Weeping May Tarry

Weeping May Tarry by Raymond F. Jones and Lester del Rey
Pinnacle Books, 1978
Price I paid: 75¢

The landing was unlike any they had ever made. But then they had never before seen a planet so strange as this one—with its wild seas, scarred plains, and rubbled cities. It looked as if it had been totally devastated by some type of nuclear destruction.

And they were most curious—these aliens with their green-scaled faces and stubby tails—to explore this peculiar place where man had once existed…until their ship exploded and they were stranded with no means of survival and no hope of rescue.

Unless their high priest—Ama of the Keelong—prayed to the higher power they had rebelled against. For this was a spiritual mission…and the Alcoran had lost their way…

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The Executioner #32: Tennessee Smash

The Executioner #32: Tennessee Smash by Don Pendleton
Pinnacle Books, 1978
Price I paid: none

That familiar byline on millions of copies of Executioner novels has now become a guarantee of the most exciting writing in a whole new category of hard-hitting adventure fiction.

Don Pendleton had written more than thirty books before writing the first book in the Executioner series, War Against the Mafia, a few years ago. That was the start of what is now America’s hottest action series. With thirty-two volumes complete and three more on the drawing board, Don has little time for writing anything but Executioner books. Each book is written in about six weeks as Don simultaneously gathers and directs the research for upcoming adventures.

A much-decorated veteran of World War II, Don saw action in the North Atlantic U-boat wars, the invasion of North Africa, and the assaults on Iwo Jima and Okinawa. He later led a team of naval scouts, who landed in Tokyo preparatory to the Japanese surrender. As if that weren’t enough, he went back for more in Korea, too!

Before turning to full-time duty at the typewriter, Don held down positions as a railroad telegrapher, air traffic controller, aeronautical systems engineer, and even had a hand in the early ICBM and Moonshot programs.

He’s the father of six and now makes his home in a small town in Indiana. He does his writing amidst a unique collection of weapons, photos, and books—usually half-buried in research, news clippings, and maps. Whether it’s Boston, Cleveland, or Nashville, you’ll get the feeling Don and Mack were there.

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The Joan-of-Arc Replay

The Joan-of-Arc Replay by Pierre Barbet
Translated by Stanley Hochman
DAW Books, 1978
Price I paid: $1.25

It was the contention of one galactic historian that similar planets must have similar histories. It was the contention of another that this did not imply identical histories. The challenge could only be settled by actual testing in the infinity of the cosmos.

The computer came up with the story of Joan of Arc on the Planet Earth. Programmed anew, it produced a similar world, the Planet Noldaz of Sigma 32, with a human race rising from medievalism among whom a maid would appear to lead her country’s knights on a war of liberation.

The question: was she inevitably doomed to die at the stake, as Joan had before her? Did identical situations always mean identical conclusions?

Pierre Barbet, master of alternative histories and parallel worlds, spins a marvelous science fiction novel out of one of the great enigmas of history.

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Star Force

Star Force by Robert E. Mills
Belmont Tower Books, 1978
Price I paid: none

In this dazzling climax to “Star Quest Series,” Red Rian, Lady Nila and Dann Oryzon, the intrepid space travellers of STAR QUEST and STAR FIGHTERS, conclude their extraterrestrial adventures. Under the guidance of the warrior-mystic Garthane, they are led into their most perilous advcenture so far.

The Dark Emperor had spawned a new generation of immortal annihilators, more evil and more powerful than the universe had ever seen. Would they be able to turn the tide against the Fellowship of Light and the forces of good?

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Star Fighters

Star Fighters by Robert E. Mills
Tower Publications, 1978
Price I paid: none

Picking up where STAR QUEST left off, STAR FIGHTERS, second in the “Star Quest Series,” once again finds Red Rian, Lady Nila, and Dann Oryzon locked in mortal combat with the Dark Emperor and his evil captain, Lord Blorg.

In a last great assault on the dreaded Death Legion, the three spacefighters find unexpected friends—and enemies!—out among the stars.

Can they break the Dark Emperor’s power over the universe, or are they just expendable toys in Ylang-Ylang’s vicious galactic game?

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Star Quest

Star Quest by Robert E. Mills
Tower Publications, 1978
Price I paid: none

In a distant universe far, far, far into the future, the Great Peace was shattered by the evil forces of the Dark Empire. Out of the hell of the planet Flaigon, Lord Blorg, of the reptiloid race Ysss, ripped across the galaxies creating evil, pain, and death. Red Rian and the crew of the starship Hazard joined the League of Free Worlds to oppose Blorg’s Death Legion. But could Red Rian do it alone, or would the proud space pirate need the help of the ancient Brotherhood of Light?

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Camelot in Orbit

Yet another cover nabbed shamelessly from isfdb.org

Camelot in Orbit by Arthur H. Landis
DAW Books, 1978
Price I paid: 90¢

Fomalhaut II was an inexplicable enigma in the annals of the Galactic Watchers. A world of knights and ladies, of dungeons and dragons, it was truly medieval and therefore out of bounds for science-armed Terrans. Yet science seemed thwarted there for magic really worked and witchcraft baffled the secret watchers.

Camelot was their name for it, and Kyrie Fern was their Adjustor on its surface—a knight in truly shining armor, a champion of chivalry, and the only one who actually stood between the Arthurian natives and the alien being that menaced both their world and the advanced planets that swung unseen through their sky.

Once again Arthur H. Landis has worked the magic of combining the wonders of swords-and-sorcery with the science adventure of high space.

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The Empire of Time

The Empire of Time by Crawford Kilian
Del Rey/Ballantine Books. 1978
Price I paid: 90¢

Jerry Pierce was the Intertemporal Agency’s most experienced operative, a seasoned time-traveler on the old subway train that whisked him back and forth through the ages. He’d already altered history by directing the Turkish conquest of Constantinople four centuries ahead of schedule and garrotting an obscure Mongol chief before the man became a problem. But his biggest difficulty lay ahead of him

Seventy-four years ahead, to be exact.

Somehow, someway—nuclear war, alien attack, no one really knew—Earth was going to be destroyed and left a lifeless cinder. It was every Intertemporal agent’s goal to find out how and to prevent disaster. But suddenly the problem had become Pierce’s special assignment. And just as suddenly, the man for all ages had been mentally blocked from knowing what was going on. What he didn’t know was that he was now programmed to kill—and was being pushed to the end of the world….

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Tentacles of Dawn

Tentacles of Dawn by Robert Wilson
Major Books, 1978
Price I paid: none

The stranger awakes and the world is dark.

Intelligent humans live near the protection of their caverns. They carry torches dipped in oil and live in fear of the beasts and horrors that creep in the dark world beyond. At times they glimpse gigantic dramas being played by powers beyond their understanding—means of light streaking across the black sky and strange, rumbling mountains slowly moving through the dark.

The stranger gropes his way down through the living nightmare until the Prophetess appears to him in the bowels of the earth. Together, they begin a drama destined to change the surface of this future world.

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Star Winds

Star Winds by Barrington J. Bayley
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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