In Fritz Leiber’s 1950 SF novel You're All Alone Carr is introduced to a girl, only there is no girl. The other guy is talking to empty air. His girl thanks him for a great evening, but he wasn't there. Superb disorienting brain-twisting stuff.

Here's my review.


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Dean Koontz’s brilliant proto-cyberpunk novel Demon Seed came out in 1973. A computer develops an obsession with a woman. He wants a physical relationship with her. He wants her to have his baby.

Avoid the bland sanitised 1997 revised version.

Here's my review.


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William Gray Beyer’s Minions of the Moon, serialised in Argosy in 1939. A guy wakes up 6000 years in the future. Civilisation has collapsed. The ghost also worries him. Plus Vikings, Mongols and a dragon. Action, romance and a few clever ideas.

Here's my review.


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Colin Wilson’s The Mind Parasites, published 1967. An archaeologist discovers inscriptions thousands of years old. They are drawn directly from Lovecraft’s works. Did Lovecraft write history or fiction? Then it gets seriously weird. And brilliant.

Here's my review.


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Willard E. Hawkins' Scratch One Asteroid is a 1952 scifi novella. Prisoners hijack a spaceship and kidnap a rich girl but they're not free and wind up on an asteroid that is now a luxury private resort. A moderately entertaining lightweight pulp story.

Here's my review.


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Ralph Milne Farley’s scifi novel The Hidden Universe was written in 1939. An engineer gets a job in an industrial colony and notices odd things - like the length of the days and the fact that there no stars at night. Some wildly inventive imaginative ideas in this book.

Here's my review.


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Frederik Pohl’s sci-fi novel Danger Moon was published in 1951. There's trouble on the Moon - suspected sabotage at a uranium mine. Reasonably realistic in the light of what was known in 1951 but basically a very conventional story.

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Earth Alert! is a bizarre 1953 alien invasion sci-fi novel by Kris Neville. A woman sets out to buy a husband. She discovers that she can walk through walls and she's telepathic. This has something to do with the invisible alien spaceship. Crazy, frenetic, enjoyable.

Here's my review.


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Jack Sharkey’s scifi novel The Secret Martians was written in 1960. An advertising guy sent to rescue Space Scouts on Mars has to deal with aliens and all master of plots. His special skill is in detecting lies. A wild crazy romp of a story.

Here's my review.


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Rog Phillips’ novella Secret of the Flaming Ring dates from 1951. Joe Grimm runs a casino on Venus. He is a partial cyborg and looks monstrous. He's in love with one of the strippers working in his joint.  The plot concerns the extinct ancient Venusians. An OK story with crazy ideas.

Here's my review.


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