Second Contact

Second Contact by J.D. Austin
Ace Science Fiction, 2001
Price I paid: 75¢

Dangling on the edge of the galaxy is Kivlan, a planet reputed to be a gracious and accommodating paradise. Even its name means tranquility—but apparently in some dead language, because when an earthship sends out a friendly hello, Kivlan immediately responds with missile fire.

Leave it to Earth to give peace one more chance—by dispatching one more ship to Kivlan. And Matt Wiener, its optimistic captain, isn’t traveling way the hell out there just to make enemies. A real straight-arrow, he’s prepared to do what it takes to keep the universe in harmony. Even if it kills them all…

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The Island Snatchers

The Island Snatchers by George H. Smith
DAW Books, 1978
Price I paid: 90¢

HIBERNIA HIJACKED!

Flying machines had not yet been invented on Earth’s dimensional twin, Annwn. So Dylan MacBride thought it would be a good idea, even if a bit on the crackpot side from the viewpoint of that world’s somewhat backward Victorian viewpoint.

But when Dylan and his witch wife Clarinda tried out the machine by flying to Hibernia to attend a wild Irish wedding, they came a-cropper. For the Emerald Isle was not where it ought to be. Instead it was drifting rapidly westward under some strange power.

Now who would hijack a whole land of legends and fair lassies? And how was it done—and why?

THE ISLAND SNATCHERS is a wonderful, whacky, and adventurous tale, replete with Little People, lost races, and super-scientific perils.

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Come Die With Me

Come Die With Me by James Dark
Signet Books, 1965
Price I paid: 50¢

FORTRESS OF DEATH

It rises high and remote in the Brazilian mountains—a hermitage walled by sheer cliffs of dazzling white, lethally wired concrete. In this secret lair, a madman’s plot is being spawned, a scheme that will bring the world to heel.

Intertrust agent Mark Hood is the only one who can combat the evil plan. And he has been forced to join in its operation. Intertrust agent Mark Hood is sitting on top of an exploding time bomb as the seconds tick away…as the unsuspecting world hurtles toward tyranny…and death.

COME DIE WITH ME is a grand-slam of the sinister and sensational, delivered by JAMES DARK, new champion of the spy-cological thriller.

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The Suiciders

The Suiciders by J.T. McIntosh
Avon Books, 1973
Price I paid: 90¢

KILL AND DIE

That was the battle tactic of the Tinkers, rough, vicious interplanetary invaders who would rather die than be captured alive. Controlling them in some way were The Six—an occult group that had learned how to duplicate human beings and use them as pawns in a grandiose plan to control interstellar space.

Defending civilization against this onslaught were Rey Cottrell, a war consultant without even a fortress from which to fight his battle, and captain Brixby, a lone idealist faced with mutiny when he tried to take his ship into the combat zone. Their chances seemed hopeless—especially since Cottrell suspected that there were supernatural forces involved that could take over the whole galaxy!

J.T. McIntosh, famous for many years for his action-packed science fiction adventures, has excelled himself with this new blend of drama and totally original, mind-expanding ideas.

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Earth Has Been Found

Earth Has Been Found by D.F. Jones
Dell Books, 1979
Price I paid: 90¢

THE XENOS ARE HERE

At first, the bizarre series of “cosmic skyjackings” could be hushed up by a baffled and frightened military. But aircraft continued to disappear, plucked out of the sky without warning, only to reappear months later, thousands of miles off course.

AND THEY THIRST FOR BLOOD

All too soon the reason would become horribly apparent. Earth has been found by a horde of creatures from a world that not even the wildest imagination could invent, parasitic creatures that took to their human hosts with deadly speed and bloodthirsty precision.

They were named Xenos. The word meant “strangers.” It would come to mean something much more frightening and final now that…

EARTH

HAS

BEEN

FOUND

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The Road to Corlay

The Road to Corlay by Richard Cowper
Pocket Books, 1978
Price I paid: 90¢

On the Eve of the Fourth Millenium

a slowly-building civilization, struggling out of the rubble of the Drowning, was crushed beneath the scepter of a powerful and repressive Church.

But on the Eve of the Fourth Millenium

the sound of a magical pipe was heard, and the air was filled with songs of freedom and enlightenment.

And on the Eve of the Fourth Millenium

the Boy appeared, bringing the gift of sacrilege, a harbinger of the future, heralding the arrival of the White Bird of Dawning.

It is the coming of a New Age….

A glorious future bearing the presents of the past!

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Scavengers in Space

Scavengers in Space by Alan E. Nourse
Ace Books, 1958
Price I paid: 50¢

“This fast-moving tale of the far future deals with the quest of the Hunter brothers for a mysterious bonanza located somewhere in the asteroid belt. The dangers and details of asteroid mining are carefully outlined, and the bonanza itself proves to be an open gate to wider future in the stars.

“Realistic background, good plotting, and vivid writing add up to a good adventure.”

—Cleveland Press

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The Penetrator #49: Satan’s Swarm

The Penetrator #49: Satan’s Swarm by Lionel Derrick
Pinnacle Books, 1982
Price I paid: 60¢

When a group of international terrorists releases Dr. Raymond Barr from a hospital for the criminally insane, the Penetrator springs into action. Dr. Barr, aside from being insane, is a brilliant scientist—a very dangerous combination. With the mad doctor on the loose, no one is safe.

Taken by his rescuers to a secret laboratory in Nicaragua, the doctor’s twisted talents are employed by Colonel Po Hahn Chau, who is breeding new strains of abnormally large, highly-aggressive insects. The colonel’s plan is to develop an insect army, a living weapon which could bring the world to its knees.

The Penetrator has to smash this plot before the colonel’s plague is loosed on the world—and before he becomes the swarm’s first victim.

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The Mad Throne

The Mad Throne by Brad Munson
Popular Library, 1979
Price I paid: 75¢

Lawrence Connor. Brilliant actor. Riding the crest of a sensational star role.

What had happened to him?

He had waked from a terrifying trance to find himself trapped in another man’s body—in a nightmarish realm of giants and killer warriors, arrogant overlords and oppressed slaves, seductive temptresses and endangered beauties.

How had he gotten there? How could he return to earth?

These were questions that he did not have time to answer. He was too busy fighting for his own survival….

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Utopia Minus X

Utopia Minus X by Rex Gordon
Ace Books, 1966
Price I paid: 75¢

It took two hundred years to go to the nearest star and come back, but for astronaut Morgan Harvey it seemed but a short trip of a few months. Such is the nature of relative-time at near-light speeds.

So when Harvey got back to Earth he was still the same young patriotic Free World soldier he had been at the start of his flight. But the world he came back to was seemingly one in which his nation’s foes had triumphed and which now called itself The Perfect World.

And Utopia it certainly seemed, but Harvey refused to be brainwashed into accepting it. But until he met the man marked X, the problem of saving not only himself but humanity seemed beyond solution.

A remarkable new novel by the author of FIRST TO THE STARS.

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