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No Review Today
Hey, all, for a variety of reasons I’m gonna take a break this week from the old blog. Don’t worry, I’m not going anywhere any time soon, I’m just a little bogged down right now.
Here’s a micro-review, just so you didn’t come all this way for no reason:
I read my first Michael Moorcock novel this week, Behold the Man, and it was very, very good.
Holy crap.
I know I have a rocky relationship with a lot of the New Wave writers, but Moorcock might be my favorite. The next time that I’m reading a pointless, tepid literary experiment in the guise of a science fiction novel, I’ll just remember that he’s out there, making New Wave science fiction great.
Have a nice weekend!
The Floating Zombie
The Floating Zombie by D.F. Jones
Berkley Medallion, 1975
Price I paid: $1.25
Before AT1 had ground down the slipway unchristened―rightly, said seamen, for it would be a ship with no soul―it had been dubbed “Zombie.” That sinister name would stick, and prove its accuracy. AT1 was a robot-ship, a ship with no crew, only a tiny security force of 3 men and a woman. “Invulnerable,” said its inventors, and “foolproof.”
But it was neither―not if one of the 4 security guards was an insane, ruthless killer. And if the greatest and most powerful self-contained nuclear reactor in the world fell into the hands of such a person, the whole world was in peril!
Get Off My World
Image taken from isfdb.org
Get Off My World by Eando Binder
Wildside Press, 2014
Originally published by Curtis Books, 1971
Price I paid: $4.99
The men and women of an underground world hold the key to Earth’s survival. The beastly Martians have decided to wage an “old-fashioned” ground war with only one objective in mind―to wipe humanity from the planet. But then Evan Paige receives an unbelievable radio message from the renowned scientist Dr. Aronson―a message from the center of the Earth, telling of a super-scientific race of Albinos who hold the key to save all mankind!
Triplanetary
Credit: isfdb.org
Triplanetary by E.E. “Doc” Smith
Pyramid Books, 1970
Also Halcyon Classics, 2010
Originally published in Amazing Stories, 1934
Price I paid: none and unknown
Eddore and Arisia fought desperately to control the Universe. The ultimate battleground was a tiny, backward planet in a remote galaxy―Earth.
And only a few Earthmen knew of the titanic struggle―and of the strange, decisive role they were to play in the war of the super-races.
Here is the beginning of “Doc” Smith’s famous Lensman series―the first of the celebrated novels that set a pattern for science fiction.
Time of the Great Freeze
Time of the Great Freeze by Robert Silverberg
Ace Books, 1980
Originally published in 1964
Price I paid: none
NEW YORK CITY
2650 A.D.
UNDERGROUND!Miles beneath the layer of ice that covered Earth in the New Ice Age of 2300 A.D., men survive in the subterranean cities they built to save themselves as the ice crept with killing cold over all living things. For three hundred years no one has seen the surface or communicated with any other city. Until now. Now the few scientific instruments that remain seem to indicate that the Ice Age may be ending; outside temperatures are reaching a level that may make life possible―though not easy―on the outside.
But life in the underground cities is comfortable, and those few who are brave enough to be curious about the unknown frozen world above are suspect; troublemakers. A small party of these “troublemakers,” led by Dr. Raymond Barnes, with a few scientists and others who think they might prefer freedom to safety, has been allowed to take the long-unused elevator up through the ice to the outside. But they go more as exiles than as a scientific expedition; they are not expected―and may not be allowed―to return.
The Long Winter
Image cribbed from isfdb.org
The Long Winter by John Christopher
Fawcett Gold Medal, 1962
Price I paid: 50¢
THE LONG WINTER is the terrorizing story of what happens when a new Ice Age devastates the Northern Hemisphere, when civilization disappears into a voiceless polar night, when men and women turn into human wolf packs in their agonized struggle for survival…and when the only place left to run is filled with another kind of death.
The Penetrator #24: Cryogenic Nightmare
The Penetrator #24: Cryogenic Nightmare by Lionel Derrick
Pinnacle Books, 1978
Price I paid: $1.50
Preacher Mann is too much for the FBI and the CIA. He has dual citizenship and friends in diplomatic circles and he’s too powerful for the regular legal channels. He’s come a long way: from a pimp in Harlem he’s worked his way to the top―of the rackets. He’s into international dope, espionage―and now, in his orgy palace off the Florida coast he’s onto a new wrinkle!
The most beautiful women in the country are systematically vanishing. And Preacher Mann is holding them on ice―literally. He’s freezing them until needed―to be shipped to the highest bidder.
Only one man can defrost the situation―the Penetrator. He must succeed where others have failed. One man on a mission that’s too cool to handle!
The Panorama Egg
The Panorama Egg by A.E. Silas
DAW Books, 1978
Price I paid: 90¢
His name was Archer and he thought he was an ordinary man. The collectors of panorama eggs knew better. For Archer was such a collector, and there was a very special find awaiting him: the panorama egg that contained a world.
He was guided in the use of that incredible masterwork by the enigmatic grey woman, Mera Melaklos. That was her name in this everyday world. But her real name could have been something else beyond this space-time continuum.
For indeed Archer and the grey woman crossed into a world that was not Earth, found they had special roles to play in a land where alternate science reigned and a mission of heroism was the price of existence.
THE PANORAMA EGG is a novel of strange enchantment and mystery, and of a man who wanted and found an end to a humdrum 20th century existence.
Of Men and Monsters
Of Men and Monsters by William Tenn
Ballantine Books, 1968
Price I paid: 90¢
Eric the Only was anxious to become a man…eager to perform his initiation Theft from the Monster World and be accepted by the elders of his small tribe.
Then the women would notice him…and one woman in particular might begin to take him seriously.
He had learned well the rules of stealing. He had long anticipated his just rewards. He had carefully plotted and schemed. He had minimized all the risks.
But though Eric understood the merciless ways of the Monsters who had long ago driven his people into the wretched burrows, he could not anticipate the treachery of men.
Suddenly―without warning―the best laid plans of Eric the Only went violently astray.
Her Wild Hero
Her Wild Hero by Paige Tyler
Sourcebooks, Inc., 2015
Price I paid: A trip to the library
Name: Kendra Carlsen
Rank: Trainer, Dept. of Covert Ops
Objective: Get out of the office and into the fieldName: Declan MacBride
Rank: Tracker, Dept. of Covert Ops
Status: Bear Shifter
Objective: Protect Kendra at all costsThe steamy Costa Rican jungle brings out the bear in Declan MacBride when he and new operative Kendra Carlsen are ambushed. In the midst of relying on each other to survive, and fighting his explosive attraction to Kendra, this shifter is about to lose control…
