Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri: Centauri Dawn

Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri: Centauri Dawn by Michael Ely
Pocket Books, 2000
Price I paid: $14 + S&H

After a forty-year journey from an Earth left teetering on the brink of nuclear Armageddon, the United Nations colonial starship Unity reaches the lone habitable planet orbiting Alpha Centauri’s primary star, bringing with it the hope of a new beginning for the human race.

Hope turns to ashes when, on final approach to the new world, a mysterious malfunction damages the ship, triggering a crisis that results in the death of the captain and a rash of infighting over the ship’s undamaged colony pods. The Unity breaks apart in space and seven colonial factions are scattered across the surface of the planet.

As the Unity survivors struggle to rebuild human civilization on this strange and mysterious alien world, old tensions resurface and one man sets in motion forces that may destroy any dream of a lasting peace.

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Star Trek: Phaser Fight (Which Way Books #24)

Star Trek: Phaser Fight
Which Way Books #24
by Barbara Siegel and Scott Siegel
Pocket Books, 1986
Price I paid: $3.50 + S&H

Welcome aboard, ensign! You’ve been assigned to duty on the Starship Enterprise. Your mission: Investigate a mysterious meteor belt with Captain Kirk…or help Bones combat a deadly disease…or fight an alien race with Mr. Spock. You choose—you can beam over to a phantom ship overrun with fierce mirror creatures, or match wits with a giant alien who wants to crush the Enterprise like a bug. But choose carefully, or the Enterprise and you could be lost forever!

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Grease

Grease by Ron de Christoforo
Pocket Books, 1978
Price I paid: It’s complicated, but less than a buck

GREASE IS FOR LOVERS

It’s the story of Sandy and Zuko, dance contests, graduation, drive-ins, and wishing the summer would never end; of fighting and thinking they mean it when all they really care about is making up.

GREASE IS FOR SWINGERS!

It’s the story of The Thunderbirds and The Pink Ladies, Greased Lightnin’, gang rumbles, Thunder Road, Rydell High, and the Class of ’59.

GREASE IS FOREVER!

Most of all, it’s the story of how great it can be to go with someone who’s crazy about you. Even if it’s a while before everyone knows it…even before you’re sure about it yourself.

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Clone

Clone by Richard Cowper
Pocket Books, 1979
Price I paid: 90¢

Spawned in a dangerous 21st-century experiment, they were brought into a world where educated apes did manual labor and the government encouraged suicide as a method of population control.

Their existence as clones was unknown to anyone―even to each other―known only to their creator.

But then came the strange, haunting visions, the peculiar psychic sensations that drew them closer and closer together―revealing once and for all the mysterious secret they shared that would change the world!

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The Müller-Fokker Effect

the-muller-fokker-effectThe Müller-Fokker Effect by John Sladek
Pocket Books, 1973
(Originally published by Hutchinson, 1970)
Price I paid: 90¢

Can a human being be reconstituted like orange juice?

To find out, the Army backs a futuristic research project that transfers a man’s personality onto computer tapes. Guinea pig for the experiment is technical writer and dreamer Bob Shairp.

But the project barely gets off the ground when a computer accident wipes out Shairp’s mortal body and only his tapes remain. Is Shairp doomed to this encoded state forever? Or can the bizarre process be reversed?

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A Fond Farewell to Dying

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Image shamelessly grabbed from isfdb.org

A Fond Farewell to Dying by Syd Logsdon
Pocket Books, 1981
Price I paid: none

MAN HAS UNLEASHED THE ULTIMATE WEAPON

Millions have died in the holocaust. The Polar ice caps have melted. Salt water covers the crater where the Vatican once stood. And now, dazed survivors gather on mountaintop islands and cry to the heavens of the end.

Out of this nightmare chaos, biologist David Singer flees to India, to the last civilization left on Earth, and to the arms of the exotic almond-eyed beauty, Shashi. And there he pursues his one burning obsession: to transfer his mind into a cloned replica of himself…to leave his own body in order to find immortality.

But Shashi’s ancient Hindu wisdom has warned her. She knows that David’s secret experiments are doomed, that his spirit will be set loose to wander forever in a hopeless search for his body. Unless she can stop him, she will lose the man she loves to an oblivion far more terrifying than death itself…

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Star Ka’at World

Star Ka’at World by Andre Norton and Dorothy MadleeStar Ka'at World
Pocket Books, 1979
Price I paid: 35¢

Jim and Elly Mae travel to a distant planet as guests of Tiro and Mer—members of a super-intelligent race of Ka’ats. On this strange world, work is done by machines, which are controlled by thoughts from Ka’ats. But Jim and Elly cannot learn this power and become dependent on their hosts for everything—even meals! Determined to find their own food, Jim and Elly explore a nearby city where human-like beings once lived. But fierce robots now march down the streets. Tiro and Mer rush in to protect their human friends and are kidnapped by the robots. Jim and Elly must use all their courage to find a way to rescue the Ka’ats!

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Offworld

Offworld by Max DanielsOffworld
Pocket Books, 1979
Price I paid: 75¢

EXILE OR “REHABILITATION”?

Not much of a choice—and Max, a born prankster, stands to lose either way. But he chooses exile, and finds on an unknown planet the adventure—and danger—his own utopian world lacked.

Befriended by the warrior tribe called the Enthok, Max must enter the corrupt city-state of Salf to find and recapture the beautiful leader of the proud Enthok. But to do so, he must first discover the secret behind the cruel power of the threatening figure of Bithe.

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The Road to Corlay

The Road to Corlay by Richard CowperThe Road to Corlay front
Pocket Books, 1978
Price I paid: 90¢

On the Eve of the Fourth Millenium

a slowly-building civilization, struggling out of the rubble of the Drowning, was crushed beneath the scepter of a powerful and repressive Church.

But on the Eve of the Fourth Millenium

the sound of a magical pipe was heard, and the air was filled with songs of freedom and enlightenment.

And on the Eve of the Fourth Millenium

the Boy appeared, bringing the gift of sacrilege, a harbinger of the future, heralding the arrival of the White Bird of Dawning.

It is the coming of a New Age….

A glorious future bearing the presents of the past!

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