Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri: Centauri Dawn

Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri: Centauri Dawn by Michael Ely
Pocket Books, 2000
Price I paid: $14 + S&H

After a forty-year journey from an Earth left teetering on the brink of nuclear Armageddon, the United Nations colonial starship Unity reaches the lone habitable planet orbiting Alpha Centauri’s primary star, bringing with it the hope of a new beginning for the human race.
Hope turns to ashes when, on final approach to the new world, a mysterious malfunction damages the ship, triggering a crisis that results in the death of the captain and a rash of infighting over the ship’s undamaged colony pods. The Unity breaks apart in space and seven colonial factions are scattered across the surface of the planet.
As the Unity survivors struggle to rebuild human civilization on this strange and mysterious alien world, old tensions resurface and one man sets in motion forces that may destroy any dream of a lasting peace.

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Star Trek: Phaser Fight (Which Way Books #24)

Star Trek: Phaser Fight
Which Way Books #24
by Barbara Siegel and Scott Siegel
Pocket Books, 1986
Price I paid: $3.50 + S&H

Welcome aboard, ensign! You’ve been assigned to duty on the Starship Enterprise. Your mission: Investigate a mysterious meteor belt with Captain Kirk…or help Bones combat a deadly disease…or fight an alien race with Mr. Spock. You choose—you can beam over to a phantom ship overrun with fierce mirror creatures, or match wits with a giant alien who wants to crush the Enterprise like a bug. But choose carefully, or the Enterprise and you could be lost forever!

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Killdozer!

Killdozer! by Theodore Sturgeon
from The Mammoth Book of Golden Age Science Fiction ed. Asimov, Waugh, Greenberg
Carroll & Graf, 1989
Originally published in Astounding Science Fiction, November 1944
Price I paid: $3

During the 1940s, the great names emerged in an eruption of talent. They formed the mould for the next three decades of science fiction and their writing is as fresh today as it was then.

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Bibblings

Bibblings by Barbara Paul
Signet, 1979
Price I paid: $2.50 + S&H

Lodon-Kamaria, a planet in a perpetual state of war. No one in the Federation of United Worlds knew what the Lodonites and Kamarians were fighting about, nor, in the normal course of events, would anyone have cared. But this was a world rich in alphidium, the most precious substance in the galaxy—and so, Lodon-Kamaria would have to become a member of the Federation. And it was up to the Diplomatic Corps team, nicknamed the Anglo-Saxon Invaders, to do the recruiting.
It should have been an easy assignment. Either make peace between the Lodonites and Kamarians, or figure out which side would be easier to deal with and see that it won the war. That would have been the reasonable, rational approach. But on a world where everyone is insane, reason just doesn’t apply…!

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The Clones

The Clones by P.T. Olemy
Flagship Books, 1968
Price I paid: $4 + shipping and handling

This is science fiction… or will it become science fact? With heart transplants a reality, THE CLONES will come more alive for the reader than ever before possible. This book has everything for the science-fiction fan, especially with the added excitement brought about by these latest medical miracles. The Clones created in a laboratory on earth, join with beings from another universe. The planet Earth is forced to make a decision that makes one shudder to think of the implications.
[sic][sic][sic][sic]

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Daymare

Daymare by Fredric Brown
from The Mammoth Book of Golden Age Science Fiction ed. Asimov, Waugh, Greenberg
Carroll & Graf, 1989
Originally published in Thrilling Wonder Stories, Fall 1943
Price I paid: $3

During the 1940s, the great names emerged in an eruption of talent. They formed the mould for the next three decades of science fiction and their writing is as fresh today as it was then.

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James Bond and Moonraker

James Bond and Moonraker by Christopher Wood
Based on the film Moonraker, screenplay by Christopher Wood
Panther Books, 1979
Price I paid: $6.53

A very regrettable incident has occurred. A US MOONRAKER space shuttle, on loan to the British, has disappeared—apparently into thin air. Who has the spacecraft? The Russians? Hugo Drax, multi-millionaire supporter of the NASA space programme, thinks so. But Commander James Bond knows better.
Aided by the beautiful—and efficient—Dr Holly Goodhead, 007 embarks on his most dangerous mission yet. Objective: to prevent one of the most insane acts of human destruction ever contemplated. Destination: outer space. The stakes are high. Astronomical even. But only Bond could take the rough so smoothly. Even when he’s out of this world…

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Nerves

Nerves by Lester del Rey
from The Mammoth Book of Golden Age Science Fiction ed. Asimov, Waugh, Greenberg
Carroll & Graf, 1989
Originally published in Astounding, September 1942
Price I paid: $3

During the 1940s, the great names emerged in an eruption of talent. They formed the mould for the next three decades of science fiction and their writing is as fresh today as it was then.

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Planet of the Apes

Cover to the 1966 Penguin edition | isfdb.org

Planet of the Apes by Pierre Boulle
Translated from the French by Xan Fielding
Vanguard Press, 1963
Price I paid: none

“I am confiding the manuscript to space, not with the intention of saving myself, but to help, perhaps, to avert the appalling scourge that is menacing the human race. Lord have pity on us!”
With these words, Pierre Boulle hurtles the reader onto the Planet of the Apes. In this simian world, civilization is turned upside down: apes are men and men are apes; apes rule and men run wild; apes think, speak, produce, wear clothes, and men are speechless, naked, exhibited at fairs, used for biological research. On the planet of the apes, man, having reached the apotheosis of his genius, has become inert.
To this planet come a journalist and a scientist. The scientist is put into a zoo, the journalist into a laboratory. Only the journalist retains the spiritual strength and creative intelligence to try to save himself, to fight the appalling scourge, to remain a man.
Out of this situation, Pierre Boulle has woven a tale as harrowing, bizarre, and meaningful as any in the brilliant roster of this master storyteller. With his customary wit, irony, and disciplined intellect and style, the author of The Bridge Over the River Kwai tells a swiftly moving story dealing with man’s conflicts, and takes the reader into a suspenseful and strangely fascinating orbit.

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The Sign of the Thunderbird

The Sign of the Thunderbird by Ron Montana
Manor Books, 1977
Price I paid: $7

FINDING HELL IN A HOLOCAUST…
…Captain Eason and Private Fox are blown from present time and space and hurled into the past.
Trading plutonium bombs for bows and arrows, the two fight their own army to lead an Indian uprising. They know the violence of yesteryear has led to an annihilation of the future and learn blood spilt for peace is blood spilt in vain. But they battle against history for justice and survival, knowing they can never win!

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