Bloody NEL: To Outrun Doomsday by Kenneth Bulmer (1975)

Last but not least in our quartet of ‘70s NEL SF gear, here we have another superlative cover illustration from Ray Feibush.

It’s the sense of perspective provided by the little fighting man on the bottom left that really makes this one work I think. Totally awesome is perhaps the phrase I’m looking for.

Even more extraordinary is the fact that Feibush actually gets a credit for his work this time around, hidden in the corner of the back cover. Will wonders never cease?

A hardened paperback warrior, Kenneth Bulmer (1921-2005) wrote around 160 published novels across five decades, utilising enough pseudonyms to fill a train carriage. The vast majority of his output was science fiction, but he wasn’t adverse to the occasional run of westerns, historical fiction or ‘Men’s Adventure’ series titles.

‘To Outrun Doomsday’ was originally published by Ace Books in the U.S. in 1967.

Bloody NEL: The Omega Point by George Zebrowski (1974)

On first glance, the back cover blurb for this one suggests a kind of post-apocalyptic variation on Edgar Rice Burroughs style science fantasy, but venturing inside, it soon becomes clear that George Zebrowski had his sights set a little higher than that.

Chapters pointedly begin with quotes from Freud, Gorky and Shakespeare, and the protagonist spends the entirety of the second chapter enjoying a “percussion cantata”, beamed live to countless millions of spectators across the galaxy:

“There were a hundred performers seated at the various instruments on the raised platform. Each sat at an electronic console which was covered with oversize push buttons and giant levers. The only really novel presence on the stage was the massive percussion batteries – traditional instruments, with some of the designs dating back two and three thousand years to old Earth and the first solar confederation. There were drums of all shapes and sizes; two of the drums were taller than the male performers who stood ready to operate two mounted hammers hanging above each drum. Elsewhere on the stage stood celesta, xylophones, six grand pianos, giant triangles, massive bells, clickers, and iron anvils, and two gargantuan wooden blocks which would be struck by giant wooden mallets swinging freely on chains. All the instruments were wired for sound in the modern manner.”

(Something makes me think Zebrowski might dig The Boredoms..)

Anyway, the iffy grammar in the above paragraph may have tipped you off to the fact that sadly‘The Omega Point’ rarely seems able to live up to it’s author’s grand ideals, but, this seems to be have been his first novel, so perhaps we can cut him some slack?

Born in Austria in 1945, George Zebrowski has continued to write SF well into the 21st century, with the last published work listed on his Wikipedia page appearing in 2009, so, uh, good for him. I’m glad he persevered.

‘The Omega Point’ was originally published in the U.S. by Ace Books in 1972, by the way.

Searching elsewhere online, it seems generally agreed that the - excellent - cover art for this NEL edition is another Ray Feibush joint.

Bloody NEL: Time and Timothy Grenville by Terry Greenhough (1976)

Is it possible to imagine a book that would look more at home on my shelves than this one? Or, you know that uneasy sensation you get when you suddenly start to feel like a ‘target audience’?

Terry Greenhough (1944-2002) seemingly enjoyed a brief but productive literary career in the latter half of the 1970s, with five science fiction novels and a historical romance seeing print between ’75 and ’80, four of them within New English Library covers.

‘Time and Timothy Grenville’ (note the curious similarity to the author’s name) was the first of his SF efforts. I’ve not read it yet, but sf-encyclopedia.com tells us that, “..typically of this writer [it] somewhat discursively exploits an uneasy, oppressive relation between the world at large and its protagonist in a story of complex Time Travel and Aliens, in which Earth itself proves to be at stake.”

By that as it may, I’m going to point to the echoes of both Alan Garner and Nigel Kneale in the back cover blurb, and single this one out as a potentially key exemplar of stone circle-sploitation - a phenomenon largely unique to the late 1970s that I’ll write an unconvincing monograph (or at least, a Found Objects post) about one day.

The SF Encyclopaedia page linked above also helpfully credits the cover art on this edition to prolific NEL SF artist Ray Feibush.