Triplanetary

Triplanetary by E.E. “Doc” Smith
Pyramid Books, 1970
Also Halcyon Classics, 2010
Originally published in Amazing Stories, 1934
Price I paid: none and unknown

Eddore and Arisia fought desperately to control the Universe. The ultimate battleground was a tiny, backward planet in a remote galaxy―Earth.

And only a few Earthmen knew of the titanic struggle―and of the strange, decisive role they were to play in the war of the super-races.

Here is the beginning of “Doc” Smith’s famous Lensman series―the first of the celebrated novels that set a pattern for science fiction.

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The Unicorn Girl

The Unicorn Girl by Michael Kurland
Pyramid Books, 1969
Price I paid: 75¢

BLIP!

It wasn’t exactly a sound. It was more like a feeling―a gut-wrenching, universe-shaking, giant blip of a feeling. Then came the changes.

The legendary powers of Mike and Chester―fearless explorers of a thousand legendary worlds―are no help in handling the extraterrestrial perspective where time, space and sanity all find new meanings.

A perspective you too can discover with the help of

the unicorn girl

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Mission of Gravity

by Hal Clement
Pyramid Books, 1962
Originally published in Astounding Science Fiction, 1953
Price I paid: 75¢

The giant, disk-shaped world of Mesklin was an Earthman’s nightmare―so cold that the seas were liquid methane and the snow frozen ammonia, with crushing gravity up to 700 times that of Earth. No human being could explore Mesklin’s surface.

Yet―a desperately needed research rocket was down on Mesklin. Someone had to go after it. That someone was the strangest explorer ever to appear in science-fiction―the Mesklinite merchant seaman, Barlennan―fifteen inches long, thirty-six legs, weighing hundreds of pounds. And, as it turned out, the sharpest trader an Earthman ever met!

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Balzan of the Cat People #3: The Lights of Zetar

Balzan of the Cat People #3: The Lights of Zetar
Pyramid Books, 1975
Price I paid: $2.39 + S&H

A new world for Balzan to survive, where Orala the priestess plans to seduce him and Androth the Krell king to kill him.

Only the Lights of Zetar, dazzling sentries left over from a civilization dead millions of years, can thwart these enemies and emblazon a path between hallucination and reality.

Balzan wins his weirdest combat yet in a twilight world of slaves and six-legged spider anthropoids.

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Dome World

Dome World by Dean McLaughlin
Pyramid Books, 1963
Price I paid: none

If the bombs went off, the Domes would die—and so would every man, woman and child in them. With a mile or more of sea water pressing down, even a near miss would do the job.

And the Domes—vital sources of the minerals needed to keep Earth’s civilization going—were the most tempting targets in the war that threatened to break out any minute!

Danial Mason, Manager of Wilmington Dome, didn’t want to die. But there was only one way to avoid it—stop the war before it started!

And that meant committing treason…

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The Million Cities

The Million Cities by J.T. McIntosh
Pyramid Books, 1963
Price I paid: none

THE MILLION CITIES

covered every inch of Earth’s surface with a gleaming metal skin—and penetrated almost to the planet’s core. Billions of people crowded them, using up the last depleted resources of an aging world. There was no hope for mankind but exploring and colonizing new frontiers beyond the sky.

The Chartists were the only people with the ability to build a spaceship—were within reach of success…

And then the government outlawed space travel—and began a vicious reign of terror against the Chartists!

The literally shattering climax of this fast-paced story by the author of One in Three Hundred offers a double surprise—for the Chartists are not what they seem….

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The Planet Strappers

The Planet Strappers by Raymond Z. Gallun
Pyramid Books, 1961
Price I paid: none

THE PLANET STRAPPERS

started out as The Bunch, a group of student-astronauts in the back room of a store in Jarviston, Minnesota. They wanted off Earth, and they begged, borrowed, and built what they needed to make it.

THE PLANET STRAPPERS got what they wanted—a start on the road to the stars—but no one brought up on Earth could have imagined what was waiting for them Out There!

In THE PLANET STRAPPERS, Ray Gallun has written a story of the Day After Tomorrow—a story of what it will be like for the men who cross the space frontier—a story that some of us will be living some day….

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Balzan of the Cat People #2: The Caves of Madness

Balzan of the Cat People #2: The Caves of Madness by Wallace Moore
Pyramid Books, 1975
Price I paid: 1¢ ($4.00 with shipping and handling)

Human castaway on a planet light years from earth,

Balzan had known many unearthly creatures in his alien home. The cat people had raised him and given him feline knowledge; the winged Aeri had adopted him; beautiful Ryla had loved him in spite of his naked, wingless shoulders.

Now Balzan was being held captive by another tribe of winged humanoids, living deep in underground caverns lighted only by glowing fungi. In this strange world where all women were the wives of all men, where no one was owner or owned, Balzan was plunged into terrifying adventure…with the slimy, gigantic night crawlers…with the most horrible monster of all, the fiendish Sl’yth!

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D-99

D-99 by H.B. Fyfe
Pyramid Books, 1962
Price I paid: None

EARTHMEN IN TROUBLE

Harris was caged in an underwater “zoo” by a pack of blue lobsters

Maria drew a five-year sentence on a puritanical planet for trying to buy a souvenir—and for being excessively feminine

Taranto & Meyers had committed the crime of being shipwrecked on a planet that didn’t like strangers

Gerson was simply kidnapped—and nobody had any idea why

Five citizens of Terra were being held on other worlds—and the ultra-secret Department 99 existed only to set them, and others like them, free.

This tense novel is the story of one evening’s work for Department 99—their successes and failures—and of the strange crisis that almost wrecked

D-99

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Mars Is My Destination

Mars Is My Destination by Frank Belknap Long
Pyramid Books, 1962
Price I paid: 90¢

There was trouble brewing on Mars—bad trouble. Two giant industrial empires fought for control there, and their struggle imperiled the whole Mars colony. Civil war—atomic civil war—could break out any second, leaving Earth’s only foothold in Space a mass of radioactive rubble.

But both antagonists were too politically powerful for the Colonization Board to take a direct hand. One man was needed to take charge—one man who could act fast and decisively, brutally if he had to.

Ralph Graham got the job.

And then people started dying around him…

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