The Texas-Israeli War: 1999

The Texas-Israeli War: 1999 by Jake Saunders and Howard Waldrop
Del Rey Books, 1974
Price I paid: 90¢

On August 12, 1992, England’s tiny nuclear arsenal fell on Ireland, on South Africa, and finally on China. Instantly the planet went up in flames. In the first half of what was to be called the War of ’92, half the Earth’s population perished.

The United States was reduced to a vast underpeopled land—and, to make matters worse, Texas had seceded and taken her precious oil reserves.

But Israel, virtually untouched in a world ravaged by war, was painfully overpopulated. So Sol Inglestein and Myra Kalen had come to America looking for a place to settle. As mercenaries on the side of the Union in its war with Texas, the Israelis had been promised land in exchange for their services.

Leading their bedraggled troops into the heartland of Texas, Sol and Myra head up Operation King, Mission: Rescue the President of the United States!

Continue reading “The Texas-Israeli War: 1999” →

Saucer Hill

Saucer Hill by Paul Adler
Avon Books, 1979
Price I paid: 75¢

CALIFORNIA, 1999

They came from the faraway planet of Azydia. They took Bianca, the only woman Alfons ever loved. But what did they offer? Invasion, salvation, or doom?

High in a tree house above a world of maddened car racers, mass suicide, and hardly any air, Alfons can only wonder, and wait…

FOR THE RETURN OF THE FLYING SAUCERS!

Continue reading “Saucer Hill” →

Starmasters’ Gambit

Starmasters’ Gambit by Gerard Klein
DAW Books, 1973 (Original French edition published 1958)
Price I paid: 90¢

As colonists penetrated the galaxy, a series of strange legends accumulated about the worlds just beyond the rim of our exploration.

These legends told of vast black citadels built by pre-human intelligences that dominated certain deserted planets. And the legends agreed that these colossal structures were not only impenetrable to explorers—but were still in some mysterious way activated.

This is the story of Jerg Algan, into whose restless hands fell the key to the citadels.

This is the story of Jerg Algan whose fate it was to be a “knight” on a cosmic chessboard, leaping to planet to planet as a gambit—a chess sacrifice move—to check the dark monarch who ruled the farther half of the Milky Way.

This is the novel that established Gerard Klein as the leading modern science fiction novelist of Jules Verne’s homeland.

Continue reading “Starmasters’ Gambit” →

The Emperor of the Last Days

The Emperor of the Last Days by Ron Goulart
Popular Library, 1977
Price I paid: 75¢

Dan Farleigh—a pleasant young fellow with a kinky craving for the company of computers.

Janis Trummond—a beautiful young woman reporter out to dig up the dirtiest secrets of a man’s world.

Professor Supermind—mental master of machines.

Tin Lizzie—a gifted if ungainly bionic teen-ager.

Deadend—a Chicago thug whose thoughts were deadly weapons.

No human imagination could have conceived this oddly twisted team—and no human imagination had. Their master and mentor used the name of Bernard Maze. But to friends he was Barney—a computer who decided to take charge before it was too late to save the world from—THE EMPEROR OF THE LAST DAYS.

Continue reading “The Emperor of the Last Days” →

The Feminists

The Feminists by Parley J. Cooper
Pinnacle Books, 1971
Price I paid: $15

THE STORY THAT HAD TO BE WRITTEN—SO TIMELY, SO FRIGHTENINGLY POSSIBLE, YOU WON’T BELIEVE IT’S FICTION!

Take a look into the future…women now rule the world—or most of what’s left of it—and their world is not a pretty place to live in. Men have been reduced to mere chattel, good only for procreation. THE FEMINISTS are working to eliminate even this strictly male function…

Men must get permission to make love to any female—even if she is willing—or the penalty is death!

Follow one man’s story as he is hunted for just such a crime. In desperation, he stumbles upon the hide-out of the subterranean people—others, like himself—both male and female—who have broken the law of THE FEMINISTS. Hiding in abandoned subway undergrounds, this group of gallant and desperate people wage a guerilla war to overthrow their enslavers.

Continue reading “The Feminists” →

The Uncensored Man

The Uncensored Man by Arthur Sellings
Berkley Medallion Books, 1967 (Originally published in 1964)
Price I paid: 90¢

Dr. Mark Anders was one of the government’s top physicists, working on a high priority project concerning defense. Wrapped up in his abstract world of mathematical symbols, he was ill-prepared for the messages he began to receive. They were in words of other languages…and they came from strange sources: the babblings of an epileptic in a fit; the output sheet of a new super computer on a test run.

But this was only the beginning, for he was soon to find himself transported to a different dimension, setting foot on another world, whose people had been desperately trying to contact him in order to deliver a message terrifying in its implications for the future of the human race…

Continue reading “The Uncensored Man” →

Earthchild

Earthchild by Doris Piserchia
DAW Books, 1977
Price I paid: 75¢

She called herself Reee and she was the last human being on Earth. This was the one thing she was sure of. Because Earth was not a dead planet, not by a long way. There were all manner of strange plants and bizarre animals, and there were the blue boys who always insisted they were human—but she always set fire to them.

There was however Indigo, the all-devouring protoplasmic ocean that was literally gobbling up everything in the world. And there was the enigmatic Emeroo to whom she owed her continued existence. There were also the so-called Martians—humans who had fled to Mars and only came back to Earth to scout for survivors and vent their futile furies on the inhospitable homeworld.

And that is as much as we are going to tell about EARTHCHILD, one of the strangest and most fascinating science fiction novels DAW Books (or anyone else) ever published. It’s by Doris Piserchia, author of A BILLION YEARS OF EARTH and STAR RIDER, and it’s a very original DAW Original.

Continue reading “Earthchild” →

Under the City of Angels

Under the City of Angels by Jerry Earl Brown
Bantam Books, 1981
Price I paid: 75¢

Jack Kelso is a scavenger, a half-crazed loner, a burnt-out cause, always one jump ahead of the government, eking out an uneasy living in the sunken ruins of L.A. Then he meets Judith—mysterious, beautiful, driven—who offers him an assignment only “Mad Jack” Kelso would be crazy enough to take on. He takes the job, and gets love in the bargain. Suddenly, their newfound happiness, and perhaps the fate of the entire planet, is threatened by a deadly power struggle on an alien world light centuries away…

Continue reading “Under the City of Angels” →

Unto Zeor, Forever

Unto Zeor, Forever by Jacqueline Lichtenberg
Playboy Press, 1978
Price I paid: $1.25

Humanity has mutated into two distinct races—where the tentacled touch of a Sime means instant death to a Gen. Now only the rare Sime “Channels” are able to maintain an uneasy truce.

Into this explosive situation comes Digen Farris, descendant of the first channel and ruler of the legendary House of Zeor. He dares to do the unthinkable: Digen Farris wants to be a doctor, and his struggle to become the first Sime surgeon could plunge the world into destruction and chaos once more…

Continue reading “Unto Zeor, Forever” →

Earthwreck!

Earthwreck! by Thomas N. Scortia
Fawcett Publications, Inc., 1974
Price I paid: 75¢

The Americans watched from space as the earth erupted in flashes of incredible brilliance. Their probes told them all they had to know. The earth was buried under a blanket of radioactivity. No life remained.

Except for them—and their Russian counterparts.

Together the American and Russian space stations had enough resources to build a colony on the moon. But could they bear life imprisoned in a tiny, man-made pocket of air?

There was no alternative. Or was there? A far more perilous course might ensure the survival of the human race.

Continue reading “Earthwreck!” →