Friday, March 9, 2018

Sci-fi book cover: "Adventures on Other Planets"


  • Title: Adventures on Other Planets
  • Editor: Donald A. Wollheim (1914-1990)
  • Authors: Roger Dee, Robert Moore Williams, Clifford D. Simak, Murray Leinster, A.E. Van Vogt
  • Cover illustrator: Ed Valigursky (1926-2009)
  • Publisher: Ace Books (D-490)
  • Edition: Third printing, 1961
  • Book's first publication: 1955 (The stories were all originally written between 1944 and 1954.)
  • Price: 35 cents (I paid $2.)
  • Pages: 160
  • Format: Paperback
  • Back-cover excerpt: "ALL ABOARD FOR OUTER SPACE! Already man is taking the first steps into space! The artificial satellite you've read about in the papers is but the first exciting step that will open up a universe of wonders. Here's a new science-fiction anthology that presents some of the astounding ADVENTURES ON OTHER PLANETS that may be awaiting us..."
  • First sentence (from Dee's story): The Kornephorian robot-ship came in low over the raging sea.
  • Last sentence (from Van Vogt's story): The Rull-human war was over.
  • Random sentence from middle (Simak's story): "Still cabbage soup," said the Encyclopedia.
  • Goodreads rating: 3.5 stars out of 5.
  • Thoughts from cyberspace: On the Pamphlets of Destiny website, Lawrence Burton wrote about his admiration for this book in 2016. Here's an excerpt: "The cover alone was difficult to resist ... Science-fiction as a genre has an unfortunate reputation of tending to peddle the same old crap over and over, particularly work of this vintage, and this collection is as good a refutation of the argument as any. Sure, there are spaceships and aliens and intrepid Earth people setting foot on other planets, but once we're past those basics, there's some truly screwy, unpredictable shit going on in this one." ... Some of Burton's online reviews are available in a print collection that's wonderfully titled Crappy 1970s Paperbacks with Airbrushed Spacecraft on the Covers.

2 comments:

  1. Yes to that cover. No to cabbage soup. Crappy 1970s Paperbacks with Airbrushed Spacecraft on the Covers is in the running for one of the best titles ever :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. And here I thought I was the only owner of an old book in which cabbage makes a random appearance...

    ReplyDelete