Tag: fantasy

Time Cat

The cover of the novel TIME CAT by Lloyd Alexander. A black cat with the title of the book has a very long tail that spans the rest of the cover, on which various scenes from history can be seen. The background is a whirlpool of dark and light green colors.
Cover image from isfdb.org

Time Cat by Lloyd Alexander
Square Fish, 2012
Originally published by Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1963
Price I paid: Having fun’s not hard/when you’ve got a library card

He doesn’t have nine lives, it’s true, but Gareth the cat is far from ordinary. For one thing, he can talk. What’s more, he has magical powers that even Jason hasn’t dreamed of.

“Anywhere, any time, any country, any century.” Gareth tells Jason he can take them traveling through time. And in a single wink of the eye, he does. From ancient Egypt to Japan, from the land of young leonardo da Vinci to the town of a woman accused of witchcraft, Jason and Gareth are whisked from place to place and friend to foe.

Full of excitement, discovery, and a world of intriguing history, Time Cat takes the imagination on an unforgettable ride—into nine amazing adventures in life.

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The Cyborg and the Sorcerers

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The Cyborg and the Sorcerers by Lawrence Watt-Evans
Del Rey, 1982
Price I paid:

Slant the Cyborg Warrior had been ordered to kill the enemies of Earth and return with their weapons technology. His robot spacecraft was to see that he did―and kill him if he didn’t.

Problem was―Earth had perished three hundred years before, and no one had told the ship.

Slant’s dilemma seemingly had no solution…then they landed on a strange world where the computer detected “gravitational anomalies.”

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The Panorama Egg

The Panorama EggThe Panorama Egg by A.E. Silas
DAW Books, 1978
Price I paid: 90¢

His name was Archer and he thought he was an ordinary man. The collectors of panorama eggs knew better. For Archer was such a collector, and there was a very special find awaiting him: the panorama egg that contained a world.

He was guided in the use of that incredible masterwork by the enigmatic grey woman, Mera Melaklos. That was her name in this everyday world. But her real name could have been something else beyond this space-time continuum.

For indeed Archer and the grey woman crossed into a world that was not Earth, found they had special roles to play in a land where alternate science reigned and a mission of heroism was the price of existence.

THE PANORAMA EGG is a novel of strange enchantment and mystery, and of a man who wanted and found an end to a humdrum 20th century existence.

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Lords of Atlantis

Lords of AtlantisLords of Atlantis by Wallace West
Airmont Publishing, 1963
Originally published by Avalon Books, 1960
Price I paid: 90¢

In the dim past, men had fled to Mars for refuge, but now the red planet was a dying world, and the Martians returned to colonize Earth and rule over the Titans―descendants of those who had stayed behind at the time of the now-legendary catastrophe.

But the rulers of the Titans, retained by the conquerors on their ancestral thrones, grew restless under the benevolent progress of the Lords of Atlantis, looked back to a so-called “golden age,” and plotted rebellion.

Here is a thrilling novel of what might have been the basis of the Great Legends that have come down to us: of the “gods,” of Atlantis, of Zeus, Hermes, Hephaestus, Hera, Athena, Aphrodite, Jason, Medea―and of a mighty empire which was weighed in the balance and found wanting!

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Guardians of the Gate

guardians-of-the-gateGuardians of the Gate by Louis and Jaquelyn Trimble
Ace Books, 1972
Price I paid: 75¢

Two alien powers contended for that world. One, Eliff, had assumed a godlike identity; the other, Udrig, imprisoned beneath the polar ice cap, was branded as the evil one―the would-be destroyer of the planet.

Unknown to himself, Teron of Korv was the key to their conflict. If he could meet the right girl, the noble Eldra the Seventh, and if they could combine their powers―the fight would be resolved.

Against that meeting worked Udrig’s human agents, certain that the legends were wrong and Udrig was truly the Good One. In favor of the meeting was Eldra herself and the mysterious forces of the orbiting Eliff.

Guardians of the Gate is a space adventure reminiscent of the questing of Tolkien, the legendry of Merritt, and the action of Andre Norton.

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Shadow Singer

shadow-singerShadow Singer by Marcia J. Bennett
Del Rey, 1984
Price I paid: $1

Humans had long shared the planet Ver-draak with the Ni-lach people—until, in fear of the unusual Ni-lach powers, they turned on the natives. The Ni-lach who survived the massacres went into hiding.

Decades passed.

Pursued by bounty hunters, Dhalvad the Ni-lach and Poco the half-breed fled into the woods.

Though Poco didn’t know it, she had a special Ni-lach talent, similar to Dhal’s abilities to Heal and to transport himself through space and time. But somehow she had to learn to use her gift—for the fate of all the Ni-lach people hung in the balance.

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The Glass of Dyskornis

The Glass of DyskornisThe Glass of Dyskornis by Randall Garrett and Vicki Ann Heydron
Bantam Books, 1982
Price I paid: $1.25

For Ricardo Carillo, taking over the life of the swordsman Markasset on the desert world of Gandalara had its compensations: a strong, young body, a beautiful fiancee, and a mighty telepathic war-cat named Keeshah, who obeyed his every command. It also had its problems. Markasset had many enemies, and one was out for blood. So Ricardo and Keeshah left Raithskar to join the Sharith—the warrior brotherhood of sha’um cat-riders. But trouble followed, and he soon found himself in the company of a jealous lieutenant and a lovely but treacherous illusionist, on the track of a murderer who had stolen Gandalara’s most precious jewel.

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Camelot in Orbit

Yet another cover nabbed shamelessly from isfdb.org
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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