Finally, a famous (“Joachim Boaz you will adore it”) fix-up novel by Keith Roberts enters my collection….
Overpopulation SF never gets old—even if I have low expectations about this one.
More Pangborn and a singleton Cherryh novel I had never heard of….
Thoughts?
1. A Torrent of Faces, James Blish & Norman L. Knight (1967)
(Diane and Leo Dillon’s cover for the 1968 edition)
From the back cover: “‘You may never again see a novel of science fiction within which there is an imaginary world so intricately detailed and fleshed out.’
—Amazing Stories
‘In the year 2794 the Earth is ravaged by over-population and lack of food, even through all available foodstuffs are in use. A new race, the Tritons, have come from the sea to mingle with humans. The only hope for ultimate survival lies in a long-awaited interstellar drive, but all efforts so far have failed. The novel is essentially one of brave people fighting against insurmountable odds… A good science fiction theme.’
—Publishers’ Weekly
‘The authors have brought the characters and their problems to life, and the story is well paced. Excellent.’
—Library Journal”
2. The Judgement of Eve, Edgar Pangborn (1966)
(Krauss’ cover for the 1967 edition)
From the back cover: “EVE: She was the true descendant of the first Woman—still craving the knowledge of life in the new world after the holocaust… CLAUDIUS: Only he remembered the world before the One-Day War. Would this memory help him find the truth? ETHAN: He had the heart of a lion… but to conquer Eve he needed the heart of a man. KENNETH: He had confronted both the lady and the tiger… now he would have to face THE JUDGEMENT OF EVE.”
3. Wave Without a Shore, C. J. Cherryh (1981)
(Don Maitz’s cover for the 1981 edition)
From the back cover: “Freedom was an isolated planet, off the spaceways track and rarely visited by commercial spacers. It wasn’t that Freedom was inhospitable as planets go. The problem was that outsiders—tourists and traders—claimed the streets were crowded with mysterious characters in blue robes and with members of an alien species. Native-born humans, however, said that was not the case. There were no such blue-robes and no aliens. Such was the viewpoint of both Herrin the artist and Waden the autocrat—until a crisis of planetary identity forced a life-and-depth confrontation between the question of reality and the reality of the question…”
4. Pavane, Keith Roberts (fix-up: 1968)
(Richard Powers’ cover for the 1976 edition)
From the back cover of the later Gollancz Masterwork edition: “1588: Queen Elizabeth is felled by an assassin’s bullet. Within the week, the Spanish Armada had set sail, and its victory changed the course of history. 1968: England is still dominated by the Church of Rome. There are no telephones, no television, no nuclear power. As Catholicism and the Inquisition tighten their grip, rebellion is growing.”