The Reefs of Earth

The Reefs of Earth by R.A. Lafferty
Berkley Medallion Books, 1968
Price I paid: 90¢

A PLAGUE OF DEMONS

—that’s what the people of Lost Haven called the six children (seven, if you counted Bad John) of the Dulanty Family. They looked like normal Earth children…except when they flicked their ears like animals, or made their eyes glow with a green fire…and if you looked at them sideways they did look strangely like nightmarish gargoyles.

The truth is: these children are Pucas, aliens from a strange planet. And they have taken it upon themselves to reduce the world to a population of six (seven, if you count Bad John). Wishing will make it so, for by making up an appropriate death rhyme, they can destroy their victims.

These frightening, far-out kids take a black delight in destroying their neighbors, and the Earth people are defenseless against them….

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Syzygy

Syzygy Syzygy by Michael G. Coney
Ballantine Books, 1973
Price I paid: 90¢

The Planet Arcadia has six moons, describing erratic orbits. But once every fifty-two years, the Moons of Arcadia come together in a constellation that creates havoc on the surface—raging tides, storms…and worse.

For the inhabitants of Arcadia are themselves affected in some strange way by the unusual gravitic pulls. Or so it would seem. For few on this new, recently colonized world can remember exactly what happened fifty-two years before; those old enough to remember are curiously reticent.

And meanwhile the Moons grow closer…

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The Ayes of Texas

The Ayes of Texas by Daniel da Cruz
Del Rey/Ballantine Books, 1982
Price I paid: 90¢

It was 1994, but Gwillam Forte was an entrepreneur of the old school. Twenty-three disabled Veterans needed a reason to live, so he gave them a rusty hulk—the battleship U.S.S. Texas—and unlimited funds to make her beautiful and seaworthy in time for Independence Day, 2000.

But the world changed quickly and for the worse. By 1998, the Texas and her supermodern weapons were needed for duty far more important than guarding the National Monument in which she rode at anchor.

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The Glass of Dyskornis

The Glass of Dyskornis by Randall Garrett and Vicki Ann Heydron
Bantam Books, 1982
Price I paid: $1.25

For Ricardo Carillo, taking over the life of the swordsman Markasset on the desert world of Gandalara had its compensations: a strong, young body, a beautiful fiancee, and a mighty telepathic war-cat named Keeshah, who obeyed his every command. It also had its problems. Markasset had many enemies, and one was out for blood. So Ricardo and Keeshah left Raithskar to join the Sharith—the warrior brotherhood of sha’um cat-riders. But trouble followed, and he soon found himself in the company of a jealous lieutenant and a lovely but treacherous illusionist, on the track of a murderer who had stolen Gandalara’s most precious jewel.

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Copernick’s Rebellion

Copernick’s Rebellion by Leo A. Frankowski
Del Rey Books, 1987
Price I paid: 90¢

Heinrich Copernick and Martin Guibedo came to the States as penniless refugees after World War II. By 1999 they had made huge fortunes in the field of medical instrumentation. But Heiny and his Uncle Martin weren’t just filthy rich, they were also the world’s best gene engineers. And their latest inventions could free Humanity from want and oppressive governments forever. At least, that was the plan.

Imagine:
Free homes with all the furnishings and utilities!
Free food! Even free babysitters!
Heiny and Uncle Martin even thought they should give their inventions away. Free.

That’s when their troubles began.

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Crystal Phoenix

Crystal Phoenix by Michael Berlyn
Bantam Books, 1980
Price I paid: 90¢

In the brave new world of angels and procurers, rent-a-death prostitutes will let you sexually abuse them, and even hack them to pieces, for a fee. In anticipation of your own death, be sure to keep up payments on your life-crystal. After you die, you can again enjoy life to the hilt in a very attractive new body with your memories intact. Young body, old memories. Violent death is the ultimate repeatable pleasure.

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The Penetrator #21: The Supergun Mission

The Penetrator #21: The Supergun Mission by Lionel Derrick
Pinnacle Books, 1977
Price I paid: $1.50

It started with the smuggling of Mexican “wetbacks” for slave labor in the U.S. They were brought to an island in Lake Texoma, north of Dallas, to work on a top-secret operation directed by H.H. Christiansen…and were forbidden to leave. But it wasn’t until twenty-five Mexicans died in a mysterious tank truck fire that the Penetrator was called in. That’s when this simple smuggling assignment turned into a national security threat.

The project is the development of a sonic gun—the ultimate weapon—which causes the human body to explode from internal pressure, turning flesh and bone to jelly. The Cubans, the Albanians, and the Red Chinese are in on the buy. But the scientists working on the project are in need of a guinea pig—and Mark Hardin, the Penetrator, is just what the doctors ordered…

He has only one shot—to destroy the supergun before it annihilates him and all of the free world.

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By the Time I Get to Nashville

By the Time I Get to Nashville by Lionel Fenn
Ace Books, 1994
Price I paid: $2.25

The man they call Diego hitched a ride on a time machine—but the Old West didn’t prepare the gunslinger for the new Nashville of the 22nd century…

The good news is that the Old West is now a religion, and Diego’s being worshipped as the Grand Cowpoke. The bad news is that he’s about to be hanged…for impersonating the man they call Diego!

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Those Gentle Voices

Those Gentle Voices repaired Those Gentle Voices: A Promethean Romance of the Spaceways by George Alec Effinger
Warner Books, 1976
Price I paid: 90¢

From Wolf 359 the signals came—proof that man wasn’t the only intelligent life form in the universe. And when Earth’s first interstellar expedition located the radio beacon, they also found a human race—so primitive they hadn’t even discovered the spear, or fire.

If Commander Leigh hadn’t had such fun becoming the Great God Leigh, he might have wondered more about the builders of the radio beacon. And things might have turned out very differently for Earth itself…

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Beyond the Sealed World

Beyond the Sealed World by Rena Vale
Paperback Library, 1965
Price I paid: none

“DALY 1444 IS AN ATAVIST. CAST HIM OUT OF THE SEALED WORLD INTO THE WASTELAND TO DIE.”

Thus ordered the masters of Science, the ruling body of the Glasteel Civilization. And so Daly 1444, convicted of primitive longings to be a man instead of a number, was forced to become an Opener—a fearful voyager into the dangerous world of natural sun and light outside his antiseptic culture.

To his great surprise, Daly found not one but several worlds—each at a different level of achievement, each incomplete without the other, each desperate to rule supreme. At first he struggled only for his own life amidst conditions for which his test-tube life had ill-equipped him. But soon he realized that not only his future was at stake, but the future of all the worlds of Earth—and he was the one man who could save the Universe!

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