The Road to the Rim/The Hard Way Up

Series John Grimes
Illustrator Ken Barr
Author A. Bertram Chandler
Year 1981 (first published 1967/1972)
Publisher Ace
ISBN 0-441-73102-3

MEET JOHN GRIMES at the very beginning of a career that will lead him to fame and glory out at the edge of the galaxy, out where the laws of men are nonexistent, and those of nature itself are sometimes tenuous.

Someday Grimes will be a Commodore in the secessionist Rim Worlds Navy, but for now he is merely a very junior Lieutenant in another space navy entirely, that of the Federation. If he keeps his nose clean, one day he can be an Admiral in that Service; all he has to do is follow regulations regardless of the consequences, and obey orders regardless of whether they are right or wrong—and he is determined to do just that.

But being John Grimes, he will find it a more difficult task than he expects—especially when he must turn a blind eye to the piratical acts of the Waldegrenese Navy, or ignore the plight of a beauteous damsel in distress. That’s why, although he doesn’t know it yet, he is already on THE ROAD TO THE RIM.

The Road to the Rim/The Hard Way Up available on Amazon

Thanks to Still Books for the cover

“Lost Planet/Matilda’s Stepchildren” Ken W. Kelly

Ken Kelly Fantasy Art

Matilda’s Stepchildren

Series John Grimes
Illustrator Ken W. Kelly
Author A. Bertram Chandler
Year 1983 (first published 1979)
Publisher DAW
ISBN 0-87997-845-7

John Grimes, owner of the deep space pinnace Little Sister, could not afford to be fussy about whom he carried. But there were compensations, for if his ship had not been chartered to take Fenella Pruin, muckraking reporter, to exclusive New Venusberg he would never have been able to visit that fabulous pleasure planet.

Commodore at Sea/Spartan Planet

Series John Grimes
Illustrator Paul Alexander
Author A. Bertram Chandler
Year 1979 (first published 1971/1969)
Publisher Ace
ISBN unknown

KINSOLVING’S PLANET…
on the rim of space, where the very fabric of space and time is stretched almost to bursting, and the boundaries between then and now, between here and there, are so thin as to be almost non-existent. And so John Grimes should hardly have been so surprised to meet…Sherlock Holmes? Lady Chatterley? Tarzan and Jane? A. Bertram Chandler??

Commodore at Sea/Spartan Planet available on Amazon

Thanks to Still Books for the cover

The Wild Ones

Series John Grimes
Illustrator Ken W. Kelly
Author A. Bertram Chandler
Year 1985
Publisher DAW
ISBN 0-88677-031-9

They called the robomaid “Clockwork Kitty” until she informed them of her right name. She was a triumph of Japan’s far-future robotics industry and she was a present to John Grimes as he set out aboard Sister Sue for a voyage to the planet called New Salem.

New Salem was a colony of blue-nosed religious fanatics and Grimes knew it meant trouble. For in addition to his sexy-looking robot he had Shirl and Darleen aboard, two wild ones of kangaroo ancestry, sure to be problems. And trouble came, not merely from the fire-wielding bigots but from Grimes’ old enemy, Drongo Kane.

It’s the last interplanetary romp of the legendary spaceman known as science-fiction’s own “Captain Hornblower.”

The Wild Ones available on Amazon

Thanks to Still Books for the cover