Another Wilhelm to add to my growing stack of her novels and collections—I’ve read and reviewed quite a few recently: Margaret and I (1971), The Downstairs Room and Other Speculative Fiction (1968), and Juniper Time (1979)

More Malzberg (Ace Double story collection + discursive SF novel about fandom)—early stuff from his K. M. O’Donnell pseudonym days.

Clarke’s first novel—although my edition does not have the amazing cover I placed in the post (sorry!).

And, the perhaps OK novel, Ice & Iron (1974) by Wilson Tucker.  I really should read his more famous time travel novels first, I have at least two on the shelf….

Enjoy!

1. The Infinity Box, Kate Wilhelm (1975)

(Ed Soyka’s cover for the 1977 edition)

From the back cover: “A man’s eerie ability to enter—and control—the mind a vulnerable young woman turns into a sexual nightmare…. A hack writer with fading skills finds his sap operas foretelling the future…. His retirement present, a watch, takes a man back into his own past…. American soldiers attack the wrong country—their own.”

2. Ice & Iron, Wilson Tucker (1974)

(Darrell Sweet’s cover for the 1984 edition)

From the back cover of an earlier edition (sam cover): “Fisher Highsmith had problems.  One of his problems was recording the progress of the inexorable mountains of ice moving down over the Earth and destroying civilization.  Another of his problems was trying to seduce the only woman available at his isolated outpost… a beautiful polylibrarian with all the warmth of a glacier.  But his biggest problem was finding out why naked primitive bodies were raining down from the sky…  warrior corpses that looked as if they belonged to Earth’s Stone Age, but were instead part of a terrifying chilling history to come.  And as if that weren’t trouble enough—suddenly one of the corpses came down.. alive!”

3. Prelude to Space (variant title: The Space Dreamers, Master of Space), Arthur C. Clarke (1951)

(Bunch’s cover for the 1951 edition)

From the inside flap of a much later Lancer edition (gross cover, couldn’t bear to put it up): “Prometheus… the man who stole the gift of fire from the gods …the ship that will steal the gift of space from the universe.”

4. In the Pocket and Other S-F Stories + Gather in the Hall of Planets, Barry N. Malzberg (writing as K. M. O’Donnell)

(Jack Gaughan and Karel Thole’s cover for the 1971 edition)

From the inside flap of the Gather in the Hall of the Planets (1971) side of the Ace Double: “Being a novelized version of the remarkable interplanetary events that took place at the World Science Fiction Convention of 1974”

From the inside flap of the In the Pocket and Other S-F Stories (1971) side of the Ace Double: “Where the writing of science fiction is concerned, no one can say that the talent of K. M. O’Donnell is not unique.  Taking his cue from no other writers, he has produced an amazing array of short stories of many different types, but always showing the sharp and often frighteningly discerning eye for the contradictions and paradozes of the future, the present, the universe, time, and the unpredictable reactions of that most variable of all beings—the human being.  IN THE POCKET is a stunning collection of his best short stories.  Utilizing some of the better techniques developed by writers of the “New Wave” such as Ballard and Aldiss, and combining also the older and more recognized narrative techniques of the established “Main Wave,” he is always sure to come up with twists on the themes of science fiction and fantasy that will never fail to startle.”