CHAINING THE LADY

Avon paperback, third printing, 1978. Cover illustration by
Ron Walotsky.

"Ten centuries after the War of Energy, Melody of Mintaka - daughter of Flint the Caveman - assumes the forms of alien and animal, male and female, to bring victory to the people of Cluster against the Andromedan spacefleet. But first she must endure untold humiliation... 

THE MISTRESS OF SPACE IS ENSLAVED!"

Reverse of wraparound cover of the 1978 Avon paperback.

After yesterday's Larry Niven salvo, today I thought I'd make a start on all the Piers Anthony paperbacks I have lying about. This one is my favourite, and with the cover especially so. I don't usually make a habit of scanning both front and back of wraparound covers but I really love the artwork here, by Chesley Award nominee Ron Walotsky - unfortunately, the front was a victim of the phantom permanent-marker-scribbler, so now everyone can see I paid 70p for it.

LEVIATHAN'S DEEP

Orbit paperback, 1981. Cover artist uncredited.

"The Delyene may learn Terre words, but they don't understand the Terrene. There are so many differences; their 'technology', their 'wars', their males unnaturally the rulers, their lack of all female virtues, especially honour. 

But the Delyene are outgunned, outmanned and outscienced; worse, they are contemptuous of dangers they cannot understand and will not see. The Kimassu Lady alone finally comes to appreciate the danger these Terrene 'guests' pose. They must be driven from Delyafam's shores."

CITY OF THE BEAST

NEL paperback, 1974. Cover painting by Boris Vallejo
(thanks: anon).

"There came a peculiar slithering sound from the pit and from it, just to one side of the dais, I saw a great, flat serpent head rise up and begin to sway in rhythm to Horguhl's crooning. It was of a sickly yellowish colour, with long fangs curving out of its mouth from the upper jaw. There was a stale, unwholesome smell about it." 

For Michael Kane, twentieth-century scientist, this is just one of the perils he is forced to face when he finds himself transported to eon-old Mars. All that stands between him and a savage, alien death is his wits and his skill with a sword. 

In this, the first volume of his Martian trilogy, Michael Moorcock - the greatest living writer of heroic fantasy - produces a tale unparalleled since John Carter first paced the trackless emptiness of Barsoom.

DREAM PARK

Orbit paperback, 1983. Cover painting by Peter Jones.

"They were all playing games...but one of them was playing for keeps. 

Chet Henderson was playing at revenge, and to boost his flagging reputation as a Lore-master. 

Richard Lopez was playing to prove that his earlier successes as a Gamesmaster were no fluke. 

Ollie and Gwen and Mary-em and Tony were playing because it made them feel alive. 

Alex Griffin was palying to protect Dream Park's darkest secret. 

In Dream Park, everyone plays. But if some win, some have to lose. And losing can be a matter of life or death."

THE RINGWORLD ENGINEERS

Orbit paperback, 1981. Cover painting by Peter Jones.

In the decade since its first appearance, RINGWORLD has become the most talk-about locale in Known Space and made the name of Larry Niven synonymous with ingenious, inimitable SF. 

THE RINGWORLD ENGINEERS sees the return of Louis Wu (now hooked on electrical ecstasy as a wirehead) and the aging kzin warrior Speaker-To-Animals, while introducing the Hindmost, puppeteer mate of made Nessus: Together the bizarre crew seek to avert tragic cataclysm in the Ringworld System."

THE MAGIC GOES AWAY

Orbit paperback, 1982. Cover painting by Peter Jones.

"Once there was magic in the world. But hordes of selfish, short-sighted magicians have used up the mana which moved the world and even the most powerful spells are becoming futile. Soon all the creatures of spirit, the unicorns and centaurs, will have disappeared, and unless Orolandes with half a sword succeeds in his quest for the lost power, those stupid barbarians with their stupid swords will win after all..."

THE PATCHWORK GIRL

Orbit paperback, 1982. Cover painting by Peter Jones.

"Only the most beautiful woman on Luna could have sent a near fatal laser into the chest of the Fourth Speaker for the Asteroids. And with the evidence stacked against her she may be destined for the organ bank where criminals wait to 'repay society' with their bodies. Investigator Gil Hamilton will need to move fast to save her from becoming a nicely arranged stack of spare parts."

CONVERGENT SERIES

Orbit paperback, 1980. Cover painting by Peter Jones.

CONVERGENT SERIES 

What the devil can a nice guy messing around in witchcraft do when he succeeds? Think fast - before all hell gets loose. 

THE NONESUCH 

Pretty young Doris MacAran was unaware that a hungry mind-reading, flesh-eating alien was stalking her - and when she found out, it surprised them both in more ways than one. 

CRUEL AND UNUSUAL 

One thing you could say about the chirpsthra - they knew how to make the punishment fit the crime. 

Plus stories from the DRACO'S TAVERN Series.

Contents:

Bordered In Black

One Face

Like Banquo's Ghost

The Meddler

Dry Run

Convergent Series

The Deadlier Weapon

The Nonesuch

Singularities Make Me Nervous

The Schumann Computer

Assimilating Our Culture, That's What They're Doing!

Grammar Lesson

The Subject Is Closed

Cruel And Unusual

Transfer Of Power

Cautionary Tales

Rotating Cylinders And The Possibility Of Global Casualty Violation

Plaything

Mistake

Night On Mispec Moor

Wrong Way Street

PROTECTOR

Orbit paperback, 1979 reprint. Cover painting by Peter Jones.

"PHSSTHPOK THE PAK had been travelling for most of his 32,000 years - his mission, to save, develop and protect the group of Pak breeders sent out into space some 2 ½ million years before... 

BREENAN WAS A BELTER, the product of a fiercely independent, somewhat anarchic society living in, on, and around an outer asteroid belt. The Belters were rebels one and all, and Brennan was a smuggler. The Belt worlds had been tracking the Pak ship for days - Brennan figured to meet that ship first... 

He was never seen again - at least not in the form of Homo sapiens."

I'm finding it a bit bizarre than in the five years that I've been posting on this blog, this is the first of my Larry Niven novels I've posted. What I've also noticed is I'm still to put Heinlein's Starship Troopers up. What gives?

NAIL DOWN THE STARS

NEL paperback, 1979. Illustration: Joe Petagno.

"STARFARER AND SKILLMAN, 

Jolon Gallmor has been on the run since his tenth birthday. Among the diverse races and worlds of the galaxy so vividly described in STARBRAT, Jolon's skills as playwright, actor and bard are his passport to privilege and acclaim, all too often to peril and banishment. With each new planet he reaches, Jolon finds himself taking on a new role, hiding his past and keeping one step ahead of the catastrophe which threatens him. 

TROOPER OF THE STERNVEREIN, 

Thief, slave and fugitive, Jolon the peaceable battles his way around the universe, until as Alladale Anthem-maker he defeats an army and wins a world without spilling a drop of blood."

DAGGER OF THE MIND

Pan SF paperback, 1981. Cover illustration by George Underwood.

"'THE ENTIRE HEAD HAD BEEN STRIPPED OF SKIN, CREATING A NIGHTMARISH SCULPTURE IN GELLED BLOOD...' 

The hideous apparition that confronted John Redpath almost defied description. It was the beginning of a horrific ordeal that would cause him to question his own sanity... 

A member of the telepathic research project, Redpath believes the cause to be side-effects from the experimental drugs he is taking - but then stranger things begin to happen. He wakes up to find himself in America...he is drawn to a local house occupied by a bizarre group of people leading an artificial and peculiar life...which events are really happening? 

SLOWLY AN EXPLANATION EMERGES, MORE TERRIFYING THAN ANYTHING HE COULD HAVE IMAGINED..."

ON WINGS OF SONG

Magnum paperback, 1981. Cover illustration: Chris Moore.

"The twenty-first century in the United States. 

Society ranges from the extremes of megadecadent New York to the bleakly repressive and religiously obsessed mid-western states like Iowa. A future where the ultimate trip is to release the spirit through singing and fly, leaving the body behind in suspension. But in Iowa singing and music are taboo. 

Daniel Weinrib grows up in Iowa, and as a teenager is sent to Spirit Lake detention centre for circulating a radical newspaper - a prison without bars where each prisoner carries an electrically controlled explosive in his stomach. 

Although embittered by this experience, Daniel is determined to learn to fly. His struggle leads him through the grotesque extremes of the country in which he lives."

SURVIVOR

Sphere SF paperback, 1981. Cover artist uncredited. Possibly
Tony Roberts?

"ALANNA 

was a wild savage when Jules Verrick's Christian Missionaries caught her stealing from their land. They shot her and would have killed her if not for the intervention of the leader of their cult. Jules carried her back to his house, tended her wound, and announced that she would become his adopted daughter. 

He taught Alanna to be human, at least to all outward appearances. But Alanna had plans of her own - and they didn't include becoming human. And as things turned out it was best for Jules, best for his people, and especially for Alanna. For soon they left Earth and settled on a strange, barbarous planed inhabited by warring tribes of aliens. And in a desperate bid to save the cult from extinction Alanna became something else entirely..."

This might be one of the scarcest books I own. Octavia E. Butler's "Star Trek" book* Survivor was last printed in English in 1981 (this edition) and hasn't been reprinted since. You can find it on eBay, Amazon, etc. for prices ranging from £50, to £80 (this edition), to £155 (1st edition). I didn't pay anything near that by the way, this copy was at the bottom of a box of about 70 books I bought in bulk for £25. Everyone I know said sell it! But who's going to cough up that much for a single paperback?

*It's got nothing to do with Star Trek. Butler simply disliked the novel and referred to it this way because it featured humans and aliens mating.

FLUX AND THE TIN ANGEL

Fontana paperback, 1979. Cover painting by Peter Jones.

"TWO COMPLETE NOVELS IN ONE VOLUME - A HEFTY DOSE OF RON GOULART'S OWN SPECIAL BRAND OF COMIC MADNESS 

Ron Goulart writes the wildest and whackiest books in the whole field of science fiction. in FLUX, secret agent Ben Jolson has to sort out the bizarre planet Jaspar where girls and boys are being made into human bombs which explode on contact. Jolson is a member of the galaxy-famous Chameleon Corps and can turn himself into just about anything - a doctor, a lawyer, an Indian chief, a refrigerator. But his task on Jaspar strains even this master of disguise to the limit. 

Bowser is the TIN ANGEL, a wise-cracking bionic dog and top-rated star of 1999's television. But to Bert Schenley, his agent, he's still just a dog - and a constant source of anguish. They go off on tour to California where a guerilla war is in full swing. True to form Bowser doesn't let such a minor distraction grab the headlines from him - even though the rebel fighters are intent on blotting both Bert and Bowser out."

SPECIAL DELIVERANCE

Methuen paperback, 1984. Cover illustration: Chris Moore.

"They were six ill-assorted players of the strangest game ever devised. Set on a strange planet, they knew neither its rules or its aim. There was the giant blue cube, the ruined city, the singing tower, the roaring wall of Chaos - all deadly dangerous, all part of the challenge that the unwilling travellers must confront. But what was it all for - and would they survive to find out?"