Doris Piserchia – Schlock Value

Spaceling by Doris Piserchia
DAW Books, 1978
Price I paid: $1

The ability to see the other-dimensional rings that float in Earth’s atmosphere was a late mutation of a few space-age humans. Daryl was under the care of the institution for muters, and she had discovered that if you jumped through the right ring at the right time it would land you in another dimensional world and another shape.
SPACELING is the story of Daryl’s desperate efforts to unravel the mystery of why she was being held captive and of what was really going on in a certain alien dimension. Because she was sure it was all bad and that someday everyone would thank her for the revelation.
But instead everyone was engaged in a wild effort to hold her down, to keep her on this Earth, and to keep the world simply intact!
It’s a fast and furious escapade of a future Huck Finn, female gender, by the author of EARTHCHILD.

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Earthchild by Doris Piserchia
DAW Books, 1977
Price I paid: 75¢

She called herself Reee and she was the last human being on Earth. This was the one thing she was sure of. Because Earth was not a dead planet, not by a long way. There were all manner of strange plants and bizarre animals, and there were the blue boys who always insisted they were human—but she always set fire to them.

There was however Indigo, the all-devouring protoplasmic ocean that was literally gobbling up everything in the world. And there was the enigmatic Emeroo to whom she owed her continued existence. There were also the so-called Martians—humans who had fled to Mars and only came back to Earth to scout for survivors and vent their futile furies on the inhospitable homeworld.

And that is as much as we are going to tell about EARTHCHILD, one of the strangest and most fascinating science fiction novels DAW Books (or anyone else) ever published. It’s by Doris Piserchia, author of A BILLION YEARS OF EARTH and STAR RIDER, and it’s a very original DAW Original.

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