Battle for the Stars

Battle for the Stars by Edmond Hamilton
Paperback Library, 1967
Originally published by Dodd, Mead / Torquil, 1961
Price I paid: 90¢

CLUSTER WORLD N-356-44
“It was no place for a man to be.
Men were tissue, blood, bone, nerve. This place was not made for them. It was made for force and radiation. Go home, men.
But I can’t, thought Jay Birrel. Not yet…I have to go on into this place where a human being looks as pathetic as an insect in a furnace.”
And so begins Edmond Hamilton’s most fascinating inter-planetary adventure—BATTLE FOR THE STARS.

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The Diabols

The Diabols by R.W. Mackelworth
Paperback Library, 1969
Originally published as Firemantle, Robert Hale, 1968
Price I paid: 75¢

Their bodies were colored lights; their voices were music. But whatever they touched was incinerated!

For a moment in time their destructive powers were limited to a small portion of Earth. Yet they were determined to burn the whole planet to a crisp.

Was there no hope for man’s survival?

As a last resort Boraston is projected into a future where the Diabols have almost won. Only a few humans remain, struggling to stay alive by holding the Diabols off with skirmishes and holding actions.

Can Boraston devise a method to destroy them?

If he succeeds, Earth can plan to save itself from the Diabols.

If he fails, Earth was doomed to become nothing more than a charred and blackened cinder in the galaxy!

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Beyond the Sealed World

Beyond the Sealed World by Rena Vale
Paperback Library, 1965
Price I paid: none

“DALY 1444 IS AN ATAVIST. CAST HIM OUT OF THE SEALED WORLD INTO THE WASTELAND TO DIE.”

Thus ordered the masters of Science, the ruling body of the Glasteel Civilization. And so Daly 1444, convicted of primitive longings to be a man instead of a number, was forced to become an Opener—a fearful voyager into the dangerous world of natural sun and light outside his antiseptic culture.

To his great surprise, Daly found not one but several worlds—each at a different level of achievement, each incomplete without the other, each desperate to rule supreme. At first he struggled only for his own life amidst conditions for which his test-tube life had ill-equipped him. But soon he realized that not only his future was at stake, but the future of all the worlds of Earth—and he was the one man who could save the Universe!

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Escape Across the Cosmos

Escape Across the Cosmos by Gardner Fox
Paperback Library, 1964
Price I paid: 90¢

Falsely accused of depriving the Empire of its dream of a Promised Land by murdering its Leader, Kael Carrick was exiled to the dread planet Dakkan, a galactic graveyard from which no man returned.

But Kael had to return. He alone could dare attempt it. For before his death, the Leader had rebuilt Kael’s war-ravaged body into a cybernetically perfect specimen—a silicon superman potentially capable of destroying the devouring terror of the Slarrn world that now hungered for the Empire.

Kael’s powers were extraordinary—so much so that he hesitated to test them. But test them he must. For on his courage and strength alone depended the fate of the Empire, and its last chance to learn whether Paradise or Evil awaited them somewhere in the cosmic vastness.

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Eight Against Utopia

Eight Against Utopia by Douglas R. Mason
Paperback Library, 1967
Price I paid: none

For 7,000 years the domed city of Carthage has protected its citizens from the ice-covered world outside. But now Gaul Kalmar, a brilliant engineer, discovers that the entire planet is habitable. Tormented by the dehumanized tyranny of life in Carthage, he enlists the aid of seven other rebels in a desperate attempt to escape.

Not only are the group’s actions observed by the ever-present Monitors of Carthage, but even their innermost thoughts are recorded by the Secret Police. Yet they are ready to take any risk to win their freedom, even when Kalmar must announce: “The city has an anti-hostility screen. Nothing with a human heart can cross it!”

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The Planet of the Blind

The Planet of the Blind by Paul Corey
Paperback Library, 1968
Price I paid: none

What would happen to an intelligent, sighted inhabitant of Earth marooned on a planet inhabited by an unsighted people with a technology equal or superior to his? Further, let us suppose that this man heads a world organization that controls the now expanding field of tests and testing—Mr. Test himself. How would he fare on this PLANET OF THE BLIND? This is the story of Dr. Thur Stone in just such a situation.

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The Star Kings

The Star Kings by Edmond Hamilton
Paperback Library, 1967 (Originally published 1949)
Price I paid: none

Flung across space and time by the sorcery of super-science, John Gordon exchanges bodies with Zarth Arn, Prince of the Mid-Galactic Empire 2000 centuries in the future!

Suddenly John is thrust into a last-ditch battle between the democratic Empire World and the tyranny of the Black Cloud regime. Only one weapon—the terrifying Disruptor—can win the struggle for the Empire Forces. But it is so powerful that unless John uses it correctly it could destroy not only the enemy but the cosmos.

Could his 20th century mind cope with the technology of 200,000 years from now?

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Black in Time

Black in Time by John Jakes
Paperback Library, 1970
Price I paid: $5

RIGHT ON!

Into the time machine plunges Jomo, the black militant leader of BURN. “Revolution then” is his motto; he’s going to rearrange history so the blacks get a fair shake—or, preferably, world dominance.

But in another area of time, rabble-rousing white supremacist Billy Roy Whisk is also at work—fixing history so the slaves are never freed.

Worlds spin in and out of existence. And through the paradoxes of time, one black man is pursuing Jomo and Whisk, trying to stop them before their experiments wipe out the world—forever.

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S.T.A.R. Flight

S.T.A.R. Flight by E.C. Tubb
Paperback Library, 1969
Price I paid: 90¢

The Kaltich invaders sell their Earthman serfs a rejuvenation process that cruelly prolongs life.

The Kaltichs also promise to sell their secret for instantaneous space travel desperately needed by a barbaric, overpopulated Earth.

But decades pass and Earth is no closer to the stars. Yet the Kaltichs continue to strip Earth of its riches and its pride.

Only the Secret Terran Armed Resistance movement opposes the Kaltich tyranny. And only Martin Preston, S.T.A.R. agent, can possibly steal their secrets. If he fails, Earth will become a planet of billions of starving people—with no place to go except to their graves!

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The Spawn of the Death Machine

The Spawn of the Death Machine by Ted White
Paperback Library, 1968
Price I paid: 90¢

“You are an artificially constructed being, a mobile data-gathering device.”

Locked in his cell, there is no way Tanner can dispute the computer’s metallic-voiced assertion, for he has no memories. The machine releases him to get facts on the present state of humanity.

Naked, without weapons, Tanner emerges into the savage world of the twenty-third century. He is prey for the bears and cannibals that roam the forested streets of Manhattan.

Struggling to stay alive, Tanner learns that it was the power-crazed computer that had destroyed civilization. If he follows its orders, the machine will again control the state of mankind. If he rebels, he faces the brutality of a world united on only one thing—its eagerness to destroy his existence as THE SPAWN OF THE DEATH MACHINE.

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