Seven books by Mazo de la Roche (Pan, 1962-1966)

File these under, "I don't like the books, but oh boy, do I like the covers!"  Someone must have loved the series back-in-the-day however, because I found these as a set on a charity bookstall.

Morning at Jalna (1963)

1863 -

South of the Canadian border from Jalna, the American Civil War rages.

Into the peaceful, budding Ontario settlement come intriguing visitors with the polished manners and soft accents of Old Carolina—

Are these elegant newcomers genuine fugitives from war, or, far more alarming to Philip and Adeline Whiteoak, are they agents of the slave-trading Confederate States?

Whiteoak Harvest (1962) 

RENNY and his wife ALAYNE—their marriage near disaster...

FINCH and SARAH return from their honeymoon to upset the household with Eden Whiteoak's love-child... 

WAKEFIELD, engaged to Pauline Lebraux, but tormented by religious doubts... 

A complete and captivating story in its own right, Whiteoak Harvest is one of the famous WHITEOAKS series—world sales total over twelve million books!

Wakefield's Course (1963) 

'You must tell her who she is—and that you can't marry her'

Two star-crossed lovers face an agonizing decision in this surging episode of one of fiction's best-loved families—  

The Whiteoaks of Jalna

Young Renny (1962)

'I thought I was dead to men till you came along' 

A strong and compelling story of the Whiteoaks of Jalna—of a bitter feud, and a shattered love—and of Renny in his fiery youth and first passion.

Finch's Fortune (1962)

YOUNG FINCH—AND $100,000

At twenty-one Finch Whiteoak, proud, sensitive, reckless, becomes the bewildered inheritor of his grandmother's fortune.   

In this enthralling episode from the Whiteoaks saga, the ever generous Finch takes his two Uncles to England, and against a lovely Devonshire background, falls in and out of love with the bewitching Sarah Court—suffering all the youthful agonies of disillusion and frustrated passion.

Mary Wakefield (1965)

EARLY DAYS AT JALNA

Second of the world-famous, world-loved "Whiteoaks" novels, MARY WAKEFIELD tells of the beautiful young governess who came to Jalna in the warm summer of 1893 and of the struggle that awaited her with the pillars of the Whiteoak family, still dominated by the matriarch Adeline... 

Soon Mary became the centre of a family dispute, and it was not until a flood of emotions both violent and tender had been released that life at Jalna could resume its fertile course.

Whiteoak Heritage (1966)

The New Master of Jalna

Captain Renny Whiteoak returns from World War I to find a challenging heritage:

His father and step-mother have died.

The old uncles, Ernest and Nicholas, have been running the estate with a blissful disregard of economics. 

Young Eden, now a student, is involved in a strange and damaging love affair.

To help put Jalna on its feet, Renny employs a brash and beautiful horse-woman, and soon finds that he too is in love... 

Old Adeline wants to see Renny happily married—but who can fill the role of mistress of Jalna?

The Green Brain by Frank Herbert (Ace, 1966)

An unexpected treasure from the Green Shed:

 

In an overpopulated world seeking living room in the jungles, the International Ecological Organization was systematically exterminating the voracious insects which made these areas uninhabitable.  Using deadly foamal bombs and newly developed vibration weapons, men like Joao Martinho and his co-workers fought to clear the green hell of Mato Grosso.

But somehow those areas which had been completely cleared were becoming reinfested, despite the impenetrable vibration barriers.  And tales came out of the jungles... of insects mutated to incredible sizes... of creatures who seemed to be men, but whose eyes gleamed with the chitinous sheen of insects...

Here is a vividly different science-fiction novel by the author of DUNE.

Every once in a while I pick up a book and I find myself thinking, "What was the author on when he wrote this?"

Need I add that this is one of those books?

It was probably at least partly inspired by Rachel Carson's The Silent Spring, a study of the ecological effects of pesticides which first appeared in 1962.  (In fact the eco-rebels mentioned in The Green Brain are called Carsonites—clearly a tribute to The Silent Spring!)  A story about pesticides and overpopulation?  That was both relevant and timely in the mid-sixties.  It fits neatly into the tradition of science fiction both as speculative fiction and as dreadful warning: If you keep doing this, this will happen....

On the other hand... things get weird in this book.  In some ways it reminds me of those "nature takes its revenge" movies that became popular in the 1970s, but "nature" in The Green Brain includes sentient hive minds capable of creating imitation human beings to act as their agents in a plot to take over the world.   There is simply no rational way to get from "here" (overuse of pesticides) to "there" (sentient insects)--and to be fair, Frank Herbert doesn't even try.

At least the heroes of seventies "B" movies only had to deal with plagues of tarantulas or incursions of giant rabbits!

Lastly I've got mention that I'm disappointed with the cover of this paperback.  It's messy, a bit generic, and doesn't convey anything in particular about the characters, the plot or the setting of the story.  The covers of science fiction books went through a bit of a rough patch in the late sixties after the glorious pulpiness of the fifties.  Fortunately for lovers of the genre, things picked up in the seventies!