VOR

Avon paperback, fifth printing, April 1970. Cover by Don Crowley.

"FIRST CONTACT! 

The glowing ovoid plummeted earthward, the sky screaming like a metallic banshee as the air boiled away from its sides. 

A supersonic boom broke over the forest. The curious thing glided down; earth fountained away from it like water, and the forest burst into flame! 

Then a thin black line etched a circle on the side of the metal egg; the circle thickened into a door, or airlock; the air was rent by a searing, screaming hiss and suddenly - the strange being soon to be known to all mankind as 

VOR 

emerged...."

STRANGE RELATIONS

Panther SF paperback, 1973. Artist uncredited.

"Philip José Farmer is one of the handful of authors who made science fiction grow up. Unlike so many other sf writers, he has never been afraid to explore to the furthest limits of the bizarre, terrifying and grotesque the implications of man's contact with completely alien life-forms in outer space. In this outstanding collection of brilliantly disturbing stories man meets alien in a weird variety of ways. The results of these encounters will shock, startle and astound you. They will also open your mind to a new awareness of the rance of experience available to man in an infinite universe..."

Contents:

Mother
Daughter
Father
Son
My Sister's Brother

Today was definitely a day for oddball book covers - I bought this at the same time (and place) that I got Philip Bedford Robinson's Masque Of A Savage Mandarin.

MASQUE OF A SAVAGE MANDARIN

Panther Science Fiction paperback, 1974. Artist uncredited,
possibly Bob Haberfield.

"Nicholas Coad, the Savage Mandarin: detached, scientific, 'converted' into a state of 'sublime, cosmic indifference'. He is working on a unique project - the 'conversion' and liberation of the soul or higher self from chains of physical bondage. His 'patient' is his good-natured neighbour, Rogers, up-and-coming ad-man. Rogers does not realise that his piercing headaches are caused by the fearsome, hypnotic in coad's flat. But as coad brings him further along the path to liberation, he has no choice. After all, his brain now resembles a chunk of Gruyére cheese..."

Well, you don't see a book cover like that every day (!) the artwork looks familiar but I can't place a name. Haven't read this one yet (like so many others - my 'reading list' is seven feet tall) but judging from the synopsis on the back cover, it's the literary equivalent of taking a few 'shrooms. Thanks to Mark for suggesting the cover artist might be Bob Haberfield, it looks psychedelic enough to be his work to me!

OTHER WORLDS SCIENCE STORIES JUNE 1956

Cover painting by Virgil Finlay

LOST DORSAI

Orbit paperback, 1991. Artwork by Les Edwards.

"Renowned throughout the galaxy as the finest soldiers ever born, the men of the Dorsai had been hired by El Conde, sovereign of Gebel Nahar, to transform his raggle-taggle army into a fighting force to be reckoned with. Now revolution had erupted, and the men once trained by the Dorsai bore arms against them. Bound by their rigid code of honour, the mercenaries' first duty was to protect el conde from the rebels. But what chance had a handful of warriors, however noble and fearless, against the massed ranks of the Naharese?"

SPIRIT OF THE DORSAI

Orbit paperback, 1989. Artwork by Les Edwards.

"The spirit of Dorsai is an illumination of the heart and soul of the planet dorsai and its people, showing with epic clarity and unforgettable vision how and why the Dorsai fight and live. It tells of the beginning when the first Dorsai was formed by mercenaries willing to fight others' battles to buy freedom for their own homes. It tells how even children and old men fought for the dream of the Dorsai. From the mouth of Amanda Morgan, direct descendant of two illustrious women who bore her name, the full story is told in all its splendour."

NEW WORLDS SCIENCE FICTION AUGUST 1961

Cover painting by Sydney Jordan.

TIME STORM

Sphere SF paperback, 1987. Artwork by Peter Elson.

"The day the time storm struck, Marc Despard was one of the handful to survive. Mist walls, moving endlessley across the surface of the earth, created a devastated, shifting patchwork of temporal anarchy. 

But Despard saw strange, dazzling patterns in his head that he knew could lead him through the storm. In the violent, terrifying landscape of an ever-changing world he began to realise his awe-inspiring mission: he must become nothing less than master of the universe - he must become god."

THE STAR WITCHES

Hodder paperback, 1965. Cover artist uncredited.

"A man has been experimenting to make contact with the outer world. One night he disappears - to become the master of the forces he has unleashed, or their first victim?"

THE BIG TIME

Orbit paperback, 1976. Cover artist uncredited,
possibly Bob Haberfield.

"The secret of time travel is the exclusive property of two huge, shadowy organizations who send their agents into the past to change crucial events in history and thus remodel the world in their own image. Fritz Leiber's masterpiece of sustained surrealistic imagination is the most remarkable novel ever to win science fiction's coveted Hugo award."

OUR LADY OF DARKNESS

Fontana SF paperback, 1978. Cover illustration
by Roy Ellsworth.

"What was the evil figure that haunted Franz Westen? Was it his imagination, or was it something infinitely more frightening, connected somehow with those old books he'd been reading? For there was much in those books to connect the figure with the bizarre twilight world of San Francisco in the 1920s, the world of H. P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton smith, Jack London, Dashiell Hammett and Aleister Crowley. The more westen plunged into those misty reaches of the occult, the more he would uncover things which had perhaps better lain undisturbed. For Westen, in trying to unravel the mystery of our lady of darkness, was gambling with his life."

THE TEXTS OF FESTIVAL

Mayflower SF paperback, 1975. Cover illustration by Peter Jones.

"In the wilderness of Britain little of civilization remains. Decadence and division have overtaken the huddled people of festival. And faith in the texts of the old gods - Dhillon, Djeggar and Morrizen - is fading fast. 

Beyond the city walls the tribes are massing, united in evil intent. Hill savages fired by ritual superstition to pillage and slaughter. Satanic horseriders inspired by drugs to rape and defile. And crystal-crazed iggy at the head of them all - a despot in search of a territory. A territory like festival."

THE MAGAZINE OF FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION MAY 1961

Cover by Ed Emshwiller ("Emsh").

MASTERS OF SPACE

Orbit paperback, 1976. Cover artist uncredited.

"Among the handful of writers who make up the real hardcore of science fiction, Edward E. Smith stands supreme. His 'Skylark' and 'Lensman' series set a standard for breathtaking intergalactic adventure which has never been surpassed. 

MASTERS OF SPACE 

shows the master story-teller at the top of his form in this story of a brash new race erupting into space, determined to risk their very existence in a bid to take over the Galactic Empire and prevent it falling into the hands of tyrants."

THE CLOCKWORK TRAITOR

Panther SF paperback, 1977. Cover illustration by Chris Foss.

"Jules and Yvette d'Alembert had faced challenges before - but rarely one as daunting as this. To them fell the perilous task of infiltrating a vicious conspiracy which threatened to destroy the Stanley Dynasty and throw the whole interstellar civilization into chaos. 

Now, as rival candidates from all corners of the galaxy gather for the progress, the two most daring space super-agents of all time go into action. For among the suitors competing to be consort to the royal heiress of the empire of earth, there is a traitor. And somewhere close to the princess, a time bomb is ticking..."