Star Winds

Star Winds by Barrington J. BayleyStar Winds
DAW Books, 1978
Price I paid: none

The sails were the product of the Old Technology, lost long ago in the depleted Earth, and they were priceless. For with those fantastic sheets of etheric material, ships could sail the sky and even brave the radiant tides between worlds and stars.

The alchemists who had replaced the scientists still sought the ancient secrets…and Rachad, apprentice to such a would-be wizard, learned that the key to his quest lay in a book abandoned in a Martian colonial ruin long, long ago.

But how to get to Mars? There was one way left—take a sea vessel, caulk it airtight, steal new sails, and fly the star winds in the way of the ancient windjammers.

Here is an intriguing, unusual and colorful novel of ships that sail the stars riding before the solar breeze that blows between the worlds.

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Offworld

Offworld by Max DanielsOffworld
Pocket Books, 1979
Price I paid: 75¢

EXILE OR “REHABILITATION”?

Not much of a choice—and Max, a born prankster, stands to lose either way. But he chooses exile, and finds on an unknown planet the adventure—and danger—his own utopian world lacked.

Befriended by the warrior tribe called the Enthok, Max must enter the corrupt city-state of Salf to find and recapture the beautiful leader of the proud Enthok. But to do so, he must first discover the secret behind the cruel power of the threatening figure of Bithe.

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The Sentinel Stars

The Sentinel Stars by Louis CharbonneauThe Sentinel Stars
Bantam Books, 1963
Price I paid: none

RIGID!
LOCKED!
ENSLAVED!

that was our Earth in 2200. East and West had merged at last so there were no more wars, no more political differences.

Citizens everywhere could concentrate on working off their TAX DEBTS! If you were capable and industrious you might be able to make freeman status for the last few years of your life.

No one questioned. No one spoke out. No one rebelled until one bright morning Citizen TRH-247 decided not to go to work—and worse than that, became desirous of a girl below his own classification!

Thus he made himself an outcast with the whole world against him and mere survival dependent on his wits, his daring, and his strength.

THE SENTINEL STARS—a novel of our world run as the Bureau of Internal Revenue would run it!

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Balzan of the Cat People #2: The Caves of Madness

Balzan of the Cat People #2: The Caves of Madness by Wallace MooreBalzan of the Cat People 2
Pyramid Books, 1975
Price I paid: 1¢ ($4.00 with shipping and handling)

Human castaway on a planet light years from earth,

Balzan had known many unearthly creatures in his alien home. The cat people had raised him and given him feline knowledge; the winged Aeri had adopted him; beautiful Ryla had loved him in spite of his naked, wingless shoulders.

Now Balzan was being held captive by another tribe of winged humanoids, living deep in underground caverns lighted only by glowing fungi. In this strange world where all women were the wives of all men, where no one was owner or owned, Balzan was plunged into terrifying adventure…with the slimy, gigantic night crawlers…with the most horrible monster of all, the fiendish Sl’yth!

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The Hamelin Plague

The Hamelin Plague by A. Bertram ChandlerThe Hamelin Plague
Monarch Books, 1963
Price I paid: 75¢

It began with a few small items in the newspapers—dead dogs and cats, a mutilated child, a series of unexplained fires. Then, suddenly, it exploded into a full-sized catastrophe.

Huge mutants—half rat, half man—began to take over the world, stealing children for slaves and destroying whole cities and their populations.

Only a few people escaped, among them Tim Barrett, his wife, Jane, and a handful of survivors. Alone on the high seas in a small ship, they set off to find the island where Dr. Theodore Piper had been experimenting with a sonic death ray.

They knew Dr. Piper was their only hope for personal and world survival—if he was still alive…if the King Rats hadn’t forced him to serve their evil purpose…and if he could find a way to stop the spreading horror of invasion.

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Planet Big Zero

Planet Big Zero by Franklin HadleyPlanet Big Zero
Monarch Books, 1964
Price I paid: none

In the past few months, 18 Terran ships had vanished from the galaxy. Terra had to find out what—or who—was behind it.

Lieutenant Ted Narly of the Terran Defense Corps discovered the cause: a new totalitarian regime of Deotians, determined to take revenge for their defeat in the Great Wars thirty years before.

Taken captive, Narly was escorted to the secret Deotian empire, Planet Big Zero, a huge black nebula with only one entrance—a cone shaped funnel with a curtain of fire at the end.

Narly knew if the Terran fleet attempted to attack through the funnel, every ship would be destroyed. It was up to him to save mankind from destruction…but what could one man do against a hate-filled enemy bent on mastery of the universe?

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The Penetrator #12: Bloody Boston

The Penetrator #12: Bloody Boston by Chet CunninghamDouble Penetrator front
Book Margins, Inc., 1976
Price I paid: $1.50

The Penetrator wanted nothing more than to destroy the Mafia. But when his college roommate Tony Rossi, the son of Boston’s most powerful Don, asked him for help, Hardin couldn’t refuse. Somebody was masquerading as Mark’s buddy, trying to take over the drug trade in Boston, and if the fake didn’t succeed, Rossi’s wife and son would lose their lives. Whatever it took, the Penetrator swore he would save the innocent—and make sure the corrupt could never harm anyone again.

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The Penetrator #10: The Hellbomb Flight

The Penetrator #10: The Hellbomb FlightDouble Penetrator front
Book Margins, Inc., 1975
Price I paid: $1.50

Once second in command at NASA, Dr. Orlando Fitzmueller built a secret computer base in the Nevada desert. Through careful planning, diligent calculations, and sheer brilliance, he had developed a strategy that would help him realize his impossible dream of controlling world atomic power. It was up to the Penetrator Mark Hardin to stop Fitzmueller—and time was running out. For if the scientist’s demands weren’t met, he would ignite a holocaust from space that would kill 150 million people in the first thirty seconds.

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The Wrong End of Time

The Wrong End of Time by John BrunnerThe Wrong End of Time
DAW Books, 1971
Price I paid: 90¢

The time is the future. The place, an America so isolated by fear that it is cut off from the rest of the world by a massive defense system. Into this armed, barricaded state comes a young Russian scientist bearing a strange—and almost unbelievable story:

Superior, intelligent life—of a far higher order than any on earth—has been detected near the planet Pluto. Immune themselves by virtue of their far greater intelligence, these Aliens are about to destroy the planet Earth.

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Galactic Sibyl Sue Blue

Galactic Sibyl Sue Blue by Rosel George BrownGalactic Sibyl Sue Blue
Berkley Medallion Books, 1966
Price I paid: 90¢

THE FUZZ: VINTAGE 1990

When Sibyl Sue Blue, unique police sergeant of the future, smokes a benzale cigarette, she has a strange dream about the disappearance of her husband on the mysterious planet of Radix.

So she pulls of [sic] her wig and rouges her knees, and goes off to Radix with sinister millionaire Stuart Grant, and crew, in his space ship.

She finds her husband there, horribly transformed, and is in great danger of the same fate herself, unless she can get back to Earth in time. But this presents difficulties, because only Sibyl and the loathsome Dr. Beadle are in any shape to fly the ship, and neither one of them has ever done it before….

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