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Jul 30

It is ... my ultimate art! I call it... a catue!Click for full UNSHEEPED image

Tom Hering Comments: In a land where sculptures flaunt and crumble, one statue comes to life: cat girl! Little does she know, however, that life means nothing but the sight of a bug, and the sight of a bug brings sadness and withdrawal. Oh pathos! Oh cat girl!
Published 1976

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: 7.51 out of 10)
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35 Responses to “Universe 5”

  1. Phil Says:

    ‘Tis a thing of beauty, and proves that funny pictures of cats did NOT originate with t’internet. (The ancient Egyptians started it all, of course.)

    Welcome back, GSS. I am enjoying the new assessment criteria associated with the star-ratings.

  2. Jaouad Says:

    Cat Girl’s new body lotion did not work as advertised.

    Also, I hope she doesn’t try to stand up: something’s dreadfully wrong with her right leg.

  3. Graham Says:

    I thought there might at least be some Cordwainer Smith in there, to explain it…but alas.

  4. THX 1138 Says:

    The eternal question pondered: which is more fun to play with, Photoshop or a ball of wool?

  5. Dead Stuff With Big Teeth Says:

    My heart bleeds for Kitty. Sprung to life with no sense of identity, seeking out purpose and answers, her first sight in this glorious, open, sun-lit world…is a roach’s bum

  6. Bibliomancer Says:

    Catue? Gesundheit!

  7. Rags Says:

    This looks like a statue orgy got out of hand.

    Obviously Catue, The Lone Butt, Sir Flexsalot, Boobalicous and Smash Face are main characters, the other scattered statues are minor ones. Yes i will let you all find them in the picture!! 🙂

  8. Rags Says:

    Boy this book cover screamed “FRENCH SCI-FI” when I was looking at it the first time. I apologize for my prejudices, VIVE LA FRANCE!!

    I dont mean to pile it on but the fonts for the blurb are awful, especially the word “Flights”, i believe its flights but looks like llights. There is a problem with L’s and F’s.

    I recommend they change the book name from Univers5 to “We Blew the Entire Budget on Ursula Le Guin and Fritz Leiber so all we could afford was this cover”.

  9. SI Says:

    I would have gone for the other cat in the pet store… just saying.

  10. B. Chiclitz Says:

    That cat’s got the Buffalo-Head Syndrome. I mean, if you’re going to go to the trouble of imagining a marbleized female body and then putting a cat’s head on it, can’t you at least observe some rules of proportion?

  11. fred Says:

    I’m lichen that statue.

  12. HappyBookwyrm Says:

    @ fred – I’m lichen your punning skills.

    @ B. Chiclitz – I agree about the proportion problems. It looks like they found a strange picture of statues and then stuck the sticker of a cat’s head over the face of the statue in the foreground.

    If this is what Universe 5 is like, I’ll stick with Universe 1.

  13. Dead Stuff With Big Teeth Says:

    @HB: If proportions remain the same, Universe 1 has 2.4 marvelous, mind-grabbing flights to the outer limits of the imagination. I suppose that you never return from your third…?

  14. Tom Hering Says:

    I think this cover illustrates Edward Bryant’s The Legend of Cougar Lou Landis, which appeared in Universe 3. Maybe its use was delayed until Universe 5 because it was feared that a cat with pimiento-stuffed olives for eyes would phonetically-subliminally suggest an anthology of cock tales, and blatant erotica would never fly with the American branch of the New Wave (because of ingrained cultural puritanism and all that).

    Huh? What do you mean that’s a stretch? And I shouldn’t bother pursuing a career as a literary theorist / historian? Gosh but you guys can be harsh sometimes.

  15. Jerk of all Trades Says:

    A mobile cat’s head, awakened from its nap atop a decapitated statue, spies breakfast — or maybe just a new toy. Who knows if these flying cat-heads actually ingest anything.

  16. Jerk of all Trades Says:

    Also I like how the dismembered hand in the background is reaching in utmost futility for the dismembered butt-legs. Just that little something extra from the artist, in case the foreground didn’t turn out weird and unsettling/embarrassing enough.

  17. Tat Wood Says:

    now THAT’S the trouble with lichen

  18. B. Chiclitz Says:

    @Tom Hering 14—a stretch? By god, man, you’ve nailed it. An epitome of Third-Wave Neo-Deconstructionist Reader Response New Historicism! The eyes (“I”s) alone speak volumes of post-industrial nihilism (or the “0-lives” we all must lead).

    Scary, ain’t it?

  19. Tom Hering Says:

    @ B. Chiclitz, yes, it’s truly scary how our lives of quiet des-purr-ation are given full visual expression in this cover.

  20. Joachim Boaz Says:

    The back cover is fun as well….

    http://www.isfdb.org/wiki/images/9/90/NVRS51976.jpg

  21. Jaouad Says:

    The Dazzling Dozen have seen better days, by the looks of it.

  22. Ian Says:

    Thank you for the sheeped image…

  23. GSS ex-noob Says:

    I think I’ll stick with just this one universe, thanks.

    Catgirl isn’t going to get much done if she’s still stone from the neck down. Or is this an optical illusion with a cat posed behind a headless statue? Mocking them for only having two nipples.

  24. A.R.Yngve Says:

    I appreciate the effort of the artist, who worked hard in a pre-PhotoShop era… but I just don’t “get” the cat.

    There’s a fancy word for this sort of thing: “Juxtaposition.”
    Or, in this case, “Juxtacatition.”

  25. Bruce A Munro Says:

    “We’re the cool cats emerging from the ancient wreckage of traditional SF?”

    Questions may arise as to whether this is a cat-headed statue starting to come to life from the head down, a no doubt extremely bored immortal cat head stuck on top of a statue for however long it took that lichen to build up, or a statue of a woman turning into a normally proportioned cat from the head down, but they are ultimately futile, since works from the Pretentiously Incomprehensible school of fantasy art are far too busy being symbolic and shit to have anything actually _happening_ in them.

  26. Theobromus Says:

    There was I, thinking I’ll look at Good Show Sir over breakfast and get some funny but wise comments in early.This picture represents my shattered ambition.

  27. THX 1139 Says:

    This is one of those panoramic photo fails, isn’t it?

  28. fred Says:

    If the artist had just used another statue we would be up to our space sheep in catnips remarks.

  29. Tat Wood Says:

    We all remember this scene: Charlton Heston rides across a beach and sees the statue. It dawns on him at last – this isn’t a bizarre alien world, this is Earth in the future, a future ushered into being by Taylor Swift working with Andrew Lloyd Webber.
    “They finally, really did it. You maniacs! God damn you all to hell!’

  30. JuanPaul Says:

    I’m really not too kean on the mind grabbing you propose. If you would like to engage my mind in intellectual conversation, we could see where things go from there.

  31. Verylatetotheparty Says:

    I wondered if this was the Cheshire Cat having a practical joke with a headless statue – but with that expression, probably not.

    @JuanPaul: Agreed, no mind grabbing on first dates if you please.

    Looking at the full wrap-around, did Patrick hit the deadline halfway through doing all the lichen?

  32. GSS ex-noob Says:

    @Vlltp: Third-ed on the mind grabbing and seconded on “ran out of time before lichen was finished”.

    @THX: That explains it! Someone was panning across an abandoned sculpture garden when a kitty chasing a bug bounded through.

    @Bruce: works from the Pretentiously Incomprehensible school of fantasy art are far too busy being symbolic and shit to have anything actually _happening_ in them.

    Truer words were never typed. You can also substitute almost any art form in place of “fantasy art” and it will remain true. “Literary fiction” is the worst offender.

  33. Bruce A Munro Says:

    I wonder: is that statue carved from metamorphic stone?

  34. GSS ex-noob Says:

    @Bruce: GSS! Can’t believe it took someone 6 years to come up with that.

  35. Lee M Says:

    The art wasn’t drawn for the book.

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