Paperback 980: Away and Beyond / A.E. Van Vogt (Berkley F812)

Paperback 980: Berkley Medallion F812 (1st ptg, 1963)

Title: Away and Beyond
Author: A.E. Van Vogt
Cover artist: Richard Powers

Estimated value: $10-15
Condition: 7-8/10 (near perfect, but w/ smushed corner on back cover)

Best things about this cover:

• I feel like a crucial part of this scene is *just* off-cover: what is the humanoid figure holding / pointing toward / squeezing? Another humanoid? A Nobel Prize? Pancakes?
• Powers could basically draw anything and it looked amazing. Who has any idea what is going on here? Who cares?
• Loopy laser lines swooping in and out of figures. Structural, skeletal, electric.

Best things about this back cover:

• August Derleth ... is not a dynamic writer.
• Those samples are Unevocative. Scare quotes don't do what you think they do, copywriter.
• Only way you're buying this is if you already like Van Vogt. Or are bored and will take a flyer on anything that looks this cool.

Page 123~

[from "Film Library"]

Mr. Arlay said, "Careful, Tania. We're almost at rock bottom."

Next time someone goes too far, forget "Slow your roll" or "TMI"—just tell 'em "Careful, Tania."

~RP

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Paperback 938: The Silver Eggheads / Fritz Leiber (Ballantine Books F561)

Paperback 938: Ballantine Books F561 (PBO, 1961) ("First published as a novelet in Fantasy & Science Fiction," 1958)

Title: The Silver Eggheads
Author: Fritz Leiber
Cover artist: Richard Powers

Estimated value:  $10-15

Best things about this cover:

• Fish-faced robot wearing a bra and carrying a young Joe McCarthy to the boudoir? Sure, I'm in.
• This is Richard Powers at his wackadoodle best. Love how he can conjure a scifi world with just a few odd shapes and blotches.
• As one of my Twitter followers wrote just now, upon seeing this cover: "'Alien Pietas' would be an alt-metal band that I would TOTALLY listen to..."

Best things about this back cover:

• The mad, gay, heady world of the "arts" is the only place I want to be.
• MISS BLUSHES! "A censor-robix of delicate pink"; I think that's her on the cover, looking not very censorious. Erotica robotica!
• "... a luscious platinum ro-but ..." I was like "What's a ro-but!? What Is A Ro-But!?"" But it's just an awkwardly placed speech-cessation hyphen.Still, as a daring reader, I feel obliged to, uh, go in. This one's going on the "Must Read" pile.

Page 123~

Behind Miss Blushes lurched Pop Zangwell, waving his caduceus and yelling thickly, "Avaunt, by Anubis! No news-robots in here!"

Ask your doctor if your heart is healthy enough for caduceus-waving.

~RP

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Paperback 859: The Space Swimmers / Gordon Dickson (Berkley X1371)

Paperback 859: Berkley X1371 (PBO, 1967)

Title: The Space Swimmers
Author: Gordon Dickson
Cover artist: Richard Powers

Estimated value: $5-10


Best things about this cover:

• It was originally titled "The Space Sperm," but … you know.
• Yoga Joe knew all the angles.
• This is a really unusual Richard Powers cover. His stuff's usually more epic and spindly and exotic. This is pretty muddled and boring coming from the guy who did the cover for Sirens of Titan.

Best things about this back cover:

• Skye Terrier!
• Patrick Joya, author of "The Joya Sex."
• There's some pretty hackneyed phrasing in here, capped off by that last little bit. Yuck.

Page 123~

"Now and ever," replied Johnny. "Right from the very beginning, whether we knew it or not, they've been the only hope we had." 

I can almost feel the wind blowing through his hair as he stares meaningfully off into the distance. Space opera by way of Douglas Sirk.

~RP

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Paperback 768: Star Science Fiction Stories No. 2 / ed. Frederik Pohl (Ballantine 612)

Paperback 768: Ballantine Books (2nd ptg, 1962) (isfdb entry)

Title: Star Science Fiction Stories No. 2
Editor: Frederik Pohl
Cover artist: [Richard Powers]

Yours for: $10


Best things about this cover:

• Beard.
• Seriously, beard. How often do you see beard? Not too often.
• I'm disturbed by his lack of hands. I guess they're inside those little spheres, but it looks like they've replace one of his hand with a giant hypodermic.
• Not the most scintillating cover art, but I do love Powers's fever-dream space shapes and colors.

Best things about this back cover:

• Rocket! Or jet gull! Probably rocket!
• Again, I love when books explain the basics of publishing to you. "We find good stories … and then we publish them!"
• Weird to brag about being an "original publication" and claim that the stories "appear here for the first time" when this is a reprint of the real original, published in 1953.

Page 123~ (from "Conquest" by Anthony Boucher)

"I fly with my synapses, if that's the word I want, and sometimes I guess they don't apse."

I see APSE a lot in crosswords. Never quite like that, though.

~RP

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Paperback 764: The Sirens of Titan / Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (Dell First Edition B138)

Paperback 764: Dell First Edition B138 (PBO, 1959)

Title: The Sirens of Titan
Author: Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
Cover artist: Richard Powers

Yours for: $65


Best things about this cover:

• Yes, *that* Vonnegut.
• This year's sexiest accessory—the asteroid belt!
• God bless Richard Powers. Most of his stuff does not contain what is traditionally known as "Great Girl Art" (GGA), but … this'll do.
• I love her electric blue emanations.
• Seriously, the colors on this are Gorgeous.

Best things about this back cover:

• Wow. Terrible cover copy—at least in the headers.
• I have not read this book, but it sounds like the future is not awesome. How can that be?
• Isolation of the female figures here is a nice touch. Not sure why they have a handle. But I don't mind.

Page 123~

Unk went into the furnace room and closed the door.

He was excited, though he didn't know why. He began to read by the light from the dusty window.

Dear Unk:—the letter began.

~RP

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Paperback 760: Slan / A.E. Van Vogt (Dell 696)

Paperback 760: Dell 696 (1st ptg, 1953)

Title: Slan
Author: A.E. Van Vogt
Cover artist: [Richard Powers, per William H. Lyles, Dell Paperbacks, 1942—Mid-1962]

Yours for: $20


Best things about this cover:

• "I Was a 22nd-Century Gun Moll!"
• Her mouth! Is she talking? Hissing? Shouting "Slan!"?
• I have seen the future. It is full of 8th graders' atom diagrams.
• Pretty bold to paint right on top of a well-used bandage.
• Quintessential mid-century sci-fi cover art. Iconic. Beautiful. Perfect.

Best things about this back cover.

• Why aren't people named "Groff" any more? Or "Jommy"?
• Idea: Western / Scifi epic with a hero named "Slim Tendrils"…
• I'm guessing that's not "Jommy" on the cover. But who knows what the future holds…

Page 123~

The impression smashed into fragments. Granny.

That has to be the weirdest two-sentence sequence in literary history.

~RP

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Paperback 758: Beyond Eden / David Duncan (Ballantine 102)

Paperback 758: Ballantine Books 102 (PBO, 1955)

Title: Beyond Eden
Author: David Duncan
Cover artist: Richard Powers

Yours for: $15


Best things about this cover:

• "I see the source of life itself—there! Beyond Eden. Eden … hey Eden … *EDEN*, would you get your giant body out of the way so we can see the damned source of life itself!?" 
• Eden looks like giant space actress who has forgotten her line.
• Richard Powers is the king of interplanetary fever dreams and wackadoodle future machines. My favorite scifi/fantasy cover artist (even if this isn't exactly his best work) (with respect to Valigursky, Emshwiller, etc.).

Best things about this back cover:

• Living Water ™ —part of the Coca-Cola family of horror beverages
• Excellent back cover art by somebody's 13-month-old niece.
• If the "man" and the "woman" had names, this cover might be milligrams sexier.

Page 123~

Spectralium grew rapidly in Gayley's pilot tank.

That is some grade-A space porn right there.

~RP

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Paperback 535: Things With Claws / Edited by White and Hallie Burnett (Ballantine 466K)

Paperback 535: Ballantine 466K (PBO, 1961)

Title: Things With Claws
Editors: Whit & Hallie Burnett
Cover artist: Richard Powers

Yours for: $11


Best things about this cover:

• I like titles that could also be answers in the final round of "$100,000 Pyramid": "Cats ... bears ... uh ... handless supervillains..."
• I am guessing that this artist is Richard Powers, only 'cause it seems so aggressively Powersy. It's like Miro and the guy who did the "Fear & Loathing" drawings had a baby in outer space. LOVE all the variations on claws in this painting.
• They really had to break "creatures" there? Right there? Couldn't, I don't know, reformat ever-so-slightly? Kind of kills the impact.

Best things about this back cover:

• Oh, the "famous" Stuart CLOETE, the "legendary" ORESTE F. Pucciani. Trust me, if these folks were truly famous, they'd be in every crossword I ever made for the rest of my life.
• "... and females." Hence the pink.
• See what harm / good covers can do!? "The Doll Maker" looks like the stupidest book ever, while "Zacherley's Vulture Stew" looks like the cover model for God's Own Catalogue of Awesome.

Page 123~

from "Return of the Griffins" by A. E. Sandeling

"You've been away several years," said Gunar, covering his bare feet again with shoes and socks. "What did you do in the time?"

"Took ourselves to the mountains of India," replied the griffin. "Sat in the sun, on the threshold of our calves, or caught the Arimaspi, one-eyed men who seek gold in the mountains, ate them in a shrugging fashion, already gorged with our prowess. I might ask the same question of you. What didn't you do? By Apollo! Procreated not individuals but nations. Took the lid off a water kettle, and what steams out but ships and cities. Times have changed."

So eating the Arimaspi is like eating at Chili's—"Meh. [shrug] It'll do."

~RP

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Paperback 493: Atoms and Evil / Robert Bloch (Gold Medal s1231)

Paperback 493: Gold Medal s1231 (PBO, 1962)

Title: Atoms and Evil
Author: Robert Bloch
Cover artist: Uncredited [Richard Powers?]

Yours for: $11

Best things about this cover:

• I like how the title functions like a form-fitting dress on ... whatever that one-eyed creature waving its arms at us is. Now put an all-text dress on your average paperback cover girl, and you've got something.
• There was probably a time when the title "Atoms and Evil" was evocative of ... something. Considering "atoms" are just the basic building blocks of, well, everything, the title doesn't have quite the situation-specific punch it oughta.
• Is crazy multi-armed cyclops supposed to be some kind of anthropomorphic approximation of a mushroom cloud. More like a tree-trunk cloud.

Best things about this back cover:

• Acrostic time!
• OMG I *love* love love the test tube motif on the left. Brilliant design feature.
• "Prefontal robotomy!" Rich.
• If I had to read only two of these, I'd go with Vorm and Mr. Goofy, hands-down.

Page 123~

"I don't really want the world to revert to neurotic or psychotic behavior just so I can have a practice. But damn it, I can't stand to see the way things are going. We've done away with stress and privation and tension and superstition and intolerance, and that's great. But we've also done away with ourselves in the process. We're getting to the point where we, as human beings, no longer have a function to perform. We're not needed."

Anson's right. Futuristic dystopias are for the 'bots.

~RP

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Paperback 98: The Corpse in the Wax Works / John Dickson Carr (Dell 775)

Paperback 98: Dell 775 (1st ptg, 1954)

Title: The Corpse in the Wax Works
Author: John Dickson Carr
Cover artist: Richard Powers

Yours for: $16


Best things about this cover:

• It's surrealism + gothic - SURROTHIC!
• Richard Powers is probably the best known scifi cover artist. It's weird - highly unusual - to see one of his paintings on anything but a scifi book. His stuff is always creepy and wacked-out, with arcs and bulbous things of indeterminate status. Clearly influenced by surreal artists, especially Yves Tanguy. In fact, this painting, despite its eerie otherworldiness, is far more representational (i.e. it has identifiable things in it) than most of his stuff.
• Love the lurking shadow in the middle background. Not as enamored with the horn-hatted Fu Manchu Dracula guy.

Best things about this back cover:

• This is astonishingly gruesome.
• Marat!

• "Sepulchral" is a beautiful word (like "cellar door," which is two words, but still...)

PAGE 123~

"She had no ticket, Jeff!" Bencolin leaned forward and slapped the arm of his chair impatiently. "Surely you know that if only for appearance's sake each member of the club must buy a ticket for the waxworks when entering. Those blue tickets! You must keep them constantly in mind!"

~RP