We have a fine sextet of science fiction books for you this month: largely readable, with two clunkers and one superior read…

by Gideon Marcus

Ace Double 66160

Earthrim, by Nick Kamin

by Panos Koutrouboussis

A generation or two from now, the Earth is recovering from a devastating war between the Western World and the Chinasian alliance. At first, the latter was winning, surging into Australia and with a plan to cross the Bering Strait. Then things bogged down. Eschewing the use of nuclear weapons (for an unexplained reason), the death rate became fantastic.

One day, the war just stopped. Or, more specifically, someone stopped them. Sounds like a positive development, but whoever did it is now exerting dictatorial control over the globe, futzing with governments, economies, even population growth rates and somehow slowing the age of human maturity!

Now, a decade after the war, Michael Standard, a battered veteran of the Australian front, is the one man who can stop the war-stopper. He is equipped with a prosthetic arm which is set to fire its hand like a cannon when face to face with the entity who styles himself "The Rim".

Continue reading [December 16, 1969] Holiday haul (Black Corridor and the December Galactoscope) →