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Jun 20

Purchased at a Bed, Bath and Away and BeyondClick for larger image

David Jollie Comments: Don’t bother reading the book, just take a guess at what might be in it. Okay, so you think there should be an eyeball and some lips. Okay. On fire? Really? And a cow’s skull with a Tiara on? Well…. Okay.

Published 1970

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: 8.60 out of 10)
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18 Responses to “Away and Beyond”

  1. Dead Stuff With Big Teeth Says:

    Is that supposed to be a dolphin skull? The nostrils are shoved up between the eye sockets.

    Also, that may be the moon in the background. A bit difficult to say.

  2. fred Says:

    Needs more PpAaNnTtHhEeRr. And a flaming big toe.

  3. RachelJ Says:

    @Dead Stuff. It does appear to be the skull of some kind of cetacean, yes. As for the background, my first thought was “moon” but my second was “petri dish”. Who can say?

  4. RachelJ Says:

    Want to play a game? Everyone guess what the book’s about. Then we’ll google it and see who got closest. No cheating!

    My theory is that it concerns a man who, as the unforeseen result of a botched scientific experiment, learns to attune his nervous system to that of dolphins, a vastly superior form of life who teach him their secret philosophy. This, though never explained in any but the most confusing way, in turn enables him to achieve godlike dominion over time, space and the rest of humanity. He employs this power chiefly to force us to listen to his endless smug lectures, and also to ban drift-nets.

  5. Dead Stuff With Big Teeth Says:

    @RachelJ: I’m in! Based on the size of the eyes, I wager this is an anime.

    Yukiko Kanzaki is the naive all-loving daughter of a prestigious but poor family. It’s her first time away from home to Lunar Colony 1, attending the prestigious St. Bathsheba Academy, and she’s already in trouble! She’s caught the eye of mysterious, quiet Toma and the bold yet flighty Hugo, and upset self-proclaimed ‘Idol of the Saint’ Saeko Hanashiro and her three pals Lala, Lili and Lulu. But the biggest shock is yet to come…

    …because every night, poor Yukiko turns into a zombie dolphin! Who will discover her secret? And can Yukiko keep herself and her friends safe?

  6. Dead Stuff With Big Teeth Says:

    Update: it can’t be a dolphin skull because the frontal bones aren’t spatulate and the suborbital bar is too thick. Whatever it is, it’s terrible.

  7. RachelJ Says:

    @Dead Stuff. Can’t it be a badly drawn dolphin?

  8. Dead Stuff With Big Teeth Says:

    @RachelJ: look, mate. I call that a dolphin’s skull for the record, and then they’re on to me FOR LIFE. Not worth the risk!

  9. B. Chiclitz Says:

    My entry: This is a parable of a poetically inclined lipless and cross-eyed dolphin who wants nothing more than to earn the laurel wreath for his epic compositions, and also he sort of wants to be not so deformed, so spends his days dreaming of uncrossed eyes and full, symmetrically shaped lips, while trying to write an epic poem on the subject of beauty which he eventually burns because it really stinks. He gets some aluminum foil and tries to make a laurel wreath for himself, but fails at that too. So he just goes away, and beyond.

  10. Bibliomancer Says:

    The Flaming Lips

  11. THX 1138 Says:

    It’s obviously a panther skull.

  12. Dead Stuff With Big Teeth Says:

    @THX: silly me!

    Are the lips actually germinating off the surface of the moon?

  13. Anna T. Says:

    It’s not a skull, it’s someone who’s been warped by his worship of the Elder Gods into a squid-fish-elephant monster. The eye and mouth belong to his girlfriend, who was also so warped.

    It’s a cautionary tale of Cthulhuesque death cults. And a romance.

  14. B. Chiclitz Says:

    Too many Cthulus! Every cover and his brother seem keen on abominably undead horrors. Why, it makes me want to—sing!

    You say Cthulhu
    I say Uhuru
    You say it’s a porpoise
    I say it has no purpose
    Cthulu
    Uhuru
    Porpoise
    Purpose
    Let’s call the whole thing off!!

  15. JuanPaul Says:

    The first and only collaboration between Georgia O’Keefe and Frida Kahlo.

  16. GSS ex-noob Says:

    I’m pretty sure the ideas here are more entertaining than the real book.

    I say someone had to bring his kid into the art department one day for emergency childcare, and the lad went nuts with a collage. The boss mistook it for the cover art, and here we are.

  17. A.R.Yngve Says:

    In publishing circles, 1970 became known as The Day After The Sixties. Many burned out after a decade of sex, drugs and rock’n-roll — and boy, does it show.

  18. Tat Wood Says:

    The inspiration for Katy Perry’s Glasto set?

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