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Aug 13

Adam and Eve. Eatin' shrooms. Good times.Click for larger image

Dionysius Rogers Art Direction: Don’t we have some rejected cover art for that last printing of Stranger in a Strange Land? Where there’s a burning, lightning-struck monster in the middle of it for some reason?

Published 1977

Actually, that cover IS a classical work of art!I would touch it without protective gloves.I've seen worse. Far, far, worse.Interesting, but I would still read it in public.Middlng: Neither awful nor awfully goodWould not like to be seen reading that!Awful... just awful...That belongs in a gold-lame picture frame!Gah... my eyes are burning! Feels so good!Good Show Sir! (Average: 7.76 out of 10)
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25 Responses to “The Presence”

  1. THX 1139 Says:

    “I told you to keep the receipt!”

  2. Francis Boyle Says:

    Adam and Eve? Looks more like Adam’s traded in Eve for a younger model. So maybe Adam and Melania. (She looks more like Ivanka but let’s not go there.) BTW, does anyone know what
    Trump looks like with a beard?

  3. JuanPaul Says:

    This is clear evidence that women are half a step ahead of men on the evolutionary journey.

  4. fred Says:

    Bad nudist BBQ is better than no nudist BBQ at all.

  5. Longtime_lurker Says:

    Bearded guy: “Don’t worry, all that heat is just natural variability. Or a trick to decrease our competitiveness.”

  6. Kendall Says:

    That’s no Garden of Eden. A mushroom?! Other than that – perfect rendering of the Bible!

  7. Anna T. Says:

    Adam and Eve cosplayers chat up a giant, evil neuron. In a lake. Outside a giant crystal castle. Ignoring the fact that a deity is attempting to smite the evil neuron, which unfortunately does nothing.

  8. Yoss Says:

    So is this what’s behind Emerald City? Poppies out front and psychedelic Biblical allegories in the back?

  9. THX 1139 Says:

    Now we’re in the future, we can agree “frighteningly intelligent” is less frightening than “frighteningly unintelligent”.

  10. GSS ex-noob Says:

    Melania of Oz is holding a ‘shroom. I guess that explains the entire cover.

    Except nothing explains the Presence of the giant neuron/rip in the fabric of space and time/lightning attractor.

    I don’t believe anything having to do with this cover is “frighteningly intelligent”.

    @LL (5): hee!
    @Yoss: Yep, it’s even trippier than we thought. sings “Existential Blues

  11. Bibliomancer Says:

    “Help me fold this up and get it back in the van.”

  12. L.B. Says:

    Not a presence I want to sense.

  13. GSS ex-noob Says:

    @B’mancer: I think “on the van”.

    Though I wouldn’t be surprised if these two also had groovy psychedelic art on the inside walls of their van, lit by a lava lamp and over the appropriately-named shag carpeting.

  14. Bruce A Munro Says:

    The giant space neuron was of two minds on whether or not to destroy the world, but the true division was in Its heart.

  15. Anti-Sceptic Says:

    @BM #14…. Good show sir!

  16. Tor Mented Says:

    Things I learned from this cover: Women get crystals, men get wood.

  17. A. R. Yngve Says:

    “We secretly switched the artist’s regular coffee with Folgers LSD Crystals. Let’s watch!”

  18. Emster Says:

    Some covers, like this one, I think, “Whaaaaa?” and then I scroll down to learn from the masters of scifi cover interpretation.

    It’s kinda hard to get into the sense of foreboding when “The Presence” is written in translucent hot pink letters… and if that’s what everyone sees when they’re tripping on shrooms at the Banff hot springs, um, no thanks.

  19. GSS ex-noob Says:

    So they’re just standing there starkers, meanwhile there’s a creature/hole in space-time and half the Earth is on fire.

    @FB (2): They seem to have the lack of brains, ignorance of global warming, and self-centeredness of that crime family. And it’s no surprise if you go there; he did first. Either that, or it’s an old picture. You know, when he was still married to Ivana and well before he had someone push her down the stairs.

  20. Bruce A Munro Says:

    That’s chicks for you: always on the “destroy the word with fire and cover it with crystals” side of the argument.

  21. fred Says:

    He looks like the guy who had a lot of fun riding a dolphin bareback on one of GSS’s more WTF covers.

  22. GSS ex-noob Says:

    @fred: Maybe he is! This is what happens West of January, I guess. And he’s still in water — maybe the dolphin brought him there and left him with the woman. “He’s all yours, baby… so long and thanks for all the fish.”

  23. B. Chiclitz Says:

    Adam’s physiognomy is off the charts. Boneless wrists, forearms too long, extreme Big-Face-itis compounded by massive Swollen Neck Syndrome. Eve’s is at least enticing.

  24. Bruce A Munro Says:

    So how intelligent is “frighteningly intelligent?” Intelligent enough to open the latch on the chicken coop? Intelligent enough to steal your job at J.P. Morgan? (Damn immigrant space neurons, taking our jobs!)

  25. GSS ex-noob Says:

    @BC: I guess in this version, God wasn’t very good in the sculpting Adam out of clay part. Did much better with Eve.

    @Bruce: There are some birds that are “frighteningly intelligent”. Parrots, corvids, and so on. Cockatoos in Sydney have worked out how to open wheelie bins for the leftovers, and (again down under, because Australia wants to kill everyone) raptors know how to spread fires to flush out prey.

    Dunno about giant neurons, though.

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