The Day of the Burning

The Day of the Burning by Barry Malzberg
Ace Books, 1974
Price I paid: none

It was a sultry summer day in 1981, and the 3 billion or so inhabitants of the world went about their daily routine unaware that, possibly, the fate of the human race lay in the shaking hands of one George Mercer, an insignificant and slightly neurotic employee of the New York City Department of Welfare.

For George had been informed, by an accredited emissary of the Galactic Overlords, that he had 12 hours in which to prove the people of Earth worthy of admission into the Galactic Federation. George, and George alone, would represent all of mankind. If he failed the entire planet would be destroyed.

Was all this a nightmare of delusion dredged up by his tortured subconscious? Or a very real nightmare that would end in the Day of the Burning….

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The Day They H-Bombed Los Angeles

The Day They H-Bombed Los Angeles by Robert Moore Williams
Ace Books, 1961
Price I paid: none

A Hollywood star, a housewife, a nurse…A doctor, a G-man, an engineer…They were among the pitiful handful of survivors who faced starvation, disease, and something infinitely worse—the terror that roamed the ruins! The horde of monsters had once been men and women, but now wre transformed into something never before seen on Earth!

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World Without Men

World Without Men by Charles Eric Maine
Ace Books, 1958
Price I paid: none

THE SEARCH FOR
THE 47th CHROMOSOME

The world of five thousand years from now was a world of only one sex—women. Love was an unnatural affair, fostered by the inhuman hand of the unseen government. Babies were created by laboratory techniques based on mass-deception.

There was one all-important project that supplied humanity’s only motive for continued existence—the struggle to re-create the male sex. Yet the very act of realizing this dream was to set up a crisis the world of women had never anticipated—and could not control!

Here is a truly unique novel which dares to discuss a scientific subject hitherto untouched by science-fiction. Slanted for the intelligent adult reader, it will be ranked with 1984 and Brave New World.

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Scavengers in Space

Scavengers in Space by Alan E. Nourse
Ace Books, 1958
Price I paid: 50¢

“This fast-moving tale of the far future deals with the quest of the Hunter brothers for a mysterious bonanza located somewhere in the asteroid belt. The dangers and details of asteroid mining are carefully outlined, and the bonanza itself proves to be an open gate to wider future in the stars.

“Realistic background, good plotting, and vivid writing add up to a good adventure.”

—Cleveland Press

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Utopia Minus X

Utopia Minus X by Rex Gordon
Ace Books, 1966
Price I paid: 75¢

It took two hundred years to go to the nearest star and come back, but for astronaut Morgan Harvey it seemed but a short trip of a few months. Such is the nature of relative-time at near-light speeds.

So when Harvey got back to Earth he was still the same young patriotic Free World soldier he had been at the start of his flight. But the world he came back to was seemingly one in which his nation’s foes had triumphed and which now called itself The Perfect World.

And Utopia it certainly seemed, but Harvey refused to be brainwashed into accepting it. But until he met the man marked X, the problem of saving not only himself but humanity seemed beyond solution.

A remarkable new novel by the author of FIRST TO THE STARS.

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TekWar

TekWar by William Shatner
Ace Books, 1989
Price I paid: 90¢

Known to millions as STAR TREK’S Captain Kirk, actor-director William Shatner now turns his talents to a stunning novel of future shock. TekWar is the story of ex-cop Jake Cardigan, who’s framed for dealing an addictive brain stimulant called Tek and sentenced to fifteen years of suspended animation. Now, mysteriously released after four years in the “Freezer,” Cardigan is on the loose…and out for justice.

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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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Who Goes Here?

Who Goes Here? by Bob Shaw
Ace Books, 1977
Price I paid: 90¢

Men have always joined the Space Legion to forget, devoting the rest of their lives to fighting for Mother Terra in return for the perfect inner peace of forgetfulness. Most forget a little; the memory erasure covers just the area surrounding their falling away from grace. But Warren Peace can’t remember anything at all: “You must have been a monster,” say his admiring fellow troopers.

With only a blue plastic toad to guide him in his search for his past, and the forces of Lieutenant Toogood, the redoubtable Captain Handy and, worst of all, the dreaded Oscars ranged against him, Warren sets out to learn just

WHO GOES HERE?

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The Ion War

The Ion War by Colin Kapp
Ace Books, 1978
Price I paid: 90¢

When Major Dam Stormdragon was chosen to serve as part of Castalia’s military tithe to the Mother World he had no choice but do go—much as he loathed Terra and everything she stood for. He knew that given the combination of arrogance and paranoia that Terrans displayed towards all Colonials he was at best in for a miserable year—at that at worst he would find himself taking part in a military action against his fellow Colonials. He also knew that the increasing ferocity with which the Terrans responded to the slightest balking of the Imperial Will meant that one day soon the Hub Worlds would have to fight, or that Terra’s madness would destroy them all.

What Stormdragon could not know was that the Mother World was already set on obliterating her children, and that he himself would be Terra’s secret weapon in the most dreadful conflict in the History of Man.

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