The Mindwarpers

The Mindwarpers by Eric Frank Russell
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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Behold the Stars

Behold the Stars by Kenneth Bulmer
Priory Books, 1965
Price I paid: 75¢

Man had discovered a means of colonizing the galaxy. Through a system of instantaneous matter transmission, men, machines, anything, could be sent light years away in seconds!

Only, men were not the only beings in the galaxy who were expanding, and at 200 light years from Earth the alien Gershmi people made their claims clear, with guns!

It would have been a fair fight between equally matched races, had not the very matter transmitter boxes which had made mankind’s expansion possible, suddenly began to put men back together, 200 light years from Earth, with their will to fight removed, so that Earthmen were marching with white flags of truce straight into Gershmi fire!

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Invaders from Rigel

Invaders from Rigel by Fletcher Pratt
Airmont Publishing Co, 1964 (Original publication 1960)
Price I paid: 60¢

Astronomers had observed the comet for some time, and had predicted its course. It would collide with Earth. There was no hysteria; scientists were apparently convinced that the results wouldn’t be dangerous to life.

But Murray Lee woke up with a feeling overpowering stiffness in every muscle. He turned over in bed and felt his left elbow, which seemed to be aching particularly—and received the shock of his life. The motion was attended by a creaking clang, and his elbow felt like a complex wheel.

Why—he was metal all over!

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The Universe Against Her

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

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The Rim-World Legacy

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.

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Space Viking

Space Viking by H. Beam Piper
Ace Books, 1963
Price I paid: ???

A galaxy-wide war had destroyed the Old Federation, leaving every surviving world on its own—and at the mercy of the Space Vikings.

Lucas Trask was one of those renegades—a warrior with a ship and a crew terrorizing a thousand worlds. But Trask was more than just a raider…he was a man with an old score to settle and a very special mission to fulfill.

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The Flying Eyes

The Flying Eyes by J. Hunter Holly
Monarch Books, 1962
Price I paid: none

Linc Hosler was sitting in a packed football stadium when the Flying Eyes appeared and cast their hypnotic power over half the crowd. Thousands of people suddenly began marching zombie-like into the woods where they vanished into a black pit.

Linc used every resource of the Space Research Lab and the National Guard to destroy the Eyes. But nothing could stop them, for they proved immune to bullets and bombs.

In desperation, Linc captured an Eye and found a way to communicate with it through his mind. He learned that radiation was fuel for the creatures’ lives. And then they issued their terrible ultimatum: Explode a series of atom bombs to supply them with radiation or they would turn the world’s population into mindless robots!

It gave the world two harrowing choices—self-destruction via fallout from the bombs or annihilation via the sinister Flying Eyes…

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D-99

D-99 by H.B. Fyfe
Pyramid Books, 1962
Price I paid: None

EARTHMEN IN TROUBLE

Harris was caged in an underwater “zoo” by a pack of blue lobsters

Maria drew a five-year sentence on a puritanical planet for trying to buy a souvenir—and for being excessively feminine

Taranto & Meyers had committed the crime of being shipwrecked on a planet that didn’t like strangers

Gerson was simply kidnapped—and nobody had any idea why

Five citizens of Terra were being held on other worlds—and the ultra-secret Department 99 existed only to set them, and others like them, free.

This tense novel is the story of one evening’s work for Department 99—their successes and failures—and of the strange crisis that almost wrecked

D-99

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Merlin’s Godson, Part 2

Merlin’s Godson by H. Warner Munn
Del Rey Books, 1976
Price I paid: 50¢

Originally published as The Ship from Atlantis, 1967

Camelot was gone and Arthur lay in the sleep of the forever undead. Only a small band of loyal men were left, guided now by the magical wisdom of Merlin. United, they braved uncharted seas toward the mysterious Lands of the West. With them they carried the Thirteen Magic Treasures of Britain and the power of Merlin’s Ring.

Ahead of them lay unknown lands that offered lush wonders and ecstasies beyond their dreams and savage creatures that drove them into horrors beyond any nightmare.

For Ventidius Varro, a Roman centurion who had given his service to Arthur, this was to be an odyssey of soul-stirring glory and heartbreaking discovery….an odyssey that would bring him the love of a beautiful woman and take from him his son Gwalchmai.

And before Gwalchmai, godson of Merlin, lay an even darker and more mysterious quest.

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Star Giant

Star Giant by Dorothy Skinkle
Belmont Tower Books, 1969
Price I paid: 75¢

His name was Ben-oni…

Ben-oni was a refugee, a political exile from the planet Liban sentenced to spend his life on Earth. He looked human, but he was taller than other men and had a brain like the most sophisticated computer.

A study of Earth history taught him that many Libans before him had made their mark on Earth.

Ben adapted to life on the small planet, but when he was threatened by a fellow exile, the young giant had to fight for his life with weapons not yet invented by earthmen.

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