ask your grandfather and my friend to come up?"

Medieval bordellos could get a little freaky.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

Paperback 935: The Darkness and the Dawn / Thomas B. Costain (Perma Books M5029)

Paperback 935: Perma Book M5029 (1st ptg, 1960)

Title: The Darkness and the Dawn
Author: Thomas B. Costain
Cover artist: Uncredited :(

Estimated value: $4-6

[Part of the Laura R. Braunstein Collection]

Best things about this cover:

• The correct answer is, "No, those Uggs do not make your thighs look fat, Mr. The Hun."
• I love how he has time for a mid-battle photo shoot. "I *am* smiling, you toad! Don't make me unsheath this!"
• If you're gonna dip your foot in the waters of Attila the Hun novels, you're gonna want to go with something from the "superlative" category.
• Thomas B. Costain turned out a bunch of mid-century historicals. His first novel was published at age 57!

Best things about this back cover:

• I don't think this back cover exactly nailed the landing, compass-metaphor-wise.
• I want a t-shirt that reads, simply, "HIGH COMPETENCE."
• I feel like there are a lot of ellipses here, and that there may be more to the Thomas Costain iceberg than this cover is allowing us to see.

Page 123~

Nicolan was taller than most of the other slaves and so was stationed in the rear rank, holding one of the cushions on which reposed a vial of true nard, a most aromatic perfume.

Please let loose the phrase "a vial of true nard" upon the land. Thank you.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

Paperback 934: My Gun Is Quick / Mickey Spillane (Signet 791)

Paperback 934: Signet 791 (1st ptg, 1950)

Title: My Gun Is Quick
Author: Mickey Spillane
Cover artist: Lou Kimmel

Estimated value: $4-7

[Part of the Laura R. Braunstein Collection]

Best things about this cover:

• This is what all vintage paperbacks should look like—authentically beat to fuck.
• People really read Spillane. To pieces.
• I love the male fear hand! Gender equity!

Best things about this back cover:

• The *Hammer* mystery will *hit* me? Stellar wordplay, copy guy.
• I feel like they should be "seductively-lit" apartments. Not "-lighted." Hey, copy guy...
• Damn, that Spillane portrait is olden. I'm used to the buzz-cut, t-shirted, gun-wielding dude. This dude:

Page 123~

Finally she said, "The baby clothes, Mike . . . it fits!"

Mike, now wearing a onesie, wondered how he would ever regain his dignity.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

Paperback 933: Between Planets / Robert Heinlein (Ace 05501)

Paperback 933: Ace 05501 (1st thus, ca. 1970)

Title: Between Planets
Author: Robert A. Heinlein
Cover artist: Steele Savage (!)
Frontispiece artist (!!!): Clifford Geary

[Part of the Laura R. Braunstein Collection]

Est. value: $5-10

Best things about this cover:

• Nice dismount, Space Jesus!
• Someone was So High when they designed this.
• "So, like, the dragons have eyes, but then those eyes have eyes ... like, seven eyes ... and the dragons are swimming through, like, an algae-covered pond toward a tiny floating city, and then there's this muscly space preacher in a hot orange spandex body suit who's like 'AMEN!' ... oh my god this is gonna be sweet."

Best things about this back cover:

• Not to bring the room down too much, but this is really poorly written. It's like a 10-year-old trying to summarize a story.
• I see now why they needed the psychedelic nutjobbery of the front cover—to offset this soporific nonsense.
• "Don, the hero of this story" is an improbable sentence.

Bonus feature ... FRONTISPIECE!

Best things about this frontispiece:

• Oh, man, I'm gonna be having man-goat-chicken nightmares for days now...
• The twin dildos on top really tie the whole look together.
• The human appears to be unzipping his fly. I'm now a little worried for man-goat-chicken.

Page 123~

Involuntarily Don grunted with pain.

Choose your own context!

~RP

Paperback 932: The War Against the Rull / A.E. Van Vogt (Permabook M4263)

Paperback 932: Perma Books M-4263 (1st ptg, 1962)

Title: The War Against the Rull
Author: A. E. Van Vogt
Cover artist: Some Richard Powers knock-off artist (or possibly Richard Powers, who knows?)

Estimated value: a few bucks, ish

[part of the newly established Laura R. Braunstein Collection]

Best things about this cover:

• This is pretty lazy as scif fi covers go. Feels like it was made on some kind of assembly line where they just slap down hackeneyed visuals without much thought. "Floating orb of some kind ... dude in space suit ... maybe a few other smaller dudes ... wacky '60s font ... paint splatter to suggest some kind of, I don't know, flare? ... And, done!"
• The Rull had eyes in their knees and wore elaborately decorated space woolens, so war was kind of inevitable. 
• I am tempted to read this book, as I have been tempted to read several of these prolific but largely forgotten popular fiction writers (I'm in the middle of a Mary Roberts Rinehart book right now! It's super-fun!). Thanks to Pop Sensation reader and librarian extraordinaire Laura Braunstein for sending me a buncha beat up paperbacks that only a mother or vintage paperback enthusiast could love! More to come.

Best things about this back cover:

• "... or are you just happy to see me?"
• So ... they're Cylons. Or Pod People. Or latent zombies. Got it.
• That is the most nauseating question mark ever produced.

Page 123~ 

With Diddy in tow, the two Rulls came to Cross 2. The Way itself was Cross 1.

Thus setting up an epic '90s space-rap battle. My money's on The Way.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]