Tag: 1965

Dare

Dare by Philip José Farmer
Ballantine books, 1965
Price I paid: $1 or 2, can’t remember

Jack Cage lived on the planet Dare. He knew that he was human, and that he was the oldest son of a wealthy human farmer. But he hardly dared admit to himself, let alone to his family, the keen interest he felt in the ‘native’ inhabitants of Dare—those spectacularly beautiful humanoid creatures whose magnficent hair, growing clear down to the base of the spine, had given them their name of “horstel.”

It was death for any human to consort with any horstel after they became adult. For the humans of Dare still lived by the standards and mores of three hundred years before when they had been mysteriously whisked away from Earth and brought to this new planet.

Except that Jack Cage suspected this was no mystery to the horstels…

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Bloodworld

BloodworldBloodworld, by Laurence M. Janifer
Lancer Books, 1968
Originally published as You Sane Men in 1965
Price I paid, 75¢

What is a Remand House? Who are the Bound Men and Bound Women? What makes them different from the Lords and Ladies―and why are they the eternal slaves of pain?

They are human beings. But their world―their weirdly logical but not-sane world―is isolated in time and space, and totally insulated from humanity as we know it. It is a world where suffering and torture are essential to the maintenance of civilization.

Except for one man…

But Bloodworld can not be described in a few brief words. To understand it, you must read this unique book from its first searing words to its violent and all-important last page. It is a science-fiction novel with a difference. And it will shock you as only a vital, living thing can shock.

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Bill, the Galactic Hero

Bill, the Galactic HeroBill, the Galactic Hero by Harry Harrison
Avon Books, 1979
Originally published by Doubleday, 1965
Price I paid: 90¢

He was just plain Bill, enrolled in a correspondence course for a career as Technical Fertilizer Operator down on the farm, until a recruiting robot turned his head with visions of bright nebula lights, snappy red uniforms―and a cup of deep-space knockout drops…and Bill suddenly found himself aboard the Empire Space Ship Christine Keeler, fighting the Empire’s war against the lizard-like Chingers.

But an act of accidental heroism won him the Purple Dart (and an all-expenses-paid trip to fabulous Helior, the aluminum-plated Sin City of the Empire_―and that’s when Bill’s adventure’s really began…

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Space Opera

Space Opera
Image credit: ISFDB.com

Space Opera by Jack Vance
DAW Books, 1965
Price I paid: 75¢

A space opera is what science fiction readers call an adventure in outer space and on alien planets. But a space opera could also be an opera, a musical work, that originated in outer space….

Jack Vance’s unique novel SPACE OPERA fits both definitions marvelously! Because it starts with the mysterious opera company from the equally mysterious planet Rlaru that arrives on Earth to astonish and infuriate music-lovers―and then disappears without a trace!

And when Roger Wool’s wealthy aunt determined to reciprocate by bringing an Earthly operatic team into space and to the unknown world Rlaru, there unwinds a complex and surprising space opera of the first kind…filled with enigmatic aliens, weird worlds, and all the special color and cunning that is the hallmark of the best Jack Vance.

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The Loafers of Refuge

the-loafers-of-refugeThe Loafers of Refuge by Joseph L. Green
Ballantine Books, 1965
Price I paid: 90¢

Refuge

That was what the humans called the rich, attractive planet—a refuge from starving, over-populated Earth. And the Colonists could provide millions of tons of desperately needed produce for the hungry billions left on their home planet.

If only the native inhabitants of Refuge weren’t so natural-born lazy: harmless, it’s true, but actually nothing more than a bunch of loafers. If the loafers could be made to turn to, Refuge could really be the Earth’s breadbasket.

But the Loafers steadily refused to “turn to”—there was nothing the humans could do about it. And the years went by. And everything remained friendly and quiet. Until one day, a young human, born and raised on Refuge, decided he’d rather join the Loafers!

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Beyond the Sealed World

Beyond the Sealed WorldBeyond the Sealed World by Rena Vale
Paperback Library, 1965
Price I paid: none

“DALY 1444 IS AN ATAVIST. CAST HIM OUT OF THE SEALED WORLD INTO THE WASTELAND TO DIE.”

Thus ordered the masters of Science, the ruling body of the Glasteel Civilization. And so Daly 1444, convicted of primitive longings to be a man instead of a number, was forced to become an Opener—a fearful voyager into the dangerous world of natural sun and light outside his antiseptic culture.

To his great surprise, Daly found not one but several worlds—each at a different level of achievement, each incomplete without the other, each desperate to rule supreme. At first he struggled only for his own life amidst conditions for which his test-tube life had ill-equipped him. But soon he realized that not only his future was at stake, but the future of all the worlds of Earth—and he was the one man who could save the Universe!

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Night Slaves

Night Slaves by Jerry SohlNight Slaves
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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Come Die With Me

Come Die With Me by James DarkCome Die With Me
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 Mindwarpers

The Mindwarpers by Eric Frank RussellThe Mindwarpers front
Magnum Science Fiction, 1965
Price I paid: 75¢

Richard Bransome worked in the government’s most vital scientific laboratory, under the ultimate security. Nothing—living or inanimate—could crack the security barriers that guarded Bransome and his fellow workers. Nothing known to man…

But something was making key scientists give up their lives’ careers, sometimes to just drift away, other times to die. Then Bransome began to remember a past he had completely forgotten—a past in which he had been a cold-blooded murderer! To discover the truth about himself, he would set out on a solitary mission that would lead him against the most incredible enemy ever known to the people of Earth!

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