Night Slaves

Night Slaves by Jerry Sohl
Fawcett Publications, 1965
Price I paid: none

She was a creature from another planet, but to Clay Howard she embodied everything he’d ever dreamed of. Naillil was the most beautiful, the most voluptuous, the most woman Clay had ever known.

Naillil was a creature from another planet—but every delicious inch of her oozed sex.

And Clay was the only person aware of her presence.

An ideal setup—except…

Naillil had a brother, and to serve his own treacherous ends he plunged the citizens of the town into mass hypnosis. But what he could not know was that Clay Howard was invulnerable—because every cell and fiber of Clay Howard’s brain was sewn together with an impenetrable steel mesh.

Naillil discovered Clay’s secret—and that meant one thing: if Clay could not be hypnotized, then he must be murdered…

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The Fourth “R”

The Fourth “R” by George O. Smith
Ballantine Books, 1959
Price I paid: none

Jimmy Holden was an experiment…

He was normally bright, normal-sized, and enormously curious—just like most small boys. The only thing different in Jimmy’s life was a machine—a machine which could teach him better, faster, more completely and more thoroughly than any human method yet devised.

It was really nothing more than a glorified memorizing contraption, but it filled the mind permanently with whole books of fact and figure—readin’, ‘ritin’, and ‘rithmetic—plus all the diverse information that an insatiably curious young mind could seek, including how to build the machine that taught him.

So Jimmy quickly became a very valuable experiment indeed. Certain people figured that, properly handled, young James could be a goldmine, and they weren’t above murdering in order to get control of him. But even a five-year-old mind will defend itself when attacked.

And nobody had figured on what the machine did not teach—the fourth “R”—REASON…

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Denver is Missing

Denver is Missing by D.F. Jones
Berkley Medallion Books, 1971
Price I paid: 90¢

A scientist reports to a stunned world: “The whole earth may be shrivelling up like a punctured balloon.” The flight from cities at high altitudes—whose nitrogen gas accidentally released from the earth’s core is gathering to cause mass death—to the coastlines creates political chaos and violent anarchy. But worse is in store for mankind—for the coastline holds only temporary haven.

The great oceans of the world are about to deliver destruction on a scale never before envisioned even in nightmares of nuclear holocaust. Two men and two women in a flimsy yacht in the Pacific may hold the key to the earth’s survival…

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Solo Kill

Solo Kill by S. Kye Boult
Berkley Medallion Books, 1977
Price I paid: 75¢

High above the heavy air, the March People and the winged Drak met where the two suns crossed: locked in a battle as old as the ritual of life itself. For Amarson and his fierce lady Ameera, to live was to kill Drak; to die was nothing. That was the Law—until the long-winged Flier came, riding the crest of the thermocline….

In this masterful science fantasy adventure, S. Kye Boult has created a world that is both grippingly intense and luminously strange.

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The Penetrator #18: Countdown to Terror

The Penetrator #18: Countdown to Terror by Lionel Derrick
Pinnacle Books, 1976
Price I paid: 60¢

The message: “Liberty for Puerto Rico or death to all Gringos. Viva el F.A.L.N.” The terrorist tactics of the Fuezas Armadas de Liberacion Nacional Puerto Riquena were being stepped up.

The bombings would increase each day, culminating in the big blast, Operation Luz. Racing against the clock, Mark Hardin stalks the streets of Spanish Harlem—his quarry, El Chico, ruthless leader of the fanatic F.A.L.N. Each step brings him closer to the creations of this time table of death and destruction. One by one, he manages to pick off the terrorist troops, slowly decimating their forces and equalizing the kill count of bombing victims.

But the deadline for Operation Luz is explosively near. Seconds ticking away like tiny bombs…

This is the eighteenth book in the Penetrator Series. The police blotters of cities across the nation and even as far away as Japan contain evidence of Mark Hardin’s handiwork—the deaths of corrupt hogs at the public table, deaths of men who kill, maim, or cause suffering among the innocent. The Penetrator is a warrior without uniform or rank, pledged to fight anyone—on either side of the law—who seeks to weaken or destroy the American way of life. Follow the Penetrator as he travels from place to place, leaving his personal symbol of retribution, a chipped blue flint arrowhead, on the bodies of society’s deadliest enemies.

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The Long Mynd

The Long Mynd by Edward P. Hughes
Baen Books, 1985
Price I paid: 25¢

Not long ago, back in the 1980s, the world had not yet heard of charming. But then came a strange and godlike mutation that affected one child in a million. That child would grow to be a Charmer—one who could, by an act of will, change the form of any substance: coal into diamonds, play money into real money, iron ore into armor plate, water and uranium ore into hydrogen bombs—and the charmed item would appear wherever the Charmer wanted. The White House, the Kremlin, anywhere. It was the end of the world, of course…

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Doomsday, 1999

Doomsday, 1999 by Paul MacTyre
Ace Books, 1962
Price I paid: none

What would happen if man’s mastery of the world was suddenly snatched away by a new and more advanced type of life? This is the startling premise of this unusual novel.

It fell to two people to face the news that mankind was about to follow the dinosaurs off the Earth’s stage. One was Angus, veteran of a defeated Western army in a world devastated by atomic warfare. The other was Liu, woman officer of a conquering army she already knew was destined for destruction.

How these two found the new master species and what they did about it is an exciting and thought-provoking science-fiction adventure.

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Eight Against Utopia

Eight Against Utopia by Douglas R. Mason
Paperback Library, 1967
Price I paid: none

For 7,000 years the domed city of Carthage has protected its citizens from the ice-covered world outside. But now Gaul Kalmar, a brilliant engineer, discovers that the entire planet is habitable. Tormented by the dehumanized tyranny of life in Carthage, he enlists the aid of seven other rebels in a desperate attempt to escape.

Not only are the group’s actions observed by the ever-present Monitors of Carthage, but even their innermost thoughts are recorded by the Secret Police. Yet they are ready to take any risk to win their freedom, even when Kalmar must announce: “The city has an anti-hostility screen. Nothing with a human heart can cross it!”

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Resurrection Days

Resurrection Days by Wilson Tucker
Timescape Books, 1981
Price I paid: $1.25

Journeyman carpenter, Owen Hall—killed in 1943 during an unfortunate accident at a railroad crossing—finds himself resurrected thousands of years later in a world dominated by women. The men are all automatons, without free will or conscience.

In just 24 hours, Owen wreaks havok on this disciplined female civilization, turning it topsy-turvy by refusing to obey orders. But as his madcap adventures threaten to destroy their ordered world, the women realize that Owen’s independence must be corrected…

Suddenly Owen must use all this cunning and guile against a horde of determined female warriors if he is to stay alive…with a mind of his own!

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Dinosaur World

Dinosaur World by Stephen Leigh
ibooks, 1992
Price I paid: $2.50

TIME SAFARI, INC.
SAFARIS TO ANY YEAR IN THE PAST.
YOU NAME THE ANIMAL.
WE TAKE YOU THERE. YOU SHOOT IT.

The sign said it all, but the hunters soon became the hunted. The safari took them to the age of dinosaurs, but the hunt went terribly wrong, sending ripples of change throughout the timestream…

Aaron Cofield and Jennifer Mason are discussing their future when they make an incredible discovery: a newly laid dinosaur egg, ready to hatch! Before long, the two are caught in an astonishing trip across the millennia to Earth’s dim past, chased by a psychotic member of a Time Safari.

Racing against time, they face Mesozoic monsters, mysterious time travelers, and a strange new race of intelligent dinosaurs—humanity’s allies in their effort to rescue the future!

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