The Space Vampires

The Space Vampires by Colin Wilson
Monkfish Book Publishing Company, 2009
Originally Published by Random House, 1976
Price I paid: $5.79

Circa 2100

A scourge of sex and death from an alien spaceship

WHEN CAPTAIN CARLSEN ENTERED THE VAST DERELICT SPACESHIP, he was shaken by the discovery of its immobilized humanoid passengers.

Later, after three of the strange aliens had been transported to Earth, his foreboding was more than justified. The creatures were energy vampires whose seductive embraces were fatal, whose lust for vitality was boundless. As they took over the willing bodies of their victims and sexual murders spread terror throughout the land, Carlsen worked toward their destruction—even while he was erotically drawn to the most beautiful vampire of all!

Continue reading “The Space Vampires” →

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?

Continue reading “Star Force” →

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?

Continue reading “Star Fighters” →

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?

Continue reading “Star Quest” →

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.

Continue reading “Falling Toward Forever” →

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.

Continue reading “Camelot in Orbit” →

The Implosion Effect

The Implosion Effect by Gary Paulsen
Major Books, 1976
Price I paid: none

THE INTERNATIONAL COMBINE

They swore to Jason that there was nothing genuinely illegal about building a secret satellite tracking station…just smart businessmen getting the jump on the stock market.

And for half a million dollars, Jason Theiss was ready to believe them. That was before the murders began, and before some over-anxious governments decided to muscle in.

Continue reading “The Implosion Effect” →

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….

Continue reading “The Empire of Time” →

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.

Continue reading “Tentacles of Dawn” →

The Sea is Boiling Hot

The Sea is Boiling Hot by George Bamber
Ace Books, 1971
Price I paid: none

In the world of Heron Attee’s time, scientific wastes had so fouled the atmosphere that men were forced to erect giant bubbles over their cities so that the air inside could be continually purified and made breathable. Outside the city domes, humans would strangle and die from breathing the air.

Even the oceans of Earth were so befouled by thermal pollution from atomic plants that life within the great waters had long since died off.

And the people of the domed cities lived a fantastic, hedonistic life dedicated to sex, violent games, and programmed hallucinations. Desperation hovered over mankind: exctinction was coming ever closer.

But one man, the brilliant scientist Heron Attee, discovered a means of reversing the process of Earthdeath…if it wasn’t too late….

Continue reading “The Sea is Boiling Hot” →