Paperback 700: The Traveler in Black / John Brunner (Ace 82210)

Paperback 700: Ace Books 82210 (PBO, 1971)

Title: The Traveler in Black 
Author: John Brunner
Cover artist: Leo & Diane Dillon

Yours for: $8


Best things about this cover:

• Original title: Death Gives Two Hand Jobs
• Johnny Cash IS ... Death IN ... The Traveler in Black!
• Those hands are spectacular, and scary as hell.

Best things about this back cover:

• Only the highest of people could a. make sense of this and b. think "oh man, we gotta buy this."

Page 123~

The borderland between rationality and chaos seemed to be shrinking apace as the harsh constraint of logic settled on this corner of the All.

George Washington was in a cult, and the cult was into aliens, man.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

Paperback 698: Vulcan's Hammer / Philip K. Dick // The Skynappers / John Brunner (Ace Double D-457)

Paperback 698: Ace Double D-457 (PBO/PBO, 1960) 

Title: Vulcan's Hammer / The Skynappers
Authors: Philip K. Dick / John Brunner
Cover artists: Ed Emshwiller / Ed Valigursky

Yours for: Not for sale


Best things about this cover:

• Bang bang Vulcan's space-age hammer came down upon his head
• Prototypes for the robot in "Short Circuit."
• I think a double-flashlight pincer hammer would actually be a pretty cool tool. 
• I like to think they're little styling hammers, making our hero look fabulous.

Best things about this other cover:

• A nice visual representation of what happens Every Time I try to peel a hard-boiled egg.
• That's some pretty sweet quintessential '60s sic-fi goodness. Best rockets always look like they came out of a kit and have a maximum of 8 parts, total.
• They kidnapped the sky! Or else they nap on planes, not sure.

Page 123~ (from "Vulcan's Hammer")

Halfway across the Atlantic they passed an immense swarm of hammers streaking toward helpless, undefended North America.

Other continents had presciently installed anti-Vulcan's Hammer technology decades earlier. Silly North Americans.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

Paperback 72: The Jagged Orbit / John Brunner (Ace 38122)

Paperback 72: Ace 38122 (1st ptg, 1969)

Title: The Jagged Orbit
Author: John Brunner
Cover artist: Uncredited


Best things about this cover:

• Gotta love the olde-timey computer script: "Do Not Fold, Spindle, or Mutilate ... The Jagged Orbit!"
• In the future, the universe will be run by giant, anthropomorphic gumball creatures.
• If this cover, and the endorsement from Philip K. Dick, don't make you realize that everyone in 1969 was high, then I hereby offer Exhibit B...

Best things about this back cover:

• I love how "this world of ours" (circa 1969) sounds just like "this world of ours" (circa 2008).
• Thomas Disch gives us a good example of why more people don't write blurbs in the middle of acid trips. "The styling is now" is something we should all start saying. That, or "Eat it!"

RP