10) Mutiny In Space, by Avram Davidson

I confess that I bought this purely because I overheard people sniggering about how Jack Gaughan, the cover artist, had been told to add a very small amount to the costume of the lady on the front cover compared to the original (which is still visible, if more dimly, on the back cover):

Also the blurb made this look like it was probably entertainingly bad, particularly given its likely take on sexual politics.

Well, it turned out to be a bad book for quite different reasons. The blurb writer obviously felt that a planet controlled by women must be a Bad Thing; but in the novel Davidson portrays it as a pre-industrial feudal Eden, where men happen to be much shorter and women do the chivalry thing. (The scenes described in the blurb have almost no resemblance to anything that happens in the book.) If anything, I was disappointed by how unimaginative the setting actually was, and the plot is just good Earthmen vs bad Earthmen in Eden. On top of that the characterisation is lousy, and the pacing rather peculiar.

A quick read, though not necessarily a particularly edifying one.