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$3.00
Holly, J. Hunter
THE GREEN PLANET
book-date: 1960
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GRADING:
Monarch Books
1961
1st
Paperback
John Schoenherr
.35
VG+

Monarch [#213; 1st printing] September 1961 paperback (Avalon hardcover was 1960.) Cover by Jack (John) Schoenherr, 142 pages, 35 cent cover price. Condition is VG+: tight and almost square; spine is slightly dished with very faint lines; a couple faint creases near spine; back cover shows rubbing/dirt on the white parts; age-tanning is mild and uniform (quite nice for its vintage.) Bookstore stamp inside cover and price on first page - no other marks or writing.

A rare paperback of one of the first 2 novels by Joan Hunter Holly: The Green Planet. Originally published in hardcover by Avalon Books in 1960 (reviewers singled this out as being among the best from that publisher.) Holly wrote a dozen SF novels 1959-1977, originally appearing as "J. Hunter Holly." Monarch Books was one of the smaller paperback houses of the early Sixties, and home to several SF writers (Anvil, Bradley, Chandler, Holly, and Winterbotham) - nice copies are really hard to find.


The Green Planet - Since I haven't read this, I'm quoting from a review in Galaxy April 1961 for a summary that is better than the flap copy:
"Occasionally, Avalon comes up with a gem like this in its monthly run-of-the-mill science adventures. The titular Green Planet is a supposed primitive paradise to which opponents of Earth's dictatorial League are exiled, a seemingly magnanimous gesture. However, the deadliness of the killer planet becomes slowly apparent in pages of expertly sustained suspense and rising terror. Mysteries are posed the would-be colonists (and reader) that beg solution before the small group is whittled down to zero. Rating (4 stars)" [-Floyd C. Gale]

[excerpts from a review in Amazing December 1960 for more]:
"After several months of drivel, Avalon has finally come (permanently, I hope) to its senses and given us a novel that is worth publishing... ...the excellence of the novel is deeper than skillful narrative. The extra dimension comes from the ideas that the plot gives the author a chance to examine - the qualities of leadership, the lonliness that accompanies responsibility, the disintegration of the democratic process under stress, the challenge to established religion found in an alien environment. These issues are not given a profound analysis. Indeed, sometimes the presentation is very naive. But the sincerity of the exposition is most disarming and, therefore, quite convincing in the end." [-S. E. Cotts]