Dec 12
Click for full image Colette’s Art Direction: I want a colony of giant lavender termites- all with the same goofy facial expression- dragging an extremely khaki couple into their underground nest. Try and make the tunnel seem as reminiscent of a human colon as possible, as subtle subliminal foreshadowing of where a large purple ovipositor may soon find itself.
Published 1980
(Average: 8.55 out of 10)
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December 12th, 2011 at 9:05 am
Human colon, eh? I thought it was Irwin Allen’s TIME TUNNEL.
Formigans sound ever so slightly Irish. If those critters are on the cover are Formigans, I think I like them!
Is this the first recorded instance of crowd surfing?
December 12th, 2011 at 9:26 am
PLANET OF THE SHMOO
By Al Capp
December 12th, 2011 at 9:27 am
“Hi-ho, hi-ho, it’s off to Earth we go…[whistle] Hi-ho, hi-ho!”
December 12th, 2011 at 9:58 am
That grotto looks grotty. Did the Formigans invent Formica?
December 12th, 2011 at 10:50 am
If the intent was to make the Formigans seem creepy, it failed. They’re *cute*. The Nac Mac Feegle are much scarier-looking (as well as doing the crowd-surf thing to entire herds of cattle at once).
December 12th, 2011 at 1:53 pm
On seeing this cover I would immediately assume: children’s book.
On another note, some classic white-washing appears to have been going on here. The male protagonist is black, but you wouldn’t be able to tell from the cover.
December 12th, 2011 at 5:23 pm
@Jaouad: I dunno, they didn’t have any problem putting purple people on the cover!
December 12th, 2011 at 9:26 pm
On a side note: Thank God these little critters are not Hobbits! Because if they were, the comments would quickly degenerate into terminal fan-w***king.
December 13th, 2011 at 1:31 am
haha, I didn’t laugh until I read the caption — termites, haha… colon…
December 13th, 2011 at 6:31 pm
And I thought I had trouble getting to Solla Sollew.
December 14th, 2011 at 12:27 am
@drlemaster: Tea spit take. Solla Sollew!
December 15th, 2011 at 5:32 pm
All the little Formigans seem to be smiling except for the ones carrying the woman. I wonder why those ones are so upset….I suppose it’s possible that, out of nervousness, the woman released a little pent-up gas?
January 6th, 2012 at 12:40 am
I thought this cover looked pretty cool when I was a kid, but not cool enough to get me to pick up the book and read it.
June 11th, 2014 at 2:29 am
The… Formigian? between the guy’s legs looks a little TOO happy.
IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN.
March 22nd, 2015 at 4:45 pm
@Tom: they like to watch. All of them. AT ONCE.
And that’s why they’re all slowly going extinct…
March 11th, 2016 at 10:45 am
Vealy nob
Daze in la Curd
Ty T. wanted lush chews and cheese sweat — what he got was a nightmare!
OH, THE SOFT ROTTING FROMAGE
May 27th, 2016 at 8:29 pm
FOR SALE: Formigan
Height: 1 m Colour: White
Answers to the name Bob
After 7: (0161) 715 5555
FOR SALE: Formigan
Height: 1 m Colour: White
Answers to the name Skipper
After 7: (0161) 715 5555
FOR SALE: Formigan
Height: 1 m Colour: White
Answers to the name Philip
After 7: (0161) 715 5555
FOR SALE: Formigan
Height: 1 m Colour: White
Answers to the name Hubert
After 7: (0161) 715 5555
FOR SALE: Formigan
Height: 1 m Colour: White
Answers to the name Jasmine
After 7: (0161) 715 5555
FOR SALE: Formigan
Height: 1 m Colour: White
Answers to the name Joachim
After 7: (0161) 715 5555
FOR SALE: Formigan
Height: 1 m Colour: White
Answers to the name Clarissa
After 7: (0161) 715 5555
FOR SALE: Formigan
Height: 1 m Colour: White
Answers to the name Murgatroid
After 7: (0161) 715 5555
October 16th, 2016 at 3:48 am
Just so you know, the word “formica” in Latin means “ant.” I wonder if the writer/cover artist was consulting his old copy of Wheelock’s Latin textbook or just picking syllables out of a hat. Guesses?
January 8th, 2017 at 5:10 am
Where’s the lighting coming from?
October 28th, 2017 at 5:10 am
I’ve read this book, so a few comments on earlier comments (some of which seemed to show that the author hadn’t read the book).
If you like strong horror fiction, this is a good example of that, and very unusual – definitely not run-of-the-mill. Probably horror more than science-fiction, although marketed as science-fiction – but there is in fact considerable overlap between those two genres.
“If those critters are on the cover are Formigans, I think I like them!”
You wouldn’t if you encountered them. They are terrifying!
“If the intent was to make the Formigans seem creepy, it failed. They’re *cute*.”
Oh, no they’re not. If you read the book, you’ll find out how totally creepy and completely horrible they are. The book actually plays on their innocent appearance just increasing the creepiness. If anything, this makes the horror more subtle than if they were obviously horrific monsters at first appearance.
“On seeing this cover I would immediately assume: children’s book.”
Don’t let your children read this if you don’t want them to have nightmares. This is one of very few books that show how there are *much* worse fates possible than dying, whereas most horror stories are really just variations on ways of killing people. No human deaths happen in this, yet it is far, far more terrifying. Definitely not a children’s book – and the cover doesn’t convey that to me, anyway.
“the word “formica” in Latin means “ant.””
“Formigans” was probably drawn from “formica”: the Formigans exuded a smell of formic acid, and their society was organized rather like ant colonies.
“Where’s the lighting coming from?”
If I recall, there was luminescence in the tunnels.