The Flying Eyes

The Flying Eyes by J. Hunter Holly
Monarch Books, 1962
Price I paid: none

Linc Hosler was sitting in a packed football stadium when the Flying Eyes appeared and cast their hypnotic power over half the crowd. Thousands of people suddenly began marching zombie-like into the woods where they vanished into a black pit.

Linc used every resource of the Space Research Lab and the National Guard to destroy the Eyes. But nothing could stop them, for they proved immune to bullets and bombs.

In desperation, Linc captured an Eye and found a way to communicate with it through his mind. He learned that radiation was fuel for the creatures’ lives. And then they issued their terrible ultimatum: Explode a series of atom bombs to supply them with radiation or they would turn the world’s population into mindless robots!

It gave the world two harrowing choices—self-destruction via fallout from the bombs or annihilation via the sinister Flying Eyes…

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The Panchronicon Plot

The Panchronicon Plot by Ron Goulart
DAW Books, 1977
Price I paid: 90¢

What better way to get rid of your political enemies than to shove them back into the past and maroon them there? It isn’t exactly murder but it sure could raise hob with history!

That was what was happening when they yelled for the Wild Talent Division. The actual time machine was a secret known only to the president—who was apparently the culprit. But someone like Jake Conger would be just weird enough to be able to locate the kind of nut who could travel in time himself.

It’s Ron Goulart with as whacky and wonderful a novel as any he’s written. Back to Old Vienna, back to the Middle Ages, back to Ancient Rome—it’s a mystery trail through time conducted by a madman and guaranteed to keep you on the edge of the seat with suspense and falling off it with laughter at the same time!

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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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Civil War II

Civil War II by Dan Britain
Pinnacle Books, 1971
Price I paid: $1 + S&H

“Well, my adjutant just completed a nationwide inspection of the militia. They seem ready, but I’m still a bit concerned about the discipline,” Harvey said. “They’re eager young bucks, and they’ve been penned up a long time. I just hope we don’t have a blood orgy.”

“I’ll vouch for the readiness of the militia,” Abe Williams said quickly. “I’ve been in constant contact. They are ready. The only loose ends we have are political, and that we can work out by ear…”

“And my boys have been waiting for a month,” Ritter reported. “We’re gonna jerk old whitey apart at the seams! We’re zeroed in on air traffic control, gas mains, water supply, power plants, communications, the whole damn—”

“Great! Then I see no reason to change the battle order,” General Bogan declared. “We hit tonight!”

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Star Rogue

Star Rogue by Lin Carter
Lancer Books, 1970
Price I paid: 90¢

There was a name, but the name was myth. The myth rode the tongues of ten billion men—and ten times ten billion not-men—on ten thousand worlds, and wherever the name was spoken, it was with awe and respect.

Citadel!

The secret name for the masters of space, the creatures who ruled without office, who served without reward.

Citadel!

The deepest mystery and the greatest power of all the myriad stars. Wherever two creatures met in fear of oppression, a silent cry to the men of that code-named organization rose in the birth of new hope. For the galaxy was Citadel…and Citadel was the galaxy!

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Merlin’s Godson, Part 2

Merlin’s Godson by H. Warner Munn
Del Rey Books, 1976
Price I paid: 50¢

Originally published as The Ship from Atlantis, 1967

Camelot was gone and Arthur lay in the sleep of the forever undead. Only a small band of loyal men were left, guided now by the magical wisdom of Merlin. United, they braved uncharted seas toward the mysterious Lands of the West. With them they carried the Thirteen Magic Treasures of Britain and the power of Merlin’s Ring.

Ahead of them lay unknown lands that offered lush wonders and ecstasies beyond their dreams and savage creatures that drove them into horrors beyond any nightmare.

For Ventidius Varro, a Roman centurion who had given his service to Arthur, this was to be an odyssey of soul-stirring glory and heartbreaking discovery….an odyssey that would bring him the love of a beautiful woman and take from him his son Gwalchmai.

And before Gwalchmai, godson of Merlin, lay an even darker and more mysterious quest.

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Psi Hunt

Psi Hunt by Michael Kurland
Berkley Science Fiction, 1980
Price I paid: 90¢

Astral Emprise sold metaphysics, mysticism, paranormal phenomena, astrology lessons—and anything else that Believers were willing to spend a dollar on.

Not the kind of operation the U.S. Navy was used to dealing with.

Until the People’s Republic of China decided it could blow up half the United States with five telepathic kids who spent their days watching grade-B war movies in an L.A. theater.

And Lieutenant Junior Grade Robert Burrows was assigned to call their bluff…

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Who Goes Here?

Who Goes Here? by Bob Shaw
Ace Books, 1977
Price I paid: 90¢

Men have always joined the Space Legion to forget, devoting the rest of their lives to fighting for Mother Terra in return for the perfect inner peace of forgetfulness. Most forget a little; the memory erasure covers just the area surrounding their falling away from grace. But Warren Peace can’t remember anything at all: “You must have been a monster,” say his admiring fellow troopers.

With only a blue plastic toad to guide him in his search for his past, and the forces of Lieutenant Toogood, the redoubtable Captain Handy and, worst of all, the dreaded Oscars ranged against him, Warren sets out to learn just

WHO GOES HERE?

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Thrice Upon a Time

Thrice Upon a Time, by James P. Hogan
Del Rey Books, 1980
Price I paid: 95¢

When Murdoch was summoned to his grandfather’s isolated Scottish castle, he had no idea of the old man’s latest discovery—nor where it would lead him. Sir Charles, a genius in far-out physics, had found a flaw in the law of conservation of energy; in any process an incredibly tiny increment of energy escaped—back through time! Using this “tau” radiation, he could send messages into the past.

But Murdoch discovered records of messages he knew he had never sent! Were many futures possible? Could a message from Future X alter the past—and thus wipe out Future X? But who would be foolish enough to send a message that could eliminate his own existence?

Then disaster struck. An advanced fusion reactor threatened to destroy all Earth. Grimly, Murdoch sat down to send back the words that would destroy everything he had learned to love.

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Star Giant

Star Giant by Dorothy Skinkle
Belmont Tower Books, 1969
Price I paid: 75¢

His name was Ben-oni…

Ben-oni was a refugee, a political exile from the planet Liban sentenced to spend his life on Earth. He looked human, but he was taller than other men and had a brain like the most sophisticated computer.

A study of Earth history taught him that many Libans before him had made their mark on Earth.

Ben adapted to life on the small planet, but when he was threatened by a fellow exile, the young giant had to fight for his life with weapons not yet invented by earthmen.

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