ACE DOUBLE: BOW DOWN TO NUL / THE DARK DESTROYERS

Ace Books, 1960. Cover by Ed Emshwiller.

Cover by Ed Valigursky.

BOW DOWN TO NUL

Ace paperback, 1966. Cover by Jack Gaughan.

HELLICONIA SPRING

Granada / Triad paperback, 1983. Cover illustration by Tom Gill.

"The great drama of life on Helliconia is shaped by its cosmic limitations. It revolves with three other planets round the star Batalix, the whole group revolving in turn in a giant ellipse round Freyr, fifteen times the size of our sun and 60,000 times as luminous... 

In the fierce contrasts of climate, whole seasons last for centuries and civilizations rise and fall with each three-millennia orbit of Freyr. The winter alone of that Great Year would last for some five centuries..."

THE PENGUIN SCIENCE FICTION OMNIBUS

Penguin SF paperback, 1980. Cover illustration by Tom Stimpson.

"THE BIGGEST, MOST EXCITING COLLECTION OF SCIENCE FICTION STORIES EVER! 

Including stories from such masters as Harry Harrison, Isaac Asimov, Frederik Pohl, Arthur C. Clarke, C. M. Kornbluth, James Blish, Clifford Simak, J. G. Ballard and many more... 

Selected and introduced by Brian Aldiss"

Contents:

Sole Solution by Eric Frank Russell

Lot by Ward Moore

The Short-Short Story of Mankind by John Steinbeck

Skirmish by Clifford Simak

Poor Little Warrior! by James H. Schmitz

The Half Pair by Bertram Chandler

Command Performance by Walter M. Miller

Nightfall by Isaac Asimov

The Snowball Effect by Katherine Maclean

The End of Summer by Algis Budrys
Track 12 by J. G. Ballard

The Monkey Wrench by Gordon R. Dickson

The First Men by Howard Fast

Counterfeit by Alan E. Nourse

The Greater Thing by Tom Godwin

Build Up Logically by Howard Schoenfeld

The Liberation of Earth by William Tenn

An Alien Agony by Harry Harrison

The Tunnel Under the World by Frederik Pohl

The Store of the Worlds by Robert Sheckley

Jokester by Isaac Asimov

Pyramid by Robert Abernathy

The Forgotten Enemy by Arthur C. Clarke

COMIC INFERNO

1973 NEL Paperback. Artwork by Bruce Pennington.

"A time when robots and romen carry out the tasks. A time when man gets along with man. In the skies float the R.S.P.C.R. men - Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Robots - and there seems to be little that can disturb the calm of 22nd Century man. That is, until a strange manuscript finds its way onto Birdlip's the publisher's desk. 

Javlin is preparing for his bout in the arena. He is in a strange world of insect captors, watching the Games for their amusement. And he does not know that his partner against the dreaded yillibeeths is to be - a woman. 

These are just two of the creations from the intergalactic pen of Brian Aldiss. They are always fresh, always amusing and always the best."

Contains Comic Inferno, The Under-Privileged, Cardiac Arrest, In The Arena, All The World's Tears, Amen And Out, The Soft Predicament, As For Our Fatal Continuity and Send Her Victorious.

THE INTERPRETER

NEL paperback, 1975. Artwork by Bruce Pennington

"The time is a distant, infinite future. The place is Earth - a minor planet in a universe enslaved by an alien race. A charge of corruption in their tyrannical regime leads to a threat of human rebellion. For Gary Towler, chief interpreter to the aliens, the situation is desperate. After eons of servitude, he has one chance to free Earth."

My third copy of The Interpreter, I must be collecting them unwittingly - the edition I really want has a Josh Kirby painting on the cover. In the USA The Interpreter was published as Bow Down To Nul, a particular Ace Double edition has a fantastic Emsh painting on the cover.

THE INTERPRETER

Digit Books paperback, 1961. 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 worlds' plotters."

EARTHWORKS

Four Square paperback, 1967. Cover artwork by Karel Thole.

"Disease-ridden, overpopulated; robots and prison-gangs tending the bare, poison-drenched countryside; the people near starvation. This is the world Knowie Noland, ex-convict, ex-traveller, and captain of the tramp freighter trieste star knows and accepts - because there is nothing better to hope for. 

To the beautiful girl named Justine it is a degrading and inhuman condition which can be overcome by global war - a war she wants knowie to start. 

Knowie has always believed that war was a futile and senseless answer to man's problems. But under Justine's persuasive logic he begins to hope that a shot he can fire will lead to the ultimate death of millions and be the start of a better world for the survivors."

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."

SPACE, TIME AND NATHANIEL

NEL paperback, 1971. Cover painting by Bruce Pennington.

"SPACE: T - the inhabitant of a machine that was built by an ancient race of non-humans - had just one duty, to totally destroy a planet from our solar system! 

TIME: Every day, Rodney Furnell awoke to a groaning bedspring. Every day he leaned over and gently kissed his wife's forehead. Every day an audience laughed at him! 

NATHANIEL: He is told a story about the ultimate bureaucrat. A man who brings prosperity to a backward world just by filling in forms and filing reports. 

In these, and eleven other stories, Britain's leading writer of science fiction explores the outer vastness of space and the inner obscurity of man." 

 Contents:

T
Our Kind Of Knowledge
Psyclops
Conviction
Not For An Age
The Shubshub Race
Criminal Record
The Failed Men
Supercity
There Is A Tide
Pogsmith
Outside
Panel Game
Dumb Show

SCIENCE FICTION ART - THE FANTASIES OF SF

NEL softcover, 1975. Central image (girl & alien) by Edd Cartier.

Painting by Malcolm Smith, on the cover of Imagination, June 1954.

Illustration by Hannes Bok, from his book The Sorcerer's Ship

Illustration by Henry Sharp, for William Tenn's The Last Bounce, from Fantastic Adventures,
September, 1950.

Illustration by Henry Sharp for Robert Adams' Empire Of Evil, from Amazing Stories, January 1951.

Illustration by Virgil Finlay for Abraham Merritt's The Snake Mother, from
Fantastic Novels, November 1940.

Illustration by Virgil Finlay for Leigh Brackett's The Big Jump, from
Space Stories, February, 1953.

The Man From Mars - painting by Frank R. Paul, from the rear cover of
Fantastic Adventures, 1939.

The 'key' to Frank R. Paul's The Man From Mars.

PERILOUS PLANETS

Orbit paperback, 1980. Cover painting by Tim White.

"Planetfall. Beyond the helmet's visor beckons an unknown, unexplored planet, awaiting the footprint of man. Walk across the sunward side of Mercury; meet with the Lizard People who murder their excess womenfolk; shelter with the telepathic Quogs during their unearthly monsoon; view the granite goddess, an icon as vast as a continent. 

Frederik Pohl, A.E. van Vog, Robert Silverberg and Norman Spinrad join forces with some of the neglected great classics from vintage pulp magazines of three decades in this anthology of worlds compiled by Brian Alidss."

Contents:

Mouth Of Hell by David I. Masson

Brightside Crossing by Alan E. Nourse

The Sack by William Morrison

The Monster by A. E. Van Vogt

The Monsters by Robert Sheckley

Grenville's Planet by Michael Shaara

Beachhead by Clifford D. Simak

The Ark Of James Carlyle by Cherry Wilder

On The River and Goddess In Granite by Robert F. Young

The Seekers by E. C. Tubb

When The People Fell by Cordwainer Smith

The Titan by P. Schuyler Miller

Four In One by Damon Knight

The Age Of Invention by Norman Spinrad

The Snowmen by Frederik Pohl

Schwartz Between The Galaxies by Robert Silverberg

THE MOMENT OF ECLIPSE

Panther SF paperback, 1973. Cover painting by Bob Haberfield
 (thanks, Mark).

"There's No Time Like the Future... 

and here Brian W. Aldiss proves it brilliantly in fourteen stories of devastating power. From an outrageous satire to haunting fantasy, the renowned author of such science fiction classics as Greybeard and Hothouse displays his unmatched talent for creating tales that illuminate times-to-come with the disconcerting intensity of a cobalt bomb's heat-flash..."

Contents:


The Moment Of Eclipse
The Day We Embarked For Cythera
Orgy Of The Living And The Dying
Super-Toys Last All Summer Long
The Village Swindler
Down The Up Escalation
That Uncomfortable Pause Between Life And Art
Confluence
Heresies Of The Huge God
Circulation Of The Blood And Stagnation Of The Heart
The Worm That Flies
Working In The Spaceship Yards
Swastika!