ROBERT SHECKLEY: FUTUROPOLIS

Cover by Alan Daniels.

Futuropolis: 

"Is a memorable illustration-packed journey to the extraordinary cities of the future as envisioned by some of the most notable artists, writers, philosophers, architects and film makers, past and present, ever assembled in one volume. Here are the fantastic visions of Piero della Francesca and Buckminster Fuller, of Plato, George Orwell and Isaac Asimov, of Fritz Lang, of Breughel and Druillet, and many more. Impossible cities? Nothing but science fiction and fantasy? Many of these astounding visions already exist."

Robert Sheckley: 

"A well-known science fiction writer whose works include Mindswap, Dimension Of Miracles, Citizen In Space and The Tenth Victim, which was made into a movie starring Ursula Andress and Marcello Mastroianni. A Brooklyn-born graduate of New York University, he lives with his family in London."

Painting by Colin Hay for The Lathe Of Heaven by Ursula Le Guin.

Painting by Bob Layzell.

"Fire Time" by Colin Hay.

Amazing Science Fiction Stories, February 1959. Illustration by Phil Berry.

"The City Crumbles" by Bob Layzell.

"Torquedara Varenkor" by Philippe Druillet.

Painting by George Underwood.

Céméroon by Philippe Druillet.

BILL, THE GALACTIC HERO...ON THE PLANET OF BOTTLED BRAINS

VGSF / Gollancz paperback, 1991. Cover illustration by
Michael W. Kaluta and Steve Fastner.

"Bill should know that you never complain in the Troopers. But when his new foot looks like turning into something green, scaly and abundantly clawed, a visit to the medics would seem reasonable. But before he can say 'Quintiform computer error' he seems to have got himself volunteered again, this time for a suicide mission on Tsuris - the planet nobody ever comes back from. 

A number, exactly a billion in fact, of Tsurisians have no body to speak of, and reside in bottles, which as Bill remarks, is an awful lot of bottles. And Bill is going to need all the bottle he possesses to get himself out of this one... 

If you want to bravely probe where no one has ever probed before, then join Bill, Splock and Captain Dirk as once again our Galactic Hero investigates new depths in the realms of the science fiction cliche."

MINDSWAP

Ace paperback, 1978. Cover painting by Howard Darden.

"It all started with a perfectly ordinary classified ad: 

"Gentleman from Mars, age 43, quiet, studious, cultured. Wishes to exchange bodies with similarly inclined Earth gentleman; August 1 - September 1. References exchanged, Brokers Protected."

At 31, Marvin Flynn was practically an adult; was it merely the vestiges of adolescent foolishness that sent him to the body-brokerage firm of Otis, Blanders and Klent? Or was it extraterrestrial fervor? Whatever it was,  Marvin knew he must see the Burrows of Mars, the Talking Ocean, the Disappearing Desert and - above all - Mud Heaven. 

What he didn't know was that more than one person had claims on the body of Ze Kraggash, and that before he was finished he would see more strange sights - through even stranger eyes - than he had ever imagined. That in his desperate struggle for continued corporeal existence he would fall pray to Metaphoric Deformation, the limitations of the Set-Expansion Factor, and at last descend/ascend/extend to the strange and unexplainable reaches of the Twisted World - for the ultimate MINDSWAP"

DIMENSION OF MIRACLES

Panther Science Fiction paperback, 1977. Front cover illustration
by Peter Gudynas.

"When Thomas Carmody wins the jackpot in the Intergalactic Sweepstakes, he is whisked off to galactic headquarters to claim his prize in person. But when he arrives in outer space, the only problem is - how does he get back to Earth? The odyssey home takes him through the most extraordinary worlds, populated by extraordinary people. And over all looms the terror of his personal predator - a monster of many guises, designed and created specially for devouring Carmodys..."

MINDSWAP

Mayflower paperback, 1969 reprint. Cover artist uncredited.

"Inter-stellar travel is only for the rich, the colonists, the administrators. But Marvin Flynn, tucked away in the sleepy town of Stanhope, longs to travel in space. 

So he answers the advertisement to swap bodies with a Martian. 

It is his passport to the most amazing science-fiction adventure you will ever read!"

JOURNEY BEYOND TOMORROW

Corgi paperback, 1966. Cover artist uncredited.

"Joenes was a man of the fabulous twentieth century, that remote and misty period of time about which very little is known.

Many tales are told of Joenes and his travels through the last years of the old era and the first years of the new but now, for the first time, the stories of Joenes have been carefully collected and together they present a fascinating picture of that mythical period of time known as the twentieth century."