Ace Double April 1971 (#71082, 75 cent cover price.) Condition is VG+ to near-Fine: tight and square with flat spine; age tanning is mild and uniform (darker on insides of covers), very light wear to Tubb side. No stamps, marks or writing - a clean copy.

Lallia, the sixth "Earl Dumarest" novel by E. C. Tubb, in its first paperpack (Ace Double) edition. The Dumarest series lasted about 30 books, and I would recommend most of the early ones (particularly the Ace-Doubles) as worth reading. If you're not familiar with the premise, Earl Dumarest was born on Earth, but wandered so far from it in a crowded galaxy that people in the region he is currently in think that Earth is but a legend, like "El Dorado." (The Traveller gaming system, with High and Low Passage, quicktime and basic, is loosely based on the very populated galaxy Dumarest travels in.) He picks up friends and enemies, and occaisionally a clue pointing towards Earth.

Lallia (cover and frontispiece by George Barr): 6th in the series. Taking the place of a murdered man, Dumarest takes a job as handler on a tramp ship to earn his passage away from the world of Aarn. The Moray was barely out of the scrapyard, crewed by misfits, and with a captain who was afraid of the stars he flew between. And yet it had a paying passenger - the mysterious Yalung, apparently a gem trader. On the planet Argonilla they find a stranded traveller, Lallia, accused of witchcraft and fomenting strife with her looks and ways. Required to judge her as part of their trading deal, the navigator suggests trial by combat, and Dumarest chooses to be her champion. He wins, but Lallia may be more than he bargained for. She is used to being a troublemaker, and has some psi talent to boot. And everything about this trip with limited choices may prove to be a trap, for the Cyclan believe that Dumarest has a secret they badly want, and will go to extreme lengths to recover it…

Bound with Recoil by Claude & Rhoda Nunes (cover by Kelly Freas.). The humanoid and telepathic Grath are locked in conflict and symbiosis with the shape-changing and inherently evil Gorgons. One of them makes a discovery involving telepaths and a reaction when they probe a subject with a relatively widespread minor virus. He dies to keep the secret from falling in the hands of the Gorgons, but those of Grath now have a hope of survival if they can find another planet of Espers. A planet like Earth…