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Brunner;Rackham
A PLANET OF YOUR OWN + THE BEASTS OF KOHL
omni,w/new-to-book: 1966
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GRADING:
Ace (G-592)
1966
1st
Ace-Double
Jack Gaughan; Jack Gaughan
.50
Fine

Ace Double (G-592, 50 cent cover price) 1966 paperback. Condition is Fine: very tight and very square with flat spine; no age tanning (much, much less than expected for its age) - edges are "crisp" / pages are bright. No stamps, marks or writing - a very clean copy that looks new. [The Brunner side has a couple of vertical impressions of the sort that new books can have - from packing.]

Ace Double G-592 (1966), containing A Planet of Your Own by John Brunner and The Beasts of Kohl by John T. Phillifent writing as "John Rackham." This is the first paperback appearance for either novel. Both fit my conception of Ace Doubles as "a good quick read" and are very entertaining.

The Brunner half, A Planet of Your Own (99 pages) is revised from "The Long Way to Earth" from IF March 1966. Kynance Foy was young, beautiful, intelligent, and trained in both Qua-space physics and business law. By the time she reached Nefertiti, she was near poverty, and willing to try any job to get back to Earth. An opportunity comes up: the job of Planetary Supervisor of the fabulously wealthy world called Zygra, where exotic pelts costing a million credits each were grown. The job offered a huge salary, and free transport back to Earth at the end of a year’s tour of duty. There had to be a catch, she thought as she signed the contract. Of course, there was… To my knowledge, this Brunner half has not been reprinted elsewhere, making it one of the hard to find titles by him.

The “John Rackham” book, The Beasts of Kohl (154 pages) is original. Kohl was the ancient, all-wise and entirely non-human master of a distant planet. He was also master of Rang, a beast he had taken as an infant from a visit to a far world. Rang had been raised to hunt and assist Kohl on his sea-swept world. But a time came when Rang was grown to adulthood, restless and lonely. Rang didn’t like Kohl’s mind-picture of his native species, but Kohl insisted it was time to return Rang to Earth. Unfortunately for both, a long, long time had passed on Earth, which had become more fantastic than either could imagine… John Rackham (pen name of John T. Phillifent) could always be relied on for an entertaining story.