May 27
Click for full imageEleanor Comments: A book with the awesome title ‘Get Off the Unicorn’ features a . . . dragon?
Published 1977
(Average: 5.50 out of 10)
Loading...
Eleanor Comments: A book with the awesome title ‘Get Off the Unicorn’ features a . . . dragon?
Published 1977
(Average: 5.50 out of 10)Loading...
(9.25 out of 10) (9.18 out of 10) (9.01 out of 10) (8.97 out of 10) (8.93 out of 10) (8.93 out of 10) (8.93 out of 10) (8.92 out of 10) (8.89 out of 10) (8.88 out of 10)
Lastest Tweet
May 27th, 2011 at 9:48 am
Start the day right with your daily breakfast dragon.
May 27th, 2011 at 12:10 pm
I own that book, it is a collection of short stories, several set in Pern and one does feature a Dragon hatching. So apart from it being a really odd dragon, it does illustrate the contents…
May 27th, 2011 at 12:24 pm
Honestly, this is a scene in the book! Supposedly the title was a typo of “Get of the Unicorn” and was slapped on a random collection of McCaffrey short stories. I am not making this up. Beware of exploding dragon shells….
May 27th, 2011 at 1:50 pm
Guy/Gal with spear thinks “I’m totally screwed”
May 27th, 2011 at 3:20 pm
Instead of having “the talk” with my future children, instead I will announce my intentions and then simply hand them this book and walk away
May 27th, 2011 at 4:58 pm
It’s Anne McCaffrey, of course there’s going to be a dragon on the cover.
May 27th, 2011 at 5:16 pm
Imagine other titles with such typos:
GOD EMPEROR OFF DUNE
THE END OFF ETERNITY
STAND IN ZANZIBAR
HOUSE OFF SUNS
May 27th, 2011 at 5:38 pm
@Carolyn B — weird, one would think she could have just said, “Offspring of the Unicorn” — which sounds like a perfectly ok title… Or, progeny of the Unicorn — haha
May 27th, 2011 at 7:08 pm
What’s the problem? Oi! You! Dragon! Get off that unicorn! Now!!!
Maybe dragons are like cuckoo: you think you’re going to hatch a unicorn, but a dragon has laid an egg in your unicorn nest. (And don’t tell me unicorns are mammals. They don’t exist, so they have no obligation to follow the defining biological characteristics of mammalia…)
There’s a clearer photo of the cover here:
http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/m/anne-mccaffrey/get-off-unicorn.htm
May 27th, 2011 at 8:05 pm
“you think you’re going to hatch a unicorn, but a dragon has laid an egg in your unicorn nest. (And don’t tell me unicorns are mammals.”
The platypus, echidna, and a whole slew of extinct synapsids would like a word with you.
(There is one thing all mammals have in common, to the point where you can’t be a mammal if you don’t have them: tits.)
May 27th, 2011 at 8:53 pm
There’s another way to “interpret” the misprinted title — and I’m not going to spell it out… I bet you can figure it out for yourselves.
May 27th, 2011 at 11:03 pm
U get off the Nicorn?
May 28th, 2011 at 1:04 am
Get Off, Thee Unicorn! (Unicorns are always trespassing on neighbors’ lawns, leaving unsightly messes.)
@Joachim – my understanding (from reading years ago, but I think it was explained in the book intro) was that the publisher actually had a list of titles that had been sitting around to be used. “Hey, Anne, we’ve got this title. Scrape together all your short stories and we’ll publish them!” (I once adored all things Anne McCaffrey. I bought this book and thought the cover was cool. I will not say how old I was.)
May 29th, 2011 at 11:10 pm
Dragon > Unicorn
May 30th, 2011 at 12:00 am
It’s a collection of short stories, at least one of which is about a dragon. Makes perfect sense.
@Joachim: McCaffrey didn’t make up the title. And your suggestions don’t have as nice a rhythm as the original version.
May 30th, 2011 at 5:49 am
I guess it makes sense for dragons to be in eggs… but that’s one hell of a big egg! Think of the dragon butt that laid that thing!
May 30th, 2011 at 10:01 am
SI, your comment opens up the proverbial can of worms: How do you define “consistency” or “logic” in fantasy? (Warning: these questions may lead to tedious, endless Fanw*nk.)
May 30th, 2011 at 5:15 pm
I am surprised that none of you recognised the 1930s slogan of the Dragon Marketing Board:
“Get off the Unicorn and get on a Dragon”
They introduced that after discovering that no-one understood:
“Three horns are better than one”
June 15th, 2011 at 12:14 am
“There is one thing all mammals have in common, to the point where you can’t be a mammal if you don’t have them: tits.)”
I don’t hae tits. I guess I’ll just have to wait ’til middle age to be a mammal.
June 15th, 2011 at 12:43 am
“Guy/Gal with spear thinks “I’m totally screwed—
Ferenghi Gal in dress (?) is just standing around like ‘huh, that’s interesting. How do I turn it into money?’ I suppose the spear’s in case anyone tries to unclothe her.
Also, why is the dragon so pissed off? I thought Anne McCaffery’s dragons were supposed to be friendly.
June 20th, 2011 at 4:20 pm
You get off that… dang it! I’m sorry. It’s on the tip of my tongue.
June 24th, 2011 at 5:23 pm
I think maybe that dragon was sitting on a unicorn, thus making the title very apt indeed…
August 9th, 2011 at 7:27 pm
Story in question involves a kid who gets rather nastily beaten up and is going to miss the hatching, so that’s a pole he’s leaning on. Considerably spikier than McCaffrey dragons are supposed to be, though.
If you haven’t read this collection and you’re a fan of her work, don’t worry; most of these stories have been starting points for her novels. About the only ones that haven’t are the Daughter/Dull Drums duo and the one in the same section.
July 31st, 2013 at 5:37 pm
The dragon is a character in one of the short stories in the book. The story is the Shortest Dragonrider.
January 10th, 2014 at 9:31 pm
THE DARK KNIGHT GETS OFF THE UNICORN
MAN OFF STEEL, GET OFF THE UNICORN
LORD OFF THE UNICORN
GET OFF THE UNICORN AND GET ON WITH YOUR CAREER, DARKMAN
DEBBIE GETS OFF THE UNICORN
THE SECRET GET OFF WALTER UNICORN
January 10th, 2014 at 11:27 pm
If you liked THIS misspelled title, you may enjoy these others:
TURN OFF THE SCREW
THE WIZARD OFF OZ
OFF MICE AND MEN
FAREWELL TWO ARMS
January 13th, 2014 at 8:53 am
I prefer the James Brown version of the story, his hit song “Get Down Offa That Unicorn (And Get On Uppa That Dance Floor)”.
September 6th, 2015 at 5:51 pm
Maybe this is what happens if you follow the instruction.
edit: Why is the suggested “random” cover “The Long Arm of Gil Hamilton”?