Up the Walls of the World

New York, NY: Berkley Publishing Corporation, 1978 Berkley Publishing Corporation, New York. 1978. Hardcover. Book Club Edition. Book is tight, square, and unmarked but for F/O name on the front and rear pastedowns. Book Condition: Very Good; light dustsoiling to text block top; light bumping to head and tail; light shelfwear to head, tail, and tips. DJ: Good; suntanning to spine and flap edges; missing piece at bottom of front flap fold; light wear to head, tail, and tips. Gray vinyl boards and spine with bright green lettering on the spine and front board. 312 pp 8vo.This is a science fiction novel by American author Alice Sheldon, who wrote under the pen name of James Tiptree, Jr. It was the first novel she published, having until then worked and built a reputation only in the field of short stories. The novel explores the possibility that telepathy and other psychic phenomena are real. It describes an attempt to invade Earth by beings with advanced telepathic abilities from the planet Tyree. The book considers the subject of sentience in different life forms inhabiting widely different environments; in computers; and in a vast sentient inhabitant of deep space formed of a network of widely spaced nodes. The story takes place in 3 settings which unfold together: On Earth, at a telepathy lab run by the US Navy. On the planet Tyree, a life-rich gas giant inhabited by intelligent beings resembling manta rays or cuttlefish which ride the air currents of its vast atmosphere. And in deep space, the Destroyer, an intelligent entity larger than a solar system but only slightly denser than the vacuum of space and composed of countless linked nodes. A clean very presentable copy in a Brodart mylar jacket.