GREYLAND

Belmont Tower paperback, 1972. Cover artist uncredited.

"He awoke as from some misty, prolonged, vaguely disturbing dream, yet somehow he knew that what had happened and what was happening had a strange reality. It was not the kind of reality his disciplined mind would have accepted in the past, though his consciousness rejected the concept of present and past. This reality seemed to exist outside thought and apart from emotion. There was the lingering physical sensation of having travelled infinite distances through unimaginable dimensions. There was, too, the sense of unthreatening mystery, of soft, overpowering greyness. This total greyness meant limitless peace, he seemed to know. He knew his name. He spoke it aloud. The beautiful girl bending over him repeated it. her skin was grey..."

ACE DOUBLE: THE COILS OF TIME + INTO THE ALTERNATE UNIVERSE

Ace Double paperback, 1964. Cover by Jack Gaughan.

"Dr. Henshaw had created what he thought was a time travel machine and he had sent guinea pigs through it. But now he needed a human guinea pig to test it with. 

Christopher Wilkinson thought the whole idea was absurd, until a book that had been sent through the machine came back with a thumb print on it, the finger print of Vanessa, his long lost sweetheart! 

So Wilkinson agreed to the experiment. He stood in the white circle facing the machine as it began to gleam and spin, pulling him down through the tortuous coils of time...."

Ace Double paperback, 1964. Cover by Ed Valigursky.

"Others called their expedition a "wild ghost chase." But for Space Commodore John Grimes and the beautiful Sonya Verrill who had initiated the project, it was strictly scientific research. Their trip along the rim of the galaxy in search of two men - two dead men - was also an investigation of the long-puzzling phenomenon of the Rim Ghosts. They would do this by penetrating into alternate universes. 

There was only one real problem involved in this study - how to report its results. For once the break-through to an alternate world was achieved, there was no known way of getting out...."

ACE DOUBLE: OFF CENTER + THE RITHIAN TERROR

Ace Double paperback, 1965. Cover by Jack Gaughan.

"The room was quiet; the man in front of the mirror was the only living thing there, and he was too horrified to utter a sound. 

In the mirror, five faces stared back at him: one young and ruddy, which was his own, and four that did not belong in that place at all, for they were wrinkled, malevolent, small as crabapples and blue as smoke. 

So begins Damon Knight's "Be My Guest," a story of the human race possessed by things that were - well, not exactly demons ... but not exactly not demons, either. It's just one of the unpredictable imaginitive tales in this fascinating collection by a modern master of science fiction." 

Contents: 

What Rough Beast

The Second-Class Citizen

Be My Guest

God's Nose

Catch That Martian

Ace Double paperback, 1965. Painting by Jack Gaughan.

"The fate of the Earth Empire hung in the balance - and Security Commissioner Spangler knew it was up to him to find the monster, the Rithian Terror, ans some called it. Seven Rithians had landed on Earth. Six had been disposed of. One was loose. 

Surely, Spangler reasoned, the stereoptic fluroscope would flush it out. "That's one test the Rithian can't meet, no matter how good his human disguise may be." Spangler explained to Pembun, the strange, little Colonial who had been sent to help find the monster. 

But Penbun didn't agree. "The trouble," he said, "is that the Rithi have no bones. Which would be indication enough under a fluroscope, if it weren't for the fact that it can easily swallow a skeleton." 

Spangler Shuddered."

ORDEAL IN OTHERWHERE

Ace paperback, 1965. Cover painting by Gray Morrow.

"Fans of Andre Norton are familiar with the planet Warlock and its shimmering, powerful witches, the matriarchal Wyverns, who rule by dreams. ORDEAL IN OTHERWHERE goes back to this familiar science-fiction setting, this time with young Charis Nordholm, who has been sold as a slave to a trader wishing to buy cloth from these strange creatures. Charis soon finds herself not only mixed up in a mysterious internecine warfare she does not understand..."