Adams, Douglas

"The Hichhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" - In Chapter 4, President Zaphod Beeblebrox uses a small Paralyso-Matic bomb to evade pursuit while stealing a spaceship he's supposed to be launching. (This scene is not in the radio or TV versions, but I think it was in the comic adaption.) "The Restaurant at the End of the Universe" - In Chapter 16, Ford Prefect is surprised when he bumps into his old friend Hotblack Desiato, who is now a famous galactic rock star. He is even more surprised by Hotblack's total lack of movement or response. Eventually it turns out that Hotblack is spending the year dead for tax purposes.

"Advanced Dungeons & Dragons" series

"#4 (title forgoten)" - "The Nightmare Realm of Baba Yaga(?)" -

Anderson, Kevin J.

"The X-Files: Ruins" [F] {*1/2} (Harper Paperbacks, 1997) [ISBN: 0-06-105736-3] Novels set in the X-Files milieu, this one concerning an Aztec temple that may conceal a secret. Notable for its description of a device that renders people and other beings immobile for long periods of time. [Note, this is what inspired my pre-pre-prequel to Living Statues where the immobilizer turns out to have alien origins -Dmuk].

August, Leo

"SuperDoll" [A][F] {****} (Award Books #A427X, 1969) Android secret agent gets into all kinds of mishaps, including one that saps her power and leaves her immobilized.

Ayers, Tim

"Gore Tour" [M] {**} (anthologised in Fright Time #16, eds. Rochelle Larkin and Joshua Hanft; US: Playmore Inc. and Waldman Publishing, MCMXCVII). A bunch of schoolkids visit a wax museum, where some of the exhibits have a life of their own. One good passage where the girl character, Marta, dreams that she has been captured by "Dr. Gore", turned into a waxwork and put on display.

Baker, Nicholson

"The Fermata" [F] - [ISBN: 0-679-75933-6] Deals with timestop and the power it brings the fellow who can perform it.

Barjavel, Rene

"The Ice People" [I] {**} (Pyramid Books, 1973) [ISBN: 0-515-02913-0] Epic tale of the discovery, investigation, revivification, and eventual fate of two people found frozen in a block of ice. The descriptions of their entombment are good, there are many scenes with other characters almost getting frozen too. The ending is a real trip, too.

Barlow, Steve, and Steve Skidmore

"Mad Myths: Stone Me!" [S] {***} (UK: Puffin Books, 1997). Updating of the Medusa legend to a UK inner-city comprehensive school setting. "Ms Dusa wears a turban, a cloak and jet-black sunglasses. She scares people stiff. Can Perce and Andy defeat the supply teacher from Hell?" Some nice transformation scenes and despite being a kid's book it's well written.

Brunner , John

"Ouef de Coq" [S] - A lecherous food critic gets his comeuppance when a restaurant owner serves him a cock's egg - which, true to legend, hatches into a basilisk and turns him to stone. "Traveller in Black" [F] - (1971, revised and expanded 1986 as 'The Compleat Traveller in Black') The title character secretly grants wishes - after a fashion. One man wishes to gain power and wealth as the founder of a new religion. The Traveller grants his wish by granting him immobility, which his townsfolk consider miraculous - so they form a religion around him. In another scene, a man who wishes to learn the secret of a magical tree finds himself trapped within its trunk.

Camp, L. Sprague de and Fletcher Pratt

"The Complete Compleat Enchanter" [F] - [ISBN: 0-671-69809-5] (reissued under several titles but they all include the word "Enchanter") the heroes encounter a wizard who has turned his former aprentice into a life size nude, flesh and blood statue as punishment for spying for the good magicians.

Chalker, Jack

Many strange transformations, including petrifications, in his science fiction books.

Chambers, Robert W.

"The King in Yellow" [S] {**} The narrarator is in love with the wife of a mad scientist. The scientist has developed a liquid that will turn any living thing into a marble-like state. He converts flowers, fish, and a rabbit. His wife, desponent over her forbidden love of the narrarator, commits suicide by jumping into the liquid and becoming a statue. The scientist kills himself in a normal fashion. The narrarator, despondant over the loss of his love, leaves her as he found her, a statue, and travels the world to forget. He returns after a year to find the animals the scientist converted are coming back alive and ends with the woman returning to life.

Cohen, Alice Eve

"The Tale of the Souvenir Shop" [I][S] {***} (US: Minstrel Books, 1997). No. 16 in the "Nickelodeon Are You Afraid of the Dark?" series. Two sisters visit a souvenir shop run by an old man, where they are flash-frozen inside a giant bubble of ice and sold as a snow globe to a race of giants who live in caves beneath the earth's crust. Turns out that the giants have kidnapped the old man's grand-daughter and he naively thinks they will exchange her for the two girls in the snow globe. "The girls stood frozen as still as statues in their ridiculous beach outfits beside the plastic flamingo and the alligator. Snow began to fall around them, first a few flakes, soon a blizzard. The two girls, staring in terror with unblinking eyes, were the figures in Max's newest snow globe."

Constatine, Storm

"Calenture" [S] - A man is the last survivor of a city of statues, the remains of people who took an immortality drug. This is for the first few chapters; the story takes off on a different tangeant thereafter.

Cooney, Caroline B.

"Freeze Tag" [I] - [ISBN: 0-590-45681-4] Teen thriller. A girl has the power to freeze others in ice with a touch. She uses it to bully her classmates.

Dick, Phillip K.

"The Book of Philip K. Dick" [S] {**1/2} (DAW Books #UQ1044, 1973) "A Present For Pat" Man returning from an offworld business trip, to Ganymede, returns with a gift for his beautiful but fickle wife. After the gift, an 'actual native god' awakens upon being fed, Pat ridicules it and as a result is turned to stone, an immobilized form she retains for most of the remainder of the tale. Also contains "Adjustment Team" (2 stars). "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" {A} - Novel on which the movie Blade Runner was based.

"Dungeons & Dragons" choose your own adventure series

"Nightmare - something(?)" [S] - good pictures of statues (including the main character if you make a wrong move) in it.

Farmer, Phillip Jose

"The Grand Adventure" [F] {****+} (Berkeley Books, 1984) [ISBN: 0-425-07211-8] "The Sliced-Crosswise, Only On Tuesday World" - Widespread use of suspended animation combined with overcrowding results in a situation where 85% of the world's population is frozen in 'stoners' and everyone is reanimated for one day of the week. In this setting a man pines for an unobtainable love who exists in another day. Many scenes of him outside her glass-tube enclosure. Ending is an ironic twist in true Twilight Zone (or Oscar Wilde) style. "Dayworld" [F] {***1/2} (G.P.Putnam, 1985) [ISBN: 0-399-12967-7] Sequel of sorts to 'Sliced-Crosswise...World' noted above. Takes place about 1200 years later, and the "stoner" technology is well-entrenched. Stoners are an accepted part of existence. Enter the main character, a man of many names and lives, who has a different persona in each of the days. He eventually finds a group of others like him, the 'immer's who exist in secret. Lots of interaction with the stonered people, who often get placed in parks as statuary. "Dayworld Rebel" [F] {***} (Ace/Putnam 1987) [ISBN: 0-399-13230-9] Book 2 in trilogy tracks the main character from 'Dayworld' as he flees the static society and raises havoc. Much use of the stoner device here as well, on himself along with many female characters (including the one pictured on the cover). "Dayworld Breakup" [F] {*?} (Tor Books, 1991) [ISBN: 0-812-50889-0] Final book of the trilogy, covers the successful overthrow of the society. Stoners appear here, but I don't remember much else.

Ford, Mike

"The Dollhouse That Time Forgot" [M] {**1/2} (US: Avon Books Inc., 1998; UK publisher unknown). No. 11 in the "Eerie Indiana" series. Features a doll which contains the spirit of a dead girl, and which comes to life when placed inside a special dolls house. When the main protagonist (Marshall)'s sister, Syndi, accidentally finds her way into the same dolls house, she too becomes a doll! "Sitting in the front window of the Toy Box was another doll. A doll with long blonde hair and wearing a pair of pink pyjamas. It was Syndi."

Galloway, Priscilla

"Snake Dreamer" [S] - A modern day Euryale and Stheno are trying to restore Medusa back to life. Towards the end they succeed,and Medusa accidentally turns a friend (Lucy) of the primary character(Dusa, go figure) to stone. Unfortunately, the girl named Lucy collapses after petrifying, causing her to smash into little bitty pieces. Somewhat disappointing, but it is statue related, nonetheless.

Hamilton, Edmund

"Outside the Universe" [F] - (first published in Weird Tales magazine, 1929, first published in book form by Ace Books, serial no. F-271 (1964)) A 1920s pulp adventure. In Chapter VIII, "The Hall of the Living Dead", the good guys (human and alien) are captured by the bad guys - alien "serpent creatures" from the Andromeda Galaxy - and taken to a vast hall filled with thousands of motionless alien figures. Then the serpents inject our heroes with a green fluid that freezes them as well. How can they ever escape? (Well, suffice to say that since this is a pulp adventure,they do!) It does seem a bit unlikely that the same drug would have the same effect on thousands of different species, though, doesn't it? See also Arthur Porges.

Haynes, Betsy

"The Shopping Spree" [M] {***1/2} Four friends (three girls and a boy) visit the opening day of a shopping mall. Three of them get turned into mannequins and along the way they see many of their friends, also turned into mannequins. Some very good transformation passages and the shock and horor engendered by seeing people you know turned (and turning) into dummies is well handled. Let down by the ending, where the mannequinised kids all come back to life none the worse for their adventures, and by the cover, which is a real missed opportunity (skeletons in shop windows? Come on!)

Heinlein, Robert

"Expanded Universe" [M] ** [ISBN: 0-441-21891-1] "They do it with Mirrors" - involves a tabloux (p.181).

Lee, Tanith

"Prince on a White Horse or Dark Castle, White Horse" [F] - (1982) Juvenile fantasy. An unnamed teenage prince with amnesia has to try and save the world from an evil force called the Nulgrave. Along the way he meets a very eccentric witch who temporarily paralyses him with a spell just for the heck of it. Later on, the witch uses the same spell on his annoying girlfriend Gemael just when she might be of some help against the Nulgrave. "The Dragon Hoard" [S] - (1971) Juvenile fantasy. Teenage Prince Jasleth and his companions are searching for a cure for the witch's curse that turns him into a raven for an hour each day. Along the way they find a town where everyone has been turned to stone. Jasleth unadvisedly eats some of the local food and also turns to stone (except that for an hour he's a stone raven). His friends have to try and free him and the entire town as well. "Death's Master" [F][S] - (1979) Second in the "Flat Earth" series of Arabian-style fantasies. Toward the end of the book the decadent immortals of the city of Simmurad are paralysed while the city is swallowed by the ocean and their bodies are encased in coral. "The Silver Metal Lover" [A] - (1981) Jane falls in love with Silver, the man of her dreams, who just happens to be a robot. Unfortunately he's due to be decommissioned shortly. Any resemblance to Romeo and Juliet is probably intentional. "Delirium's Mistress" [S] - In one part of this long fantasy novel, a hermit becomes a pillar of rock and is set free again by sorcery. "Night's Sorceries" [S][F] - In one story, 'Daughter of the Magician,' sacrificial virgins freeze rigid with terror when they encounter the god they've been sacrificed to, their statue-like bodies decaying over the years. "Faces Under Water" [M] - (#1 of the Secret Books of Venus.) A Medieval fantasy mystery set in a parallel-world version of Venice called Venus. One female character, Eurydiche, has a birth defect that makes her face as smooth and motionless as a mannequin's or mask's, which arouses the special erotic interest of the book's protagonist.

McCaffrey, Anne

"The Death of Sleep" [F] *1/2 [ISBN: 0-671-69884-2] Good descriptions of cryogenic suspension process. "Generation Warriors" [F] * [ISBN: 0-671-72041-4] No ASFR content, really , but the high gravity support suits were the basis for Heavyworld. "The Ship Who Searched" [A] ** [ISBN: 0-671-72129-1] A young girl is paralyzed by an exotic disease and becomes the "brain" of a spaceship. Later, an android body is built that she can control remotely via the connections between her brain and the spacecraft systems. Good story potential here. "Crystal Singer" [S] * [ISBN: 0-345-32786-1] Before becoming a crystal singer, potential candidates are informed of the hazzards of the planet and the symbiosis with a microscopic organism. They are shown a gallery of victims who did not survive the symbiot's influence, including several people who'd been transformed into crystaline statues. (p.69).

Medusa

Greek Myth [S] - In Greek mythology, Medusa was a mortal Gorgon, a being who could turn people to stone by looking upon them (or being looked upon by them).

Midas

Greek Myth [S] - In Greek mythology, Midas was given the power to turn objects to gold by touching them by the god Bachuus.

Milan, Victor

"The Casque of Lamont T. Yado" [F] - The villain steals a time helmet which he believes will give him super speed, but the hero has booby-trapped it to freeze him alive for eternity.

Moorcock, Michael

"First Corum trilogy #1: The Knight of the Swords" [F] - (1971)Corum has to destroy the heart of the Chaos-god Arioch in order to banish him. This isn't as easy as it looks because the heart isn't actually in Arioch's chest but hidden somewhere in his castle. When Corum finally finds it, it's in a small chamber surrounded by frozen men. The heart protects itself by shooting paralysing rays. "First Corum trilogy #2: The Queen of the Swords" [F] - (1971) Corum and his companions are visiting a land conquered by Xiombarg of Chaos. Amongst her victims are a huge army of foot-soldiers frozen like statues for a hundred years. First Comics did an adaption of this novel, but they totally blew this scene. Their version consists of half a dozen frozen warriors way off in the distance. The first Corum trilogy has been collected several times in omnibus editions, most recently in the Eternal Champion collections from Orion Books (UK) and White Wolf (US). "one of the original six Elric volumes" [S] - Elric is hiking through dimensional gates with this elderly wizard/shaman, where they come across a village of crazed capering dancers who urge them to join in. When the villagers threaten the two trekkers, the wizard mutters a word of the "stone god" and freezes all the villagers as black basalt statues, in disturbing poses of their dance. "Stormbringer" [S] - (1965, revised 1977, further revisions in recent omnibus volumes) In the final Elric novel chronologically (though by no means the last to be written) Moorcock's best-known character visits among other places Hwamgaarl, the City of Screaming Statues, which takes its name from the enemies of Hwamgaarl who have been turned to rock and set upon the city walls, but who retain the ability to speak, or as they mostly do, scream. In the Eternal Champion omnibus volumes Stormbringer appears in the second Elric omnibus. There's a comic adaption of Stormbringer by P. Craig Russell, which has some terrific artwork including some nicely sadistic renditions of the Screaming Statues' contorted faces. "The Sword of the Dawn" [F] - (The History of the Runestaff #3 [of 4]) In Book 1,Chapter 8 there's a very brief scene in which Count Taragorm demonstrates his time experiments. One causes its attendant to age rapidly and crumble into dust, while nearby what appears at first to be a lifelike figure from a clock is in fact a man frozen in time by another machine. In the Eternal Champion omnibus volumes The Sword of the Dawn appears in the first Hawkmoon omnibus.

Mugler, Thierry

"Fashion - Fetish - Fantasy" [A] {****} (edited by Claude Deloffre, W. Quay Hays, 1998) [ISBN: 1-57544-105-5] Not much of a story but *oh*those*pictures*! Collection of photos of models wearing works by the famous designer, which have an incredibly high ASFR content. The famed 'robot suit' appears herein, along with a dizzying array of leather, latex, and lingerie. He tends to favor a very 'static' pose for his models, making it easy to imagine them as true mannequins in displays. WOW!

Niven, Larry

"Flatlander" [F] - "ARM" deals with a mystery set in fast-time, with interesting physics being applied. "Playgrounds of the Mind" [F] - [ISBN: 0-812-51695-8] "Relic of Empire" deals with a (plausibly accurate) stasis box. "Tales of Known Space" [I] ** (1975) [ISBN: 0-345-33469-8; 0-345-25836-3; 0-7088-8068-1] "Wait It Out" (1968) - an astronaut stranded on Pluto deliberately exposes himself to the planet's extremely cold environment. He freezes, hoping that in the process his body will be preserved well enough that it might be recovered someday in the future . . . a form of crude cryogenic suspension. The kicker is that it is so cold his nervous system acts as a superconductor and he is consious during the Putonian night (p.21). "Ringworld" [I] ** stasis device, girl hypnotized into immobility. "" [S] * man painted as a statue "" [F] * Slowed down existance

Norton, Andre

"Fur Magic" [F][S] - (1968)(teen) Teenage Cory finds himself in a world based on North American mythology, in the distant past or future, where animals rule the world instead of humans and the evil Changer plans to create a dominant race of men in his own image. Cory himself spends most of the story in the shape of a beaver, but there's a scene toward the end where he meets the Changer, who turns him back into his original shape in order to model his new race of humans upon it. While in human form, Cory is frozen by the Changer's spell. (It is also implied, though never stated outright, that in human form he is naked.) The cover shows Cory as a beaver (far right), and the interior also shows him standing (left foreground) helplessly while the Changer (the dancing guy with the coyote head) works on the clay model of a man that he intends to breathe life into - Cory's life.

Peel, John

"The Tale of the Sinister Statues" [S] {*1/2} (US: Avon Books Inc., 1998; UK publisher unknown). No. 11 in the "Eerie Indiana" series. Features a doll which contains the spirit of a dead girl, and which comes to life when placed inside a special dolls house. When the main protagonist (Marshall)'s sister, Syndi, accidentally finds her way into the same dolls house, she too becomes a doll! "Sitting in the front window of the Toy Box was another doll. A doll with long blonde hair and wearing a pair of pink pyjamas. It was Syndi." Two-and-a-half stars.

Pohl, Frederik

"Narabedla Ltd." [F] * Contains a scene with a slow-time prison.

Porges, Arthur

"The Ruum" [F] - (195?) Frequently anthologized. This has got to be the near-miss story of all time. An alien device collecting specimens of animal life, perhaps for a museum like the one in Edmond Hamilton's Outside the Universe, gets abandoned on Earth and keeps on collecting for millions of years. Another similarity to Hamilton's story is that it uses green paralysing fluid. When a human stumbles across the machine's hoard of paralysed specimens, the machine sets out to add him to the collection. Unfortunately for the machine, its human prey loses so much weight during the chase that it no longer meets the machine's criteria and it has to let him go.

Pygmalion

Greek Myth [S] - Pygmalion was a sculptor, who fell in love with one of his statues, named Galetea. Venus took pity on him and changed Galetea into a real girl.

Rice, Anne

"Queen of the Damned" [S] - Many descriptions of the stone-like king and queen of the vampires, who exist in a stasis-like state in an ancient tomb. In one part the queen comes to life and sucks out the king's blood, turning him into an empty transparant statue.

Robinson, Spider

"Callahan's Lady" [F] {***1/2} (Ace Books, 1990) [ISBN: 0-441-09072-9] Novel about a very interesting house of ill repute (and excellent reputation) run by the wife of the owner of 'Callahan's Crosstime Saloon' (same author). Many of the girls appear in leather and lace, the middle section in particular tracks a person with a mind control device that asks everyone "please don't move" - and they don't. "Lady Slings the Booze" [F] *** [ISBN: 0-441-46929-9] Sequel to 'Callahan's Lady' with more adventures in the house. Here a person with a timestop watch makes an appearance as do various aliens. At least one good scene describing a time-stopped girl. Part of the joy in this series is the portrayal of a free-wheeling guilt-free sexuality told in a whimsical, pun-filled writing style. Spider has been called "Heinlein's Illegitimate Son" and the similarities in character traits and natural dialogue between both authors are showcased in these works.

Rucker, Rudy

"Software" [A] {***} (Avon Books, 1982) [ISBN: 0-380-70177-4] Cyberpunk android/robot story with the lady on the cover one of the mechanical many that populate this unusual future world. A classic. "Live Robots [A][F] {***} (Avon Books, 1994) [ISBN: 0-380-77543-3] Compendium of 'Software' (same as above) and the sequel 'Wetware'. Robots abound, one of the characters in the latter novel is in cold storage at the begining.

Shakespeare, William

"The Tempest" [F] * (performed 1611, published 1623) In Act 1 Scene 2, the wizard Prospero reminds his familiar spirit Arial how a witch imprisoned Arial in the trunk of a tree for 12 years until Prospero released him. Later in that same scene the shipwrecked nobleman Ferdinand draws his sword upon Prospero and is briefly "charmed from moving" by Prospero's spell. "The Winter's Tale" [S] * (performed c.1609-10, published 1623) In the final scene (Act 5 Scene 3), what appears to be a statue of Hermione, who supposedly died years before, is brought to life, revealing that she was in fact alive and in hiding all along. There's a very nice reanimation scene. "Music, awake her; strike! 'Tis time. Descend. Be stone no more. Approach. Strike all that look upon with marvel."

Sharee, Keith

"Gulliver's Fugitives" [S] ** [ISBN: 0-671-70130-4] (Star Trek Book #11)Troi is turned to stone in a dream sequence.

Simmons, Dan

"Endymion" [F] - [ISBN: 0-553-57294-6] Third book in the Hyperion saga. One of the central characters of this SF story is a Terminator-eqsue killing machine called the Shrike, which among other things can time shift into "fast time". At the climax of this novel, the Shrike and another character fight in "fast time" in front of a frozen teenage girl (the main character) to decide her fate. It's a good story, but don't read it just for ASFR content or you'll be sorely disappointed.

Smith, Clark Ashton

"The Maze of Maal Dwed" [S] - Short story from "Weird Tales" for October 1938. Also appears in the 1970 anthology "The Young Magicians" ed. by Lin Carter. The title character on a planetcalled Xiccarph periodically demands a young woman as tribute from a city or settlement somewhere, and she is frozen into a lifelike statue. The description is rather a brief part of the story.

Smith, Thorne

"The Night Life of the Gods" [S] *** [ISBN: 0-345-28726-6] A scientist invents two rings. One turns flesh to stone, and the other stone to flesh. There is a great deal of statue-making thoughout the book, including nearly every main character. Several Greek statues are also brought to life.

Spencer, M.D.

"Weirdo Waldo's Wax Museum" [M] {*} (US: Paradise Press Inc., 1997). No. 34 in the Shivers series. Visitors to a wax museum disappear and then reappear, coated with wax, in the displays. Hmm. Sound familiar? "Wax Never Forgets" read the blurb. Maybe not, but I remember House of Wax. "Lost in Dreamland" [A] {**} (US: River Publishing Inc., 1998; UK distribution by Childrens Leisure Products Ltd., Bridlington). Shivers #22. The owners of a theme park have perfected a way of converting real people into living robots to populate their animatronics displays. Once again, though, the heroes, two geeky kids named Bill and Barbara, don't actually get done.

St Clair, Margaret

"Thirsty God" [S]- (1953) first published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction Vol. 4 No. 3, March 1953, as by 'Idris Seabright'. Reprinted in Change the Sky and Other Stories by Margaret St. Clair, Ace Books serial no. 10258 (1974). A human rapes an alien woman on a rainy version of Venus and takes refuge in what seems to be a shrine, but is actually a biological converter. The process goes wrong leaving him to helplessly absorb water from hideous little primitive beings - a symbolic rape. "He couldn't move. He couldn't even wriggle. His back had grown completely stiff..."

Sterling, Bruce

Schizmatrix [A] - A female geisha transforms herself with nontechnology into an entire city. I admit it's more Transformation fetish than ASFR... but still worth a read.

Stine, R. L.

"Goosebumps #12: Welcome to the Wicked Wax Museum" [M] {**} (Scholastic Books, 1996) [ISBN:0-590-84772-4] One of those 'multiple path' adventures taking place in the titular attraction, where many of the reader's selections lead to the teenage characters becoming permanent residents there! Some fairly good transformations for "mainstream" fare. "Tales to give you Goosebumps" [M] {*1/2} (Anthology; US: Scholastic, 1994; UK: Scholastic, 1995). One story, Broken Dolls, features a witch who is using her ancient arts to steal kids' souls and imprison them inside lifelike dolls. "Goosebumps #7: Under the Magician's Spell" [M][I] {**} (US: Scholastic, 1996; UK: Scholastic, 1998). A multi-path "Choose your own adventure book". A couple of the paths are worth following. One ends up with a girl turned into a ventriloquist's dummy; another with kids frozen and about to become pie fillings. "Goosebumps #14: The Creepy Creations of Professor Shock" [S] {**} (US: Scholastic, 1997; UK: Scholastic, 2000). Another in the same series. Once again, a couple of the paths are worth following, the best being one where three kids, including a girl named Stacey and the protagonist, who might well be a girl, too, get turned into lifelike stone carvings. "Goosebumps #16?" [S] - Two kids, a boy and a girl, get turned into mannequins in a department store.

Supergirl Choose-Your-Own-Adventure

[M] - A "choose-your-own-path" type book with pics for children and has one storyline ending where Mr. Mxyzptlk changes Supergirl into a department store dummy!  Guess which ending I would keep picking! [ publisher unknown]

Tepper, Sheri S.

Necromancer Nine - [S] (Ace 1983) [ISBN:0-441-56857-2] Second in the True Game series. In Chapter 5, Peter the shapeshifter discovers a city that has become a death trap, and must try to destroy its resident evil and escape. Among other things the city contains stone animals that turn out to be long-frozen shapeshifters. Jinian Star-Eye - [S] (Tor) [ISBN: US 0-812-55614-3; Canada 0-812-55615-1] Ninth and last in the True Game series. In Chapter 13 the witch Huldra tries to freeze Peter with a spell that will keep him frozen for a thousand years. His mother Mavin intervenes and kills the witch but not before being frozen herself. She is subsequently placed under a sleep spell so she won't have to remain conscious for a thousand years. Her frozen (and still youthful) body is subsequently enshrined in a crystal coffin. (Despite the change of publisher the cover artist is the same for both versions above.) The Awakeners - [S] Originally published in two volumes, The Awakeners: Northshore, and The Awakeners: Southshore(both 1987). Cover art (see link) depicts the 1988 British hardcover in one volume (Bantam UK 0-593-01418-9). The setting is an alien planet with one big world-circling river. In the opening chapters of Northshore, a boatman named Thrasne discovers a woman who has been 'blighted' - her flesh has been turned to wood by a fungus in the river-water. She appears lifeless, but turns out to be moving very slowly. Later on her wooden flesh dissolves, revealing a pod from which hatches a living baby. And that's just one plot-thread in a remarkably complex and ambitious novel....

Vance, Jack

"The Green Pearl" - [F] Second in a fantasy trilogy, told in Vance's usual eloquent, coolly ironic style. The Pearl of the title contains the soul of an evil sorcerer; anyone who possesses it becomes inspired to commit evil acts. The Pearl passes from hand to hand throughout Chapter 1, ending up in the possession of the executioner Manting, whose work henceforward becomes highly dramatic and inventive. Unfortunately, one of his victims is the beloved of a wizard, who takes Manting to a remote meadow and places a paralysing spell on him. Over the course of several months he is slowly eaten to death by rodents and insects.

Varley, John

"The Persistence of Vision" - [S] (coll 1978) [ISBN: 0-440-17311-6] Many of Varley's early stories feature skin-tight, silver force fields which people wear instead of spacesuits, giving them the appearance of animated nude statues or silver robots.

White, Ted

"The Jewels of Elsewhen" [F] {**1/2} (Belmont Books #B50-751, 1967) Let the blurb speak for itself: "You are riding home from work on the subway. There is a jolt -- and as you fall against your neighbor you discover -- *he is a mannikin*. You investigate. The entire train is filled with mannikins. Are there no humans in this world...? [yes, the babe on the cover does get frozen in time].