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 305: Air Bridge / Hammond Innes (Bantam 1125)

Paperback 305: Bantam 1125 (1st ptg, 1953)

Title: Air Bridge
Author: Hammond Innes
Cover artist: Al Rossi

Yours for: $17


Best things about this cover:

• Looks like the final frame in a Douglas Sirk melodrama. "We'll follow that Air Bridge, darling ... follow it ... to Freedom!" [cue music ... and cue credits]
• That is a *lot* of coat he's wearing. Note that it's enveloping not just him, but the adoring, beret-wearing lady he's got his arm around as well — the one who looks like she's thinking: "Forget the airplanes for one second and kiss me, you gorgeous slab of a man!"
• Check out Heckle and Jeckle conspiring in the shadowy background. "To be continued ... ?"

Best things about this back cover:

• Why does all the danger in paperback cover copy descriptions come in "web" form?
• SAETON? ELSE!?!? What, are you using a Ouija Board to name your characters?
• "DIANA, who wanted Saeton with the hard passion of a man..." Hot girl-on- ... whatever SAETON is ... action!

Page 123~

His voice had risen and there was a wild look in his eyes. "Forget about yourself. Forget about me. Won't you do this for your country?"
"No," I said.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]