Ivar Jorgensen [Paul Fairman], ‘The Deadly Sky’ (1971)

 

Quite apart from sporting a solid contender for ‘Worst Ever SF Book Cover Art’, this novel by Ivar Jorgensen includes some absolutely splendid prose. Jorgensen (sometimes spelled Jorgenson) was a house pseudonym used by various authors: the SF Encyclopedia informs us that this particular novel was actually written by Paul W. Fairman. The story concerns ten android clones, looking exactly like human men except for the fact that each has two hearts (why they have two hearts is not vouchsafed to us) who have been sent as a kind of advance force prior to an alien invasion. But never mind that: bask in the sheer quality of the writing.

He looked at her naked body, as nude and as hot as a deprived mink. [17]

So much sexier than a mink born into wealth and privilege. The eyes in this novel are lively:

Brent's knifelike eyes sliced out at Jones. [29]

Porter cocked an alarmed eye as he bit a roll. [83]

But what of world history?

This marked a giant forward lunge in world history. [32]

To quote Neil Armstrong: ‘this is one small lunge for a man, one giant forward lunge for mankind.’ The aliens have created androids that, physically, resemble humans. But can they replicate human emotions? It seems they can. And so can we!

“Benton at the Paulo Technological Institute has done some remarkable things in drawing the stuff of human emotion from one person, holding it on a tape, and transferring it to another person. The vibrations set up by a person in anger, consist of some sort of stuff, in the sense of incredibly high frequency wave.” [48]

Most scientific definition of stuff I've ever seen.

Her consciousness was a pool of quivering excitement. [95]

Mine too! This particular quivering is in the run-up to the no-question sexiest damn sex-scene ever put on the page:

She lay naked on the bed ... He touched her again and noted the jerk and quiver of her response. He became grotesquely, academically interested. He touched the same nerve surface again and studied her face for the response. [95]

Exactly how I make love!

Tammy sat beautifully. She wore an obviously expensive lounging costume. [120]

I always change into a specific costume in order to lounge, and I daresay you do too. Here's a bad character:

“He's a skunk. He'd be a disgrace, even to a park bench.” [126]

What he would do to a park bench is not spelled-out. Nothing savoury, methinks.

He regarded her breasts somberly. [135]

Exactly how I make love! Here is the doctor hero, contemplating an unexciting chest and some unexciting legs during a medical examination:

Actually, at the time he was thinking of a different chest and different legs—the ones belonging to a copper-haired girl named Tammy Hayn. Tammy’s legs were far more alluring. Her chest had equipment that was a haven of rest under trying circumstances, and Mark yearned for midnight when he would quit this charnel house and climb into Tammy’s convertible and later do a little chest analysis without benefit of stethoscope. [10]

And here, an example of tautological undressing:

His vicious denuding gesture left her completely naked. [176]

Vicious! The vice being: denuding. Quality stuff, throughout.