For your consideration…Jacob Pendergrast Mulholland IV. A comfortable man of comfortable means, content to sit at his club and enjoy life passing by. But when Club Tycoon sends man to Moon and Mulholland is marooned, he will find himself mangled by the least interesting horrors of interplanetary war, in…
Okay, one overdressed, under-haired fop, two soldier/guard types who can be disarmed of their 1940’s weapons by a large flashlight, and a guy in a 1920’s diving suit (why? No one else is in any sort of protective gear) with said big 1960’s flashlight and a handgun he apparently doesn’t need.
Terrible grammar in the blurb, a hideous eye-hurting font for the title… did this sell more than the one copy we see here? I mean, it doesn’t even have any Space Sheep or Mix-a-lot attractors to bring in the horny adolescent male demographic. Nor any hot men for the horny female/gay demographic.
Not only is this a failure of cover design due to ugly, it seems to be a failure due to lack of interest.
I mean, once my eyes start working again. That takes a while with some of these covers.
If diving-suit guy had a proper spacesuit and a nice zap gun, it’d be better. As it is, it looks like the two guards are just guys in uniform (possibly the boy-toys of the fop) and they’re going “Eeek! We just wear the outfits for fun, and our guns are plastic! We surrender!”
Or maybe it’s Space Halloween, and diving-suit guy is crashing the party.
I think the rollover text is spot on…This is surely an interpretive tableaux of some future battle. They had to use a flashlight so as to have a model of a “laser flash” that would stand still to be painted…Still, they could have done better than a poor stunt double of the Wizard of OZ for the foreground. He seems to have a mechanic’s jumpsuit under his wizardly jacket.
March 29th, 2017 at 1:03 pm
“You bastard! Look at my jacket! It’s MANGLED!’
March 29th, 2017 at 1:13 pm
Did that one dude just shoot a guy with his flashlight?!?
March 29th, 2017 at 1:18 pm
@TN. “Pew! Pew! Pew!”
March 29th, 2017 at 1:40 pm
Fish bowl helmet on nineteen twenties diving-suit spells F U T U R E. “Don’t just stand there, you fool! Help me find my toupee.”
March 29th, 2017 at 1:42 pm
Unless the mangling is really bad I don’t see any future women on this cover.
March 29th, 2017 at 2:03 pm
A blazon is the subatomic particle emitted by blazers and smoking jackets.
March 29th, 2017 at 2:16 pm
Second from the right, playing solitaire Rock, Paper, Scissors.
March 29th, 2017 at 2:28 pm
I believe that title font is called Seizure Bold.
March 29th, 2017 at 3:01 pm
Twister. In space.
Either that or interpretive dance. Yeah, probably interpretive dance.
March 29th, 2017 at 3:04 pm
I totally would have expected the old guy in the foreground to be a helpless scantily clad woman. Restraint or missed opportunity?
March 29th, 2017 at 3:46 pm
@JP: depends on your tastes. 😉
March 29th, 2017 at 4:13 pm
Yes, it does blah on, doesn’t it?
March 29th, 2017 at 4:26 pm
It’s the future, and they’re still using WWII-era pistols? Come on, where are the energy weapons?
March 29th, 2017 at 4:47 pm
Well, at least it’s an *original* novel, not some cheap rip-off of yet another novel….
March 29th, 2017 at 5:19 pm
Future men and women—lives and love—mangled by the horrors
of bad sentence structure.
March 29th, 2017 at 5:36 pm
For your consideration…Jacob Pendergrast Mulholland IV. A comfortable man of comfortable means, content to sit at his club and enjoy life passing by. But when Club Tycoon sends man to Moon and Mulholland is marooned, he will find himself mangled by the least interesting horrors of interplanetary war, in…
THE BLAH ZONE
March 29th, 2017 at 6:23 pm
(apologies in advance)
@fred #5
That’s because they got mangled, not womangled.
March 30th, 2017 at 12:44 am
Blazon vs. Balzan: who wins?
March 30th, 2017 at 2:54 am
Okay, one overdressed, under-haired fop, two soldier/guard types who can be disarmed of their 1940’s weapons by a large flashlight, and a guy in a 1920’s diving suit (why? No one else is in any sort of protective gear) with said big 1960’s flashlight and a handgun he apparently doesn’t need.
Terrible grammar in the blurb, a hideous eye-hurting font for the title… did this sell more than the one copy we see here? I mean, it doesn’t even have any Space Sheep or Mix-a-lot attractors to bring in the horny adolescent male demographic. Nor any hot men for the horny female/gay demographic.
Not only is this a failure of cover design due to ugly, it seems to be a failure due to lack of interest.
Blahs on, indeed.
March 30th, 2017 at 2:58 am
GSSXN On behalf of the publisher, graphic designer, and artist: “ouch”
March 30th, 2017 at 3:05 am
I calls ’em as I sees ’em, JuanPaul.
I mean, once my eyes start working again. That takes a while with some of these covers.
If diving-suit guy had a proper spacesuit and a nice zap gun, it’d be better. As it is, it looks like the two guards are just guys in uniform (possibly the boy-toys of the fop) and they’re going “Eeek! We just wear the outfits for fun, and our guns are plastic! We surrender!”
Or maybe it’s Space Halloween, and diving-suit guy is crashing the party.
March 30th, 2017 at 8:22 am
Did the book come with 3-D glasses you were supposed to look at the title logo with?
April 2nd, 2017 at 10:10 pm
Wait, is that the flashlight weapon from Time Trap? Goodness, it’s deadlier than it appeared at first presentation.
April 3rd, 2017 at 2:37 am
Don’t count Gorbachev out just yet.
April 25th, 2017 at 4:12 pm
I think the rollover text is spot on…This is surely an interpretive tableaux of some future battle. They had to use a flashlight so as to have a model of a “laser flash” that would stand still to be painted…Still, they could have done better than a poor stunt double of the Wizard of OZ for the foreground. He seems to have a mechanic’s jumpsuit under his wizardly jacket.
May 10th, 2017 at 12:08 am
Dead Stuff With Big Teeth For your consideration…Please come out of your Blah Zone..
May 10th, 2017 at 1:08 am
@ Dead Stuff With Big Teeth…Nobody can send you to moon if you are stable inside.
July 17th, 2023 at 1:05 pm
How future Sen. Joe McCarthy meets Roy Cohn for the first time.
July 17th, 2023 at 9:24 pm
@fred: If Roy’s involved, that explains the lack of women on the cover.