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Armchair Fiction presents extra-large editions of classic science fiction double novels with original illustrations. The first novel is a grand epic by Nelson S. Bond, “Under Venusian Flags.” She was a priestess, guardian of the legend of Freedom; he was a soldier from the remote past. Thrown together by a fantastic quirk of fate, the seeds of love soon entangled them. But could their love survive in a dark future filled with oppression? Earth had been conquered by Venus hundreds of years earlier and America was now a mere legend—a fabled land during a time when all men had been free. But the priestess had nurtured the memory of that freedom, even in the face of alien brutality. All mankind believed the faces on Mount Rushmore were those of the Gods who had ruled and defended Earth in the past. So when Steve Duane, an actual man from that era came into their presence, his fighting spirit became a rallying point for the first resistance since the jackboots of the Venusians had crushed and enslaved Earth. The second novel is an outstanding outer space thriller, “Blood on My Jets,” by one of the best science fiction writers of the 1950s and 1960s, Algis Budrys. This is terrific tale about the aftermath of the long interplanetary war between Mars and Earth and the nomadic mercenaries that cruised outer space between the two planets and the asteroid belt. They had become the hired gun-rabble of the Solar System; former soldiers (for one side or the other) who had become engaged in the dirtiest, most thankless racket in all the worlds—tearing down or building up small time dictatorships on Venus, Mars, and even in small pockets of the Asteroid Belt. Ash Holcomb had become one of these mercenaries, offering his services to the highest bidder. It was a tough life. But Holcomb was doing all right—that is, until a girl walked out of his past with high stakes in her pockets and murder in her eyes! And in the end, space wasn’t big enough to hold both him and the girl. Unfortunately, they were both to become pivotal figures in a scheme that would change the entire structure of the Solar System, revolutionize space flight as man knew it, and bring the planet Earth to her knees.
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