THE CHARIOTS OF RA  by Kenneth Bulmer  (1921-2005)

EARTHSTRINGS              by John Phillifent alias John Rackham  (1916-1976)

Jean at Howling Frog blog suggested a January devoted to old Ace SF Doubles and since i have a few (17, i think),  she said i could participate in the "challenge" or "celebration" or whatever its termed, so:

This is Double #10293:

Roy Tully and Graham Pike grew up together, went to the same college and were fired from their jobs at the same engineering outfit.  They had no prior attachments, so they sold their stuff and bought a Cadillac intending to drive to the West Coast.  The first night they ran out of gas and while parked by the side of the road arguing about whose fault it was, a van pulled up alongside of their car and a few octopus-like creatures jumped out and began pushing them into the back, using the clubs as persuasive instruments.  Then the van drove off.  There were other kidnappees as well, some humans and beings of a more alien description.  There was a jolt and a head-spinning sensation and the van stopped to collect more victims, two of which were a giant Nordic type along with a blond skinny person named Corny.  The mental mix-master sensation was repeated several more times until the truck had quite a few occupants.  Soon they all had to get out and walk, persuaded to keep moving by the octopi creatures.  They crossed a desert environment and were attacked by giant Pterodactyl-like avians with retractable claws that snatched up several of the slaves and then went through another portal into the Myxotic Durostorum which had enormous man-eating flowers.  Many of their companions were slain and the Octopoi captors lost control of the group so Roy, together with the Norse giant and Corny, who was a porteur(capable of transiting through dimensional portals with only his mind), escaped and arrived in a city called Brorkan consisting of mud and wattle buildings and a saloon called The Friendly Mouse.  Roy met a fellow called Fangar, who was a short, thick-set warrior type from another world and they both were transported involuntarily to yet another world that much resembled Egypt in the centuries before Christ.  The two wandered down a river having adventures and meeting oppressed villagers and hermits until they reached the double city of Hamoun-Apen, situated on both sides of the OO river.  They had had an encounter with some chariot riders along the way and learned that the city had just been ransacked by a rival country (Hyktros) and was in a state of depression and devastation.  Roy stayed there long enough to befriend the two lady rulers of the cities and to invent a new sort of chariot with small wheels that permitted greater maneuverability than those used by the Hyktrosians.  Also he set up a primitive battery system that would allow the chariot drivers to zap their enemies.  

In another skirmish with some Torozoi usurpers, Roy and Fangar are accidentally transported back to The Friendly Mouse and picked up by a Landrover and carried through another couple of dimensions to the world of the Xlotls who are fiercely resisting the invasion of an army from the Irunium led by the Countess, who rules a number of different dimensionary worlds.  Fangar was originally from the Irunium, as was the Nordic person and Corny, his skinny blond porteur friend.  The Countess is delighted to see Roy, as he has developed into a porteur himself, and she wants him to help her in her vast plan to conquer all the worlds.  But when a miscalculation occurs Roy is transported back to the world of Hamoun-Apen just at the time that the army with the new chariots and the electric prods are about to attack Hyktros and the book ends.

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In Earthstrings, we are in a future world that has colonized some of the nearer star systems, but is experiencing a certain amount of strife related to corporate greed and crooked politics.  Jeremy White is a reporter who tries to find out why one of the largest colonies, at Beta Hydri, has failed to make contact with Earth for several days.  Sabotage is suspected and White wants to discover the truth.  Many of the large Earthian corporations want space exploration to cease, as they want to keep their money at home.  But science and other industrial interests want to keep expanding the Universal horizons, as they see that that is where the future of humanity lies.  There are complications having to do with wills and inheritances.  Jeremy interviews a producer of popular travelogues.  Barnaby Green has received photographic reviews of the the worlds that have been colonized and has done very well out of popularizing them with the general public, but the person from whom the films have come (Kit Carew, scion of a major corporation) is also missing, having been on Beta Hydri when communication was interrupted.  Kit's sister, Abigail, has been running the Tri-C's corporation since her father recently died.  She is worried about Kit and consults with White about the possible reasons for his disappearance.  Together, they meet Francis Allen of the mega-giant corporation Allen Enterprises and her present boyfriend Miguel Santana.  Santana is an owner-operator of his own space ship and invites the others along on a trip to Beta Hydri to investigate the mystery.  They arrive at the planet and beam down to find the large and sole town on the planet covered in a sort of yellow slime.  Abigail has a lot of training in chemistry and she sees that the stuff is all crumbly and is disintegrating rapidly.  It becomes obvious that Santana, working for the Allen Corp. has used a temporary poison to kill all the inhabitants so as to discourage future space exploration.  There's a fight, Santana is slain and the survivors return to Earth, Abigail and Jeremy having gotten married aboard ship.

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These were both pretty good books, the second perhaps better written than the first one.  The plot was tighter and some philosophical speculation regarding humanity and its problems was introduced in a mild way.  But in terms of action and adventure, "Chariots" had it beat:  lots of action, swords and wizardry, detailed description of "Daniel" cells as a primitive source of electricity, vivid evocations of wild chariot rides over bumpy ground, and effective elucidation of alien life forms, were all interest provoking.  But the two books did what they were intended to do, imo of course, which was to distract the mind from oppressive reality and console it with imaginary diversion.  I liked them, even though they were quite different from each other.