Paperback 1063: Tama of the Light Country / Ray Cummings (Ace F-363)

Paperback 1063: Ace F-363 (PBO, 1965)

Title: Tama of the Light Country

Author: Ray Cummings

Cover artist: Podwil

Condition: 7/10

Value: ~$5

Best things about this cover:

• She's back! Well, actually, this book is earlier than the last one (Paperback 1062), so ... she's here! For the first time! And yet again! Tamagain! Tamalamadingdong! Slicing her way through the planetary system, god knows why...
• Tama, Queen of Forgotten Serial Characters!
• Those blood-soaked wings are phenomenal, why didn't she catch on / take off!? Fewer Marvel movies, more Tama movies!
• Once again I identify with the nondescript dude in the background urging Tama on while staying safely back
• Caught between two space volleyballs, Tama braces for she knows not what!
• I see no evidence that she has been or is about to be "Kidnapped by a spaceship," let alone "Kidnapped by a spaceship Exclamation Point!"

Best things about this back cover:

• Not much
• LOL satellite paranoia! Nice.
• "Furore"—when it's spelled like that you are required to pronounce it with three syllables like "Volare!"

Page 123~

I do not find it pleasant, nor does Rowena, nor do any of the rest of us.

It's settled, then—I won't bother with this book. Thank you, Mr. Narrator.

~RP

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Paperback 1062: Tama, Princess of Mercury / Ray Cummings (Ace F-406)

Paperback 1062: Ace F-406 (PBO, 1966)

Title: Tama, Princess of Mercury

Author: Ray Cummings

Cover artist: Podwil

Condition: 9/10

Value: ~$10

Best things about this cover:

• Carving Jack O' Lanterns is a bloodsport on Mercury
• Monster looks surprised to find out that the "princess" has blood-tipped wings and a big fucking dagger
• I relate to the dude on the ground pointing and going "oh hell no, I don't want any of this, run away!"
• Author Tama Janowitz is now not the only Tama I've ever heard of

Best things about this back cover:

• Guy Palisse, Space-Explorer—gonna get some business cards made up and just hand them out to everyone I meet
• Guy Palisse, Space-Explorer / President, Bolton Flying Cube, Inc.
• Move over Gay Talese, it's ... Guy Palisse!
• "...warded off war between the two worlds" is a terrible mumbly mouthful
• Guy Palisse and the Frenzied Mercurians were the toast of New York's early-80s post-punk scene

Page 123~

The infuriated, reckless girls hurled themselves down like frenzied birds.

Is anyone on Mercury *not* frenzied? Seems like a stressful place to visit. Probably gonna take my Flying Cube somewhere else this summer.  

~RP

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Paperback 1058: Berserker's Planet / Fred Saberhagen (DAW UY1167)

Paperback 1058: DAW UY1167 (PBO, 1975)

Title: Berserker's Planet

Author: Fred Saberhagen

Cover artist: Jack Gaughan

Condition: 8/10 (unread, some surface wear)

Estimated value: $10-15

Best things about this cover:

• "That's not a toothpick! ... THIS is a toothpick!"
• There was an early-80s arcade game called "Berserker." It was pretty cool. I don't remember these guys, though.
• I like the big guy's aesthetic. Very Prince Valiant-meets-Grizzly Man. It's just ... he looks more like an action figure than a living humanoid creature. He has many points of articulation and is neither standing nor holding that sword in a way that one might call "naturalistic" or "plausible." 
• Little buddy, on the other hand—very believable. Cowering nakedness, total unpreparedness, I can relate.
• The pink palette here is amazing, as is the suggestion of a giant skull in the oddly machine-like background.
• The actual title has an apostrophe in "Berserker's" but the cover does not. This bothers me about as much as you'd expect (a lot).

Best things about this back cover:

• No one needs this much text, truly.
• "NO QUARTER! NO QUARTER! NO COIN! ONLY DOLLAR! DOLLAR BILL! OR CREDIT CARD!"—someone behind me at the vending machine
• This feels pretty prescient—the idea that your robots would learn and "develop"; sadly modern out-of-control robots didn't take over the planet with swords, they just figured out how to sell you things you don't need and show you "content" that makes you angry ... in order to sell you things you don't need. Give me the robots in pelts and disco boots, please!
• "It's a Fred Saberhagen science thriller" doesn't quite have the standalone energy you'd expect a climactic back-cover paragraph to have.
• Also LOL "Have you seen THE BOOK OF SABERHAGEN" what, is it missing?

Page 123~

As the two men wrestled, it was still Omir who smiled, and Thomas who looked desperate, but quickly it was demonstrated that Omir was not the stronger of the two, not with a spear stuck through him, anyway.

Yeah, impalement will really take it out of you, I find

~RP

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Paperback 1057: The Sword of Rhiannon / Leigh Brackett (Ace F-422)

Paperback 1057: Ace F-422 (1st thus, 1967)

Title: The Sword of Rhiannon
Author: Leigh Brackett
Cover artist: John Schoenherr

Condition: 7/10
Estimated value: $8

Best things about this cover:

• This was a very famous Martian deodorant ad campaign. "Shirtless marauding got you feeling ... not so fresh? Well now you can raise your triumphant, blood-soaked hand in confidence with new Martian Sure! Raise your hand if you're Sure!"
• "Hey guys, guys, over here, I think I got her. She doesn't ring like a bell in the night but ... pretty sure she's Rhiannon. No, seriously guys, come over here! I'm using the new deodorant now, it's OK!"
• Digging the pink hues with lime green font. Feel the late '60s...
• What the hell is "Cosmic Peril"? "Cosmic Carol in a Lost World" would've been a way more interesting premise. "Who is Cosmic Carol!?" I'd be forced to wonder!
• Bold move to fill so much of the foreground with just the back of some guy's head. Who is this eggheaded watcher? Wait ... am I the eggheaded watcher!? Existential, man...

Best things about this back cover:

• Ugh, too much text, come on! If I wanted to read, I'd ... well ... buy a book, I guess
• Mars MARS MARS!!!
• Can't help singing "Matt Carse" to the tune of Gary Numan's "Cars": "Here with Matt Carse / I feel safest of all / He's a mythical god / And he's a got a big sword / Matt Carse"
• Leigh Brackett was one of the founders of modern space opera. She wrote the first draft of the screenplay for "Empire Strikes Back" (just before her death). She also wrote the screenplay for "Rio Bravo"! And "The Long Goodbye"! And co-wrote the screenplay for "The Big Sleep"! With William Faulkner. What a career.

Page 123~ (this book's only 128 pages long!)

"The blessings of the gods attend you, stranger," Emer whispered and kissed him gently on the lips.

I like to imagine that Emer's last name is Gency and that she had a minor R&B hit in 1983 called "The Blessings of the Gods Attend You, Stranger." Also, that on the cover of her one major-label album ("S.O.S.!") she's wearing a get-up that can only be described as Disco Chainmail. 

~RP

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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

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Paperback 946: The Book of Paradox / Louise Cooper (Dell 3343)

Paperback 946: Dell 3343 (1st ptg, 1975)

Title: The Book of Paradox
Author: Louise Cooper
Cover artist: Frank Frazetta

Condition: 7/10
Estimated value: $8-12

[Latest addition to the Doug Peterson Collection]

Best things about this cover:

• The Oracle foretold the coming of the one they call ... Glutemaster!
• Man vs. Angel in the World Pose-Off of Love
• No one did Subterranean Mystical Catacomb Beefcake like Frazetta.

Best things about this back cover:

• "and now" is the biggest LOL line on this whole cover
• LORD OF THE RINGS (... which is absolutely *nothing* like) LORD OF THE FLIES ... and now! ... LORD OF THE DANCE! Nope, sorry, misspoke. It's BOOK OF PARADOX! Feel the fantasy!
• That's an astonishing array of words considering none of it means anything.

Page 123~

Varka shrugged. "Make of it what you will—but I am going to Limbo."

I believe this is the fantasy paperback equivalent of "Screw you guys, I'm going home."

~RP

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Paperback 832: The Unknown / ed. D. R. Bensen (Pyramid T2326)

Paperback 832: Pyramid T2326 (2nd ptg, 1970) (reprints Pyramid R-851)

Title: The Unknown
Editor: D. R. Bensen
Cover artist: Brad Johannsen
Illustrator: Edd Cartier
Introduction: Isaac Asmiov

Estimated value: $7-8


Best things about this cover:

• Seriously, *everyone* in 1970 was high on LSD 24/7. It was the law.
• Self-help + horror = this.
• "Hey, doc, I dreamt my mother got jaundice and then she smiled and started bleeding tiddlywinks out her eyeballs … whaddya think it means?"
• Those milk bottle-sized hypos are terrifying. Before I saw the little hash marks on the ones in the foreground, I just thought they were the topless towers of her (her?) imaginary dreamscape, man.

Best things about this back cover:

• Ugh. Text.
• All wonderful authors. This collection is probably worth reading.
• Second Coming of Satan, eh? OK, I'm in.
• I like the "****" bit toward the end because I can imagine it means "[expletive deleted]."

Page 123~ (from "Doubled and Redoubled" by Malcolm Jameson)

Jimmy Childers went with alacrity.

Keep your bathroom habits to yourself, Jimmy.

~RP

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Paperback 749: Satan's Child / Peter Saxon (Lancer 73-764)

Paperback 749: Lancer 73-764 (PBO, 1968)

Title: Satan's Child
Author: Peter Saxon
Cover artist: Jeff Jones (Jeffrey Catherine Jones)

Yours for: $15

Best things about this cover:

• Can't a girl rub her naked bottom on dandelions in peace around here!
• No need for pepper spray or a handgun when you've got Smoke-jaguar.
• Is that behelmeted guy out walking his Smoke-jaguar or shape-shifting into a Smoke-jaguar?
• It's like Rosemary's Baby. Only with more orange. And a Smoke-jaguar.
• One of my all-time favorite fantasy paperback covers, despite/because of its looniness. Love the orange, love the enigmatic man/jaguar/smoke hybrid, love the not-all-that-worried sunbather.
• Only just learned that Jeff Jones was (later in life) Jeffrey Catherine Jones (a trans woman). Fascinating story. She died in 2011. Comics Journal obit here.

Best things about this back cover:

• That is a pretty great use of empty space—like a womb holding the embryonic "Seedling From Hell." 
• Ooh, terrible vengeance! That's my favorite kind!
• You're gonna have a hard time finding a greater name in all of literature than "Pricker Gill.

Page 123~

"All of it!" Finlay cried hoarsely. "I wager it all."

Silently his companions met his wager—and threw down their hands. They were identical—and identical to his own.

Finlay's mouth dried and he gave a little groan of despair. "I … I thought I must win."

~RP

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Paperback 643: The General Zapped an Angel / Howard Fast (Ace 27910)

Paperback 643: Ace 27910 (1st ptg, 1970)

Title: The General Zapped an Angel
Author: Howard Fast
Cover artist: Karel Thole

Yours for: $6


Best things about this cover:

• "They call this 'Blood Lake'. I forget why."
• That looks way worse than "zapped."
•  I have no idea why I bought this, except perhaps the kooky title, the fact that I recognized Fast's name from earlier work, and some vague idea that later in life I would turn my attention to cover art of the '70s...

Best things about this back cover:

• Text. Text text text. Text. Louis Untermeyer. Text.
• Mother Earth!? So *that's* what She looks like. Again, I'm gonna say the situation on the cover looks *way* worse than mere "wounding."
• I buy that he was "bestselling," but "world-famous?" Maybe this back cover blurb is its own science-fictional alternate universe-type story...

Page 123~

"Vacation?"
"No, no indeed. You know, I thought I would do one of those Jewish comic-tragic things about a Miami Beach hotel. You know the kind of thing, mostly schmaltz and bad jokes and maybe two percent validity so your audience will shed a tear or two if they're in the right mood."

"Oh, one of *those* things," he nodded politely while smiling and backing away.

~RP

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Paperback 639: Kothar and the Wizard Slayer / Gardner F. Fox (Unibook nn)

Paperback 639: Unibook nn (1st ptg, 1970)

Title: Kothar and the Wizard Slayer
Author: Gardner F. Fox
Cover artist: Jeff Jones

Yours for: $5


Best things about this cover:

• Behold the mystical wonder of the medieval PowerPoint presentation.
• Redhead: "Now if you'll direct your attention right ... here." Gremlin: "Eh! Oh! Eh! What the hell?!"
• Protip: Do not interrupt a gremlin during his morning shower, for that is when he lip syncs and dances to Katy Perry.
• Maybe having your two main characters turn their backs on the camera isn't the greatest idea, visual interest-wise.

Best things about this back cover:

• Choose from our vast selection of Kothars!
• And, in the most shocking Rose Ceremony ever ... it's Frostfire! Sorry, Lori.
• In my best Norman Bates voice: "A boy's best friend is his sword." 

Page 123~

Red Lori was there, coming from the building door, with Phordog Fale and Nemidomes at her elbow. In the background shadows he could make out Cybala, hiding. 

I see this author comes from the Get High And Utter Random Syllables school of character-naming. In other news, the official progression of fail is now Fail, Epic Fail, Phordog Fale.

~RP

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