THE INTERPRETER

Digit Books paperback, 1963 reprint. Cover artist uncredited.

"Earthman Gary Towler is treated like a pariah; for his task as chief interpreter for the corrupt and tyrannical Nuls makes other humans avoid him as a traitor. 

Nor is he trusted by the three-armed mammoth rulers themselves. The leaders realize that gary knows too much. 

When the humans leading the underground rebellion demand Gary's aid or his life, he is caught between two untrustful forces. And his only way out is to make himself into a one-man third force against two world's plotters."

STAR MAKER

Pengiun Books paperback, 1973. Cover design by David Pelham.

"One moment a man sits on a suburban hill. The next he is whirling through the firmament. Street lamps become blinding stars and rushing grains swell into planets. 

Like H. G. Wells's time traveller, he visits many worlds, often at times of political and social crisis... Like the 'Other Earth' from which he escapes with the quasi-human Bvaltu just before technological change sweeps and annihilates the planet... Like the worlds of the Nautiloids, men-cum-fish-cum-boats, and the Plant men, vast mobile herbs... 

As they search up and down time and space for the Star Maker behind the cosmos, the two travellers are joined by others, to develop into a strange mental community, both 'I' and 'We', reacting multi-dimensionally to a mind-spinning range of experiences."

ACE DOUBLE: THE GATES OF TIME + DWELLERS OF THE DEEP

Ace Double paperback, 1970. Cover art by Josh Kirby.

"They slithered and twittered and jangled, for they were not men. There was only one man - Jarcal - and he was the last of his kind. 

The advancing vacuum of the voids had sucked Jarcal's worlds into nothingness. But the aliens around him denied its existence; they gibbered inanely when questioned. And then, when Jarcal was discovered to be possessed, they most happily cast him out. 

But if Jarcal was possessed, he was also chosen. For the red dancing slippers of the gods led him through a mission to Armageddon...."

Ace Double paperback, 1970. Cover art by Jack Gaughan.

"What! A science fiction novel about science fiction fans? And why not? 

Or - like it says in this novel: 

"Do you really think science fiction fans could save this planet? Could understand this situation and save it?" "I most certainly do," she says. "Who else?" 

Who else, indeed? Not since Frederic Brown's "What Mad Universe" has there been a novel like this."

PLANET OF NO RETURN

Universal paperback, 1978. Cover by Les Edwards (thanks, Staz).

"WANTED: 

terrestroid planets, habitable but uninhabited, clean of major sicknesses, rich enough to support colonists without outside help. 

FOUND: 

in almost a generation, nothing. 

Then a shipful of astronomers chanced on the troas-illium system. The da gama had set out, but never come home. Now, seven years later, the henry hudson is due to leave on the same mission..."

FRANK R. PAUL: FATHER OF SCIENCE FICTION ART

"Born in 1884, Frank R. Paul was slated to study for the priesthood; instead, he studied art and architectural and mechanical drafting. The impact of these studies are evident in his brilliant and original science-fiction artwork. 

In 1914 Paul met Hugo Gernsback and began illustrating for Gernsback's Electrical Experimenter and Science and Invention. By 1926 when Gernsback's Amazing Stories was born Paul was ready: a talented calligrapher, Paul not only created the magazine's famed comet logo, but also the front cover painting and all of the interior black and white illustrations. Subsequently, over the span of his career, Paul was to paint over 200 published sci-fi covers and in excess of 1,000 black and white interiors. 

To say that Frank R. Paul is the father of science-fiction illustration is an understatement: his fertile imagination, amply demonstrated by the paintings and drawings in this book, speak for themselves and his legacy continues to influence the field today. 

Here, in this giant compendium, is the very first collection ever published showcasing many of Paul's full-color science-fiction artwork along with appreciations and critical essays by Sir Arthur C. Clarke and by Stephen Korshak; Jerry Weist and Roger Hill; Sam Moskowitz; Gerry de la Ree; Forrest J. Ackerman; and Frank Wu."

Artwork for Life On Neptune, from the back cover of Fantastic Adventures,
March 1940.

Cover painting from Science Fiction, December 1939 depicting
Planet Of The Knob-Heads by Stanton A. Coblentz.

The book erroneously credits the above painting as appearing on the cover of Wonder Stories, June 1931, in fact it appeared on the cover of Science Fiction, December 1939.