Satellite City

Satellite City by Mack Reynolds
Ace Books, 1975
Price I paid: 25¢

SATELLITE CITY
THE MOST EXPENSIVE, THE MOST LUXURIOUS, RESORT IN THE HISTORY OF MAN. Where no request no whim or pleasure, was denied. Where anything was possible…for a price.
SATELLITE CITY
THE HAVEN AND THE PLAYGROUND OF ONLY THE VERY RICH AND THE MOST POWERFUL. It was the most amazing pleasure complex ever built—and it looked down on the Earth from an orbit 22,000 miles high.
Yet, for all its glitter, there was something ominous about Satellite City—no nation or international body had any jurisdiction there, it was a law unto itself; no one knew who owned it; or what went on within its secret council rooms.
UNTIL ONE MAN PENETRATED THE WALL OF SECRECY AND DISCOVERED SATELLITE CITY’S HIDDEN MASTERS.

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Killerbowl

Killerbowl by Gary K. Wolf
Self-published Kindle edition, 2017
Originally published by Doubleday, 1975
Price I paid: $2.99

Thirty years in the future, the ultraviolent sport of Professional Street Football, a phenomenally popular 24-four-hour-long athletic event, combines pro football with mixed martial arts and armed combat. On New Years day, quarterback T.K. Mann plays the most dangerous game of his life, the game known as Killerbowl!

(Synopsis from Goodreads)

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The Floating Zombie

The Floating Zombie by D.F. Jones
Berkley Medallion, 1975
Price I paid: $1.25

Before AT1 had ground down the slipway unchristened―rightly, said seamen, for it would be a ship with no soul―it had been dubbed “Zombie.” That sinister name would stick, and prove its accuracy. AT1 was a robot-ship, a ship with no crew, only a tiny security force of 3 men and a woman. “Invulnerable,” said its inventors, and “foolproof.”

But it was neither―not if one of the 4 security guards was an insane, ruthless killer. And if the greatest and most powerful self-contained nuclear reactor in the world fell into the hands of such a person, the whole world was in peril!

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Falling Toward Forever

Falling Toward Forever by Gordon Eklund
Laser Books, 1975
Price I paid: none

As a mercenary soldier of fortune, Calvin Waller has grown used to danger. Danger is the air he breathes. But when he finds himself thrown from the midst of an African battle into a primitive farm community of the future, he is naturally disoriented. Trained as he is, he quickly gets his bearings and begins a new and different battle…only to the “thrown” again. He is being manipulated. Falling Toward Forever is the story of his search for The Manipulator, and for himself. A strange and wonderful search…for The Manipulator holds all the strings.

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Balzan of the Cat People #3: The Lights of Zetar

Balzan of the Cat People #3: The Lights of Zetar
Pyramid Books, 1975
Price I paid: $2.39 + S&H

A new world for Balzan to survive, where Orala the priestess plans to seduce him and Androth the Krell king to kill him.

Only the Lights of Zetar, dazzling sentries left over from a civilization dead millions of years, can thwart these enemies and emblazon a path between hallucination and reality.

Balzan wins his weirdest combat yet in a twilight world of slaves and six-legged spider anthropoids.

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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 Moore
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 Penetrator #10: The Hellbomb Flight

The Penetrator #10: The Hellbomb Flight
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 Penetrator #11: Terror in Taos

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!

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The Penetrator #9: Dodge City Bombers

The Penetrator #9: Dodge City Bombers by Lionel Derrick
Pinnacle Books, 1975
Price I paid: 75¢

It was always a tactical advantage to know the enemy’s intended route of march, in addition to his identity. The Penetrator knew the Shadowmen were moving their operations into the Dodge City area. After the pasting they had taken near Liberal, the Penetrator was certain they wouldn’t make any further attacks until they had regrouped.

But who were the Shadowmen? Those who had seen them described them as younger Hell’s Angels without the bikes, unsavory clothing, and bizarre rituals. But they were every bit as violent—and ambitious for anything that could make money. The big question was who was behind their vicious swath of destruction, and why?

Only the Penetrator had the guts and cunning to get to the heart of the terrorist gang and ruthlessly wrench it out.

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The Penetrator #8: Northwest Contract

The Penetrator #8: Northwest Contract by Lionel Derrick
Pinnacle Books, 1975
Price I paid: 75¢

Business…

…is what a gang of crooked cops has been taking care of—big and dirty business. Seattle, that northwestern stronghold of law, order, and the American way, is the scene. Mark steps in when he finds that a former Vietnam war buddy—now a cop—has been shot to death in a robbery. But who was robbing whom? Mark doesn’t know for sure, and he has to find out…

Just which boys in blue have sold their souls to profit outside the law while pretending to uphold it? The enemy is everywhere, and they will stop at nothing. It’s a stinking whirlpool of corruption that includes grand larceny, prostitution—and murder for hire! It’s up to Mark to slice out the cancer. It’s a walk through hell, but the Penetrator has been there before…and he does what he has to do!

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