TekWar by William Shatner
Ace Books, 1989
Price I paid: 90¢
Known to millions as STAR TREK’S Captain Kirk, actor-director William Shatner now turns his talents to a stunning novel of future shock. TekWar is the story of ex-cop Jake Cardigan, who’s framed for dealing an addictive brain stimulant called Tek and sentenced to fifteen years of suspended animation. Now, mysteriously released after four years in the “Freezer,” Cardigan is on the loose…and out for justice.
I, Weapon by Charles W. Runyon
Popular Library, 1977 (Original copyright date 1974)
Price I paid: 90¢
Ancestry: Programmed
Destiny: Unpredictable
To create the man named Raki, Earth had broken its most rigid taboos against interbreeding.
His grandparents were a four-foot tall female genius; a rapacious, blue-skinned space brigand; an enormous superstud gladiator with long, silky fur; and a blind telepathic huntress.
His parents were the most gifted creatures ever to walk the earth—until Raki was born to surpass even them.
But the supreme computer that had calculated the mating necessary to produce Raki refused to predict his chances in his confrontation with the alien Vim in the very heart of their eternally expanding empire…
…for not even the Vim themselves knew the secret of their power and of all the universe’s peril…
Cybernarc by Robert Cain
Harper Paperbacks, 1991 Price I paid: 1¢ + S&H
CYBERNARC He was created at the CIA’s secret Camp Perry research center. The CIA calls him ROD, a high-tech amalgam of of advanced robotics, artificial intelligence, painstaking cosmetics, and military hardware. ROD is all machine, but he can blend in with any human crowd. Assigned to the DEA and tagged Cybernarc by the press, he’s ready for action.
The Universe Against Her by James H. Schmitz
Ace Science Fiction, 1964
Price I paid: 90¢
Meet TELZEY AMBERDON
She’s one in a billion. She’s brilliant, charming, beautiful, and a high-level genius. She’s also the most powerful latent telepath the Psychology Service has ever discovered. That’s why the Service is keeping a very close watch on her: fully developed, Telzey’s Talent could prove disasterous for the Service’s plans for the future development of galactic civilization. If Telzey gives so much as a telepathic sneeze the “psionic traffic cop” they’ve implanted in her head will blow the whistle!
For Telzey the answer is obvious: join the Service and enjoy both its protection and its not inconsiderable assistance. But she’s an independent sort, a person who wants to go her own way in her own time. That’s why she has
THE UNIVERSE AGAINST HER
The Rim-World Legacy by F.A. Javor
Signet Science Fiction, 1968
Price I paid: 75¢
He was a stranger to Poldrogi. But someone had marked him for a patsy in an incredible power game played for galactic stakes…a power game with a Machiavellian twist…a power game in which murder was only the open gambit.
THE RIM-WORLD LEGACY
is a brilliant science fiction novel by F.A. Javor. It is the story of the treasure hunt of the ages led by a man who doesn’t know that he holds the key to limitless control of the universe.
East of Danger by Paul Twitchell
Illuminated Way Press, 1978
Price I paid: 25¢
Shraosha…
Millions dominated to the point where everything in their life is being controlled.
Then free-thinkers, people able to be creative, wage a fight—to free its people enslaved by the tyrant Agadnir and his mind-control techniques.
Through love, jealousy, treachery and deceit, the spiritual warrior and freedom fighter Peddar Zaskq confronts the magicians of illusion. The androids. Even the “Ancient One” himself.
Individual freedom can be attained by the people only with the true power working through its chosen vehicles. One is Peddar Zaskq—provided he meets the two greatest tests of his life…
The Steel Crocodile by D.G. Compton
Pocket Books, 1970
Price I paid: 90¢
IN ANSWER TO AN UNANSWERABLE FUTURE SCIENCE HAS CREATED BOHN…
Bohn, the omnipotent computer whose flashing circuits and messianic pronouncements dictate what tomorrow will—or will not—be.
But Matthew Oliver is flesh and blood and full of questions—not nearly as certain as the machine he’s appointed to serve.
And the right hand of science seldom knows what the left hand is doing…
Whisper from the Stars by Jeff Sutton
Dell Publishing Co., 1970
Price I paid: 75¢
Nights are the worst.
Those cloudless nights when a thousand eyes look down, mocking me. Because I know that Man, in some form other than my own, quietly has taken over the universe.
I know because I’ve lived and died and lived again.
Worse yet is when the whisper comes.
It comes from beyond the blaze of lights, from beyond the gulf of darkness which separates the burning suns.
“We are here,” the whisper says. “We are here.”
The Star Kings by Edmond Hamilton
Paperback Library, 1967 (Originally published 1949)
Price I paid: none
Flung across space and time by the sorcery of super-science, John Gordon exchanges bodies with Zarth Arn, Prince of the Mid-Galactic Empire 2000 centuries in the future!
Suddenly John is thrust into a last-ditch battle between the democratic Empire World and the tyranny of the Black Cloud regime. Only one weapon—the terrifying Disruptor—can win the struggle for the Empire Forces. But it is so powerful that unless John uses it correctly it could destroy not only the enemy but the cosmos.
Could his 20th century mind cope with the technology of 200,000 years from now?
The Penetrator #11: Terror in Taos by Lionel Derrick
Pinnacle Books, 1975
Price I paid: 60¢
Mark Hardin is known to his enemies as The Penetrator. He penetrates in several ways: by fighting his way in, by easing in…or by dropping in via parachute.
He’s half-Cheyenne and half-Welsh. In quest of his warrior heritage, Mark Hardin has learned Indian skills: to track a man, but to not leave tracks; to use a crossbow, a garrote, a spear, a knife; to live on the land; to speak his native tongue.
As a child he grew up in orphanages, boarding schools, and foster homes. He’s seen all sides of life. He knows it is too often evil, and it has become his mission to eradicate crime and lawlessness in any way he can. His ancestors bequeathed him special knowledge in these things.
Now, as he dropped through the air, scanning the desert for David Red Eagle’s smoke signal, his mind flashed back to similar jumps in Vietnam. Another time, another enemy. In the fetid rice paddies and rubbled hamlets the enemy had a yellow skin and slanted eyes. Today Hardin would be fighting foes of his own kind, men of white skin and red skin.
It all started with the theft of some valuable turquoise and silver relics and the murder of an Indian holy man. It would accelerate with the entry of militant young indians, State Troopers, the National Guard…and the Mafia.
It would climax in a desert bloodbath!
(mostly) short reviews of (mostly) short fiction
Classic detective fiction and impossible crimes
Be not ashamed, my brothers, to stand before the proud and the powerful. Tagore
The many tongues of translated speculative fiction
Adventures in Fiction
Kevin O'Leary Reviews Every Issue of Uncanny X-Men from the 1960s to the Present
Movies, thoughts, thoughts about movies.
Defending the planet from bad science fiction
Reviews of Vintage Science Fiction (1945-1985)
Joseph Nebus's work in progress.
Schlock Value 