INCOMING

Still buying books, but not anywhere near as many as before.  This week, three thrift shop finds at fifty cents apiece:

• Irving Crump, Mog the Mound Builder.  A 1931 juvenile.  Crump (1887-1979) was editor of Boys' Life for twenty-five years and wrote a number of successful novels for boys, including a series of prehistoric novels about Og, a boy in what would become Europe:  Og, Son of Fire (1922), Og, Boy of Battle (1925), Og of the Cave People (1935), and Og, Son of Og (1965).  As you can see, Crump did not have to go far to find a name for his title character in this "prehistoric America" novel.
• Alexander Key, The Golden Enemy.  Juvenile SF taking place in a post-holocaust world where people don't eat meat.  Boy Jaim goes in search for a giant, impossible beast, the Golden One.  Key is best known for his juvenile SF book Escape to Witch Mountain and for his books about Sprocket, the little robot.  This one is an old school library copy signed and inscribed by the author:  "To Mrs. Sidell/and her Fifth Grade/of Harriet Bishop School/from/Alexander Key/1970."  Update:  Just found out that today would have been Key's 111th birthday!
• Spider Robinson, Time Pressure.  SF, Book Two of the Deathkiller Trilogy.  A woman from the future visits an American commune in Nova Scotia to study the human race of our time.  She cannot return to her own time, but will she destroy ours?  Robinson is a favorite who has been in poor health since a 2013 heart attack.  Here's hoping he will be able to continue writing long into the future.  (His wife and sometime collaborator, Jeanne, died from cancer in 2010, and their daughter Terri passed away from cancer last year.)