Back cover:

OTHER SCIENCE FICTION TITLES
FROM WALKER

HORRORS UNKNOWN
Edited by Sam Moskowitz

The stories in this collection have in common an offbeat approach to horror that presents the reader with an element of novelty that broadens the genre.  These previously unanthologized stories are masterpieces of fantastic terror.

PARTNERS IN WONDER
By Harlan Ellison (in collaboration with
fourteen other wild talents)

No matter how many books you've read, you have never read a book like this one.  The first book of collaborative short stories ever created, it is unique in publishing history.

SOLARIS
By Stanislaw Lem
Translated by Joanna Kilmartin and Steven Cox

When Kris Kelvin left Earth for Station Solaris, he was prepared for the hazards of space travel but not for the cruel miracle that awaited him.  Landing at his destination, he finds himself as he really is, and must confront a presence and emotions long forgotten and suppressed.

Front flap:

STARBRAT
by JOHN MORRESSY

STARBRAT is a picaresque novel of the future, the story of a twenty-seventh century foundling who wanders the galaxy in search of his rightful home and true identity, and encounters a variety of adventures before finding what he seeks.

For sixteen years, Del Whitby lived quietly among the pious farmers of the planet Gilead.  On the eve of his time of decision, when a boy of Gilead becomes a man, Del learns that he was a foundling, the sole known survivor of a tragedy in distant space.  He chooses to marry his childhood sweetheart, Cassie, and live out his life as a man of Gilead, but that very night he is taken by a band of galactic slave traders and his long wanderings begin.

Del is sold to a gladiatorial school on Tarquin VII.  After years in the arena, he wins his freedom in a tournament on distant Vigrid, and hoping to make his way back to Gilead, he signs on as guard on a pilgrim ship.  Eventually he acquires a driveship of his own, and he and his friend Grax set out to find Gilead and the truth of Del's identity.

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Back flap:

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Their wanderings bring them to many places: Skorat, a barbarous place where they witness the return of a long-lost king; Watson's Planet, the information center of the galaxy, where Del takes part in a mind-wrenching search for the secret of a lost civilization; the pleasure-planet Barbary; and eventually to Mazat, where Del, Grax, and a small band of free-lance warriors from across the galaxy join to liberate the inhabitants from the ravages of a band of space pirates.  In time, Del returns to Gilead and Cassie and learns the truth of his origin.  It is not what he hoped for or expected, but as the book ends, he has found a home and people of his own.

THE AUTHOR
JOHN MORRESSY is the author of two novels and several short stories. STARBRAT is his first venture into full-length science fiction.  A resident of East Sullivan, New Hampshire, he teaches at Franklin Pierce College.