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Mar 03

I'm killing you with SCIENCE!Click for larger image

Rick Deckard Comments: Yeah, Frazetta can’t paint feet either.

Published 1970

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: 5.20 out of 10)
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23 Responses to “Monster From Out of Time”

  1. THX 1139 Says:

    Vasectomies were a lot more hit and miss in ice age barbarian days.

  2. Bruce A Munro Says:

    Who wears short shorts?

    Ice age barbarians wear short shorts!

    I presume the scientist is the monster out of time: after all, he’s the one murdering locals with high-tech weapons.

  3. JuanPaul Says:

    The downside of the Naruto Run is that it leaves you wide open to projectile attacks.

  4. Francis Boyle Says:

    When it comes to depictions of young scientists I think I’ll go with The Big Bang Theory and I can’t stand that show.

  5. fred Says:

    You can tell it’s the ice age by the thick layers of winter clothing.

  6. Tat Wood Says:

    Two REM albums for the price of one.

    (Why are people assuming the scientist is the one with the bow and not the one hiding behind him?)

  7. fred Says:

    He doesn’t exactly have his quiver positioned for quick arrow access.
    If she is the scientist then that is a slide rule being wielded.

  8. B. Chiclitz Says:

    Looks like they started doing calligraphy, tipped over the ink bottle, and aroused the wrath of the barbarians.

    “Hey, that’s our sacred ink! Why I oughtta . . . .”

  9. Bibliomancer Says:

    Poor woman. Looks like someone removed her spine. No wonder she’s flopped over.

  10. Tracy Says:

    The woman’s hips SHOULD NOT have been able to twist like that while her back is in a different position.

    But aside from that, this isn’t a bad Frazetta cover. The absent feet are more a stylistic thing resulting from the poses, which aids to the illusion of bodies in action (because the human eye sees the action, not the ends of the limbs)

  11. GSS ex-noob Says:

    Do the “cataclysmic horrors” include the dodgy anatomy and perspective?

    Skewered left barbarian has a torso that looks like it was stepped on by a very large shoe. Blonde lady has a large dent in her back and a terrible case of scoliosis.

    @fred: Well-said, but presumably one doesn’t pay Frazetta prices to hide the bare skin and rippling thews. Maybe the guy’s just culling the herd of the ones too dumb to wear clothes. Although ISTM he and the lady could just hole up somewhere unpopulated till winter came, which might only be next week.

    @Tat: Ooh, well-spotted! All part of lifes rich pageant, I suppose, but he could do better if he’d managed to bring an automatic for the people.

    @BC: It’s got to be ink, as it can’t possibly be shadows of anything else depicted.

    @Tracy: True about the feet, but also convenient for someone who can’t paint them.

    He’s probably the scientist, the book having been written in 1970 by a guy born in 1904.

  12. THX 1139 Says:

    @GSS x-n: If he had lived through the 1950s, the author would be well aware of the phenomenon of the Beautiful Lady Scientist.

  13. GSS ex-noob Says:

    So maybe he’s the muscle (literally) she brought for protection, her unfortunate spinal defects making her unsuited (pun not intended) for life in the suspiciously warm Ice Age.

    The Goodreads reviews are few and contain such bon mots as “The cover is where the awesome stops” and “this book blows”.

    The title apparently refers to the thing that causes people to travel back to the Ice Age, where at least in the text they do have the sense to wear fur. Although the locals kill mammoths but don’t eat them.

  14. B. Chiclitz Says:

    @GSSxn—That’s what tipped me off.

    @Tracy—The human eye may see the action, but the GSS eye sees all, especially what’s not there.

  15. GSS ex-noob Says:

    (I accidentally appended this to yesterday’s book instead of putting it here. @Tag W, feel free to delete that one. This one’s got more content.)

    In other news, someone’s (probably illegally) scanned in random issues of “Starlog” from the 80s and they are a gold mine. “Superman IV” is going to be good! Karen Allen will never play Marion again. That whole boring Trade Federation
    nonsense leading to the Emperor in the Star Wars prequels was in the original draft of the first movie, but got cut in rewrites (presumably when people could still tell Lucas when his ideas sucked).

    In book news:

    – there’s a passing mention of “The Windover Tapes” as being “popular”

    – an interview with Colin Wilson where he’s excitedly plugging his new book “Spider World”, wherein we learn that the immortal line “Not the bore-worms!” in “Flash Gordon” came from that due to his unused rewrite of FG. He’s also really proud of not having read any SF or seen any SF movies since 1945. Which explains why he thought writing 4 books about giant man-eating spiders was a great idea, one he hoped to be remembered for.

    He was right about how terrible the movie “Lifeforce” was, though. He’d planned a sequel to “Space Vampires” to be written with AE van Vogt, but that was abandoned after “Lifeforce”.

    Many other gems, and lovely memories.

    PS: There was a 90s issue with a lot of interviews about “Blade Runner” in time for the 10th anniversary re-release.

    It also had an interview of Sylvia Anderson, plugging her then-new book about the Supermarionation years, which she says she wrote due to Gerry’s “whining” and taking 100% of the credit for those. Rather ignoring her contributions (Gerry couldn’t have come up with Lady P) and those of everyone else. And her excitement at she and Gerry seeing color TV for the first time in a visit to the US, and talking Lew Grade into ponying up the extra cash to make “Thunderbirds” in it. As well as stealing homaging the Tracy family from “Bonanza”.

    And the letter column was almost entirely 2 pages of slagging off “Superman IV”.

  16. Bruce A Munro Says:

    @GSS ex-noob: so the Monster is basically a bored Time Lord or some such?

    Well, of course they don’t eat them: mammoths taste terrible.

    Interesting slice of genre history there. I wasn’t even aware Colin Wilson had written one giant spider book, let alone four.

  17. A.R.Yngve Says:

    Not sure about this one. Is it really a “bad” cover, given the circumstances?
    :-S

    (Note the “Out of Time” title – that’s shorthand for “for Edgar Rice Burroughs fans only.”)

  18. Francis Boyle Says:

    @Tat

    Not assuming anything, it’s just that when I was studying physics I never encountered any naked over-muscled hunks or lithe young women in tattered g-strings. (There were plenty of women among my fellow students though none, as I recall, on staff. Hopefully that’s changed in the many years since.)

  19. THX 1139 Says:

    @GSS x-n: LifeForce is a GSS cover come to life in movie form!

    Also, it always makes me a bit sad that Gerry and Sylvia fell out so badly, they were a fantastic team for a couple of decades, anyway. It’s said Zelda from Terrahawks was based on Sylvia, now I really like Terrahawks, but that’s just petty.

  20. Verylatetotheparty Says:

    @Francis Boyle: When you say “Hopefully that’s changed since” are you hoping for women staff in the physics department or that there WILL now be naked over-muscled hunks and lithe young women in tattered G-strings?

  21. GSS ex-noob Says:

    @Bruce: I’d no idea, either, which is why I shared the factoid. The interview was plugging the first one, and Wiki revealed he’d committed 3 more.

    The monster shows up in South America and gives off radiation that throws people back to the ice age, according to the Goodreads blurb.

    @ARY: Indeed, this cover may be better than the book deserves.

    @Francis: Mr. x-n and I met in engineering school. NERRRRDS. 80% male, at least, even after strenuous efforts to recruit more women, including a quota system. I had one female (associate) professor, and she was a petty bitch on wheels.

    @THX: Sylvia seemed like a nice woman who did some really extraordinary things, especially for the time period. It wuz “Space 1999” what finally did for the marriage, I think. And Gerry certainly did go in for petty whining after that.

    @Vlttp: Perhaps both? On Casual Friday, only.

  22. Verylatetotheparty Says:

    @GSSxn: Rules might still require wearing a lab coat over the top when doing any practical demonstrations.

  23. Bruce A Munro Says:

    @GSS ex-noob: I guess that makes it a MacGuffin Monster, or perhaps a monster MacGuffin? (“an object or device in a movie or a book that serves merely as a trigger for the plot.”)

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