Sep 15
Scott B’s Art Direction: Take a woman with highly improbable hair, with a snake wrapped around her shoulders. Sexy, eh? But we need to make it all technological-like, so the snake’s actually made of fiber-optic wires or something. And throw a computer keyboard behind her, to make sure people get it. Technology! Also put a giant floating head in the background — you know I require that on all my covers!
Published 1991
September 15th, 2011 at 8:52 am
“She blinded me with science!”
September 15th, 2011 at 10:11 am
and high speed lan venom.
September 15th, 2011 at 10:22 am
We won’t forget you, Toyah! Thunder in the Mountains video, wasn’t it?
September 15th, 2011 at 5:32 pm
Toyah crossed with Flock Of Seagulls?
September 15th, 2011 at 6:32 pm
What was wrong with the old afterword?
September 15th, 2011 at 7:53 pm
“Scientists are not sure what this is supposed to represent.”
(Mike Nelson, MST3K)
September 15th, 2011 at 9:25 pm
She seems to be extremely suspicious of her own hairdo. I can’t blame her.
September 16th, 2011 at 3:17 am
Presenting: THE 80’S, NOW IN PAPERBACK
September 16th, 2011 at 9:20 am
When I was a young boy, working with awesome computers always looked something like this.
But now I know the cold hard truth…
September 20th, 2011 at 7:50 pm
It’s one of those pictures where different people see different things. In this case, some see a woman with improbable hair, fiber-optic snake, keyboard, and superimposed profile, while other see an woman with 80’s hair being attacked by a headcrab, fiber-optic snake, keyboard, and superimposed profile.
December 19th, 2011 at 6:03 pm
Aw, I always really liked this cover and consider it superior to the original cover on the first edition. But I guess one person’s cover art, like one person’s theology or politics, is another person’s belly-laugh.
PS: What was wrong with the old afterword was, it didn’t exist.
Just sayin’
March 19th, 2013 at 12:48 pm
More evidence for my thesis that ridiculous hair and 80’s computers go together like peanut butter and chocolate!
Although, that stuff on her head looks pretty dangerous. I’m not sure if I’d prefer the hair or the snake…
December 9th, 2014 at 1:05 am
What is that in the upper left corner? An azure abdomen with three indigo incision scars?
@Pat: Ah, another author graces us with her presence! I hope you’ve had a belly-laugh yourself. Or at least a belly without major surgery. π
January 9th, 2017 at 8:28 am
The copy of the book I purchased had a wraparound cover image as seen here
http://www.imagekind.com/mindplayers_art?IMID=3b5d5b0b-6978-4d4f-806a-47e05c56ccd9
This cover however is just another “generic 80’s cyberpunk” and the story is anything but that (it’s damned good actually).
October 22nd, 2018 at 4:13 am
What? Seven years and no “author in the comments” tag? There he is, up at #11….
October 22nd, 2018 at 9:17 pm
@Hammy… er, she.
October 23rd, 2018 at 1:54 am
Tat@prev.
A thousand pardons I beg, and abject apologies to Ms. Cadigan….
October 23rd, 2018 at 5:51 am
@Hammy: And Ms. Cadigan is a delightful, wickedly funny person. She MC’d the Hugos a few years back and I was lucky enough to talk to her at some length this year at Worldcon.
She says the one deadline she’s pleased to have missed was the one the doctors gave her that she wouldn’t see 2014. As are we all.
Last I saw, her actual hair was curly and a light purple.
October 24th, 2018 at 2:50 am
@GSS-xn (prev.):
It’s good to know that Ms. Cadigan has a sensible outlook on life.
Most days I feel out-of-my-depth here at GSS – nowhere near as funny, sardonic, or even (dare I say it?) erudite as the other posters here. I’ll keep trying, though….
October 24th, 2018 at 8:11 am
@Hammy: you and me both. Itβs reassuring to know that Imposter Syndrome exists on GSS.GSS!
October 24th, 2018 at 2:07 pm
@Hammy – Don’t worry. Most of the “funny, sardonic, erudite” comments here still follow Sturgeon’s Law.
Keep coming back!
October 24th, 2018 at 4:52 pm
@TW: I’ve never been so insulted in all my born days! Oh, wait – yeah, I have, actually. Quite a few times. As you were.
October 25th, 2018 at 12:09 am
@Hammy: Your comments are usually at minimum slightly amusing, which is what we’re all here for.
I have to go for
pedanticerudite b/c by the time I get to a new cover, everyone else has already taken the low-hanging fruit of obvious jokes, comments, and filk.Ms. Cadigan opened our conversation with “So how the hell are ya?” as if we’d been friends for ever, even though she doesn’t actually know me.
April 15th, 2022 at 3:46 pm
As luck would have it, I was watching “The Champions” again last night and wondered to myself: whatever happened to Alexandra Bastedo?
Apparently, the 80s happened.
April 15th, 2022 at 6:30 pm
There’s the face of a classic Roswell alien in her hair.
April 15th, 2022 at 10:33 pm
@fred: not seeing it. A muppet monster, maybe.
“A pleasure to read, and a writer to admire ” – Analog employee whose actual name nobody would recognize.
The same way late 60s futures involved very short skirts, 80s and early 90s futures involved really big hair. No doubt 2022 images of the future will also be hilariously dated in a decade or two.
April 15th, 2022 at 10:37 pm
@fred: So there is! Maybe that’s what she’s looking at. Even rad 80s hair wasn’t supposed to have aliens in it.
@Bruce: The top of the alien’s head is right where the hair goes from orange to pink.
Still no “author in the comments”. Also, she doesn’t get near enough credit for being a cyberpunk pioneer, before all the guys whose names you know.
April 16th, 2022 at 3:35 am
@fred, Bruce, GSS x-n (three prev.):
I had to look closely, but now I see it, too. It’s a rather astonished Gray, I would guess, judging from the open mouth. I wonder if alien-infested hair makes one’s scalp itch….
GSS x-n: 3 1/2 years later, and I’m still embarrassed that I misgendered Ms. Cadigan up there. All I had to do was read DSWBT’s comment @13 – clearly wrote “her presence”…. π
April 16th, 2022 at 11:02 pm
@Hammy: Wouldn’t you look astonished too if you’d wound up in that hair on this cover?
April 19th, 2022 at 12:51 am
@GSS x-n(prev.):
Nonplussed, at the very least!