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May 14

We have ways... of making you purr...Click for full image

Good Show Sir’s Art Direction: Nightmare… Blue… well we can put some blue on the cover. But how do we get across… nightmare? I say that like I don’t already know the answer. Two words, cat person… with a light bulb syringe.
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: 7.67 out of 10)
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29 Responses to “Nightmare Blue”

  1. THX 1138 Says:

    “And where’s that going?” asked Whitley Streiber nervously.

  2. Phil Says:

    Old cat features there seems to have a python slithering up and over his head. Maybe that is who/what the tinging syringe is intended for.

  3. Tom Noir Says:

    OH GOD

  4. A.R.Yngve Says:

    THX 1138 at #1:

    Genius! ๐Ÿ™‚

  5. Dead Stuff With Big Teeth Says:

    With fingers like those trying to hold an overfull needle? No wonder he’s focussing so hard.

    The font is rather bland, isn’t it? Considering it’s supposed to be nightmarish and all.

  6. fred Says:

    Just say no.

  7. Jerk of all Trades Says:

    I tried to find out what the book is even about, to see if the cover has anything to do with the story– or if it was another cover invented whole-cloth by deranged artists– but there’s diddly squat out there. Not even a one-line plot summary.

  8. Infoqueen Says:

    @ Jerk: Here’s a link to a summary:
    http://www.lwcurrey.com/pages/books/133025/gardner-dozois-george-alec-effinger/nightmare-blue

  9. Phil Says:

    Fred’s comment prompts me to add: it’s not just Zammo. (Sad ’80s reference there; sad in more ways than one.)

  10. Alessandra Kelley Says:

    It’s the marbled endpapers monster.

  11. Tom Noir Says:

    I remain baffled by why publishers would have chosen covers that are so damn off-putting. It’s not even that I wouldn’t take this on the bus. I wouldn’t even want to touch it.

  12. Herm Says:

    M’aiq knows much, tells some. M’aiq knows things others do not.

  13. Phil Says:

    M’aiq it stop!

  14. Hep C Says:

    “… Corcail Sendijen, a lobster-like alien, to thwart the plans of the Aensalords, a supposedly benign alien race now living on Earth, who have secretly developed a highly addictive drug which they intend to use to addict and enslave all the inhabitants of the known universe…”

    Well, I suppose I can see the drug, but here’s a golden chance missed for one more mighty lobster-monster.

    I assume the artist was too accustomed to drawing cat people to even bother – or maybe that’s the only thing he knew how to draw.

  15. Anti-Sceptic Says:

    The syringe is rounded at the front to give it that “futuristic look” similar to the Jetsons, where I think even their pens had little round things on them…were they antennas?

  16. anon Says:

    “Excuse me, do you have these in Bedwet Yellow to match my eyes? No? Well, I guess Nightmare Blue it is then. It’ll at least bring out my markings. I’ll take this one.”

  17. Anna T. Says:

    Wookiee + Cougar + Dreadlocks = What.

  18. Bruce A Munro Says:

    @Hep C: my first idea for a comment was “Nightmare blue – the #1 drug for cat-people cultists everywhere!” Seems I inadvertently ended in the correct ballpark.

    I think it’s wearing a hood? Like a proper cultist, although with glow-in-the-dark fringes to give things a proper 1970s disco scene air. Heck, maybe it’s at a disco- good place to sell drugs.

    (It occurs to me that it is a bit unlikely a drug would have similar effects on species as dissimilar as terrestrial cats and lobsters, let alone look-alikes from different solar systems. Maybe it’s A Small Universe After All).

  19. THX 1139 Says:

    I hope we all clapped for this guy last night.

  20. fred Says:

    The Star Wars film franchise would be 100% better with colorful robes.

  21. Bibliomancer Says:

    Obi Wan Cat-nobi

  22. JuanPaul Says:

    This malaria drug will work. I promise!

  23. Francis Boyle Says:

    Ting is one helluva drug!

  24. Tor Mented Says:

    @Biblio: Obi Wan Catnippy.

  25. Tor Mented Says:

    The movie version of โ€œCatsโ€ is just as weird as they say it is.

  26. B. Chiclitz Says:

    Although William Morris’s Arts & Crafts movement had a profound and lasting effect on the design arts of the 20th and 21st centuries, sometimes it could go pretty badly off the rails, usually due to an excessive focus on the late 19th century penchant for psychoactive drugs.

  27. GSS ex-noob Says:

    This does somewhat illustrate the premise of the book.

    But there are a lot of other possible covers that would have done that without scaring off potential readers.

    @Alessandra (10)) gets a much-belated and probably unread GSS.

    @Francis: apparently addicting to the entire universe, if past covers are to be believed. Not that we can always believe our eyes upon gazing at them.

  28. Bruce A Munro Says:

    Those eyes make him (her? it? them?) look as if they’ve been using a lot of their own product.

  29. JJYoyo Says:

    This is drugs. This is the Gorn on drugs. Any questions?

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