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Mar 14

Couldn't, Wouldn't, Shouldn't

Good Show Sir comments: P-P Pants!

Published 2011

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: 5.90 out of 10)
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25 Responses to “The World That Couldn’t Be”

  1. Ryan Says:

    The most accurate match between title and illustration ever created.

  2. Francis Boyle Says:

    Could so too. It’s just a bit sill, that’s all. Well very silly. O.K. freakin’ ridiculous.

  3. Tor Mented Says:

    I have something in common with that world. I couldn’t be Clifford D. Simak either.

  4. Tat Wood Says:

    The Daily Mail finally gets its revenge on John Barrowman.

  5. fred Says:

    There hasn’t been a prison built that can hold Jimmy Cagney.

  6. Tor Mented Says:

    @Tag: Maybe a plus one against spelling tag for “astroid”?

  7. Max Bathroom Says:

    Why does he not have two “S”s on his shirt?

  8. The Blue Are Coming Says:

    Prometheus in space.

  9. The Blue Are Coming Says:

    GSS @Tor for post #3.

  10. Bruce A Munro Says:

    If you’re wondering how he eats & breathes (and poops)
    And other science facts,
    Then repeat to yourself it’s just a GSS cover,
    I should really just relax.

  11. Emster Says:

    I wondered ’bout his gloveless hands
    not freezing off in space,
    But I just read @Bruce’s #10
    This cover’s found its place.

  12. B. Chiclitz Says:

    The P-P pants helpfully identify him, but where’s that liver-eating eagle?

  13. The Blue Are Coming Says:

    Leaving Moonbase Alpha now.

  14. Bruce A Munro Says:

    I would swear this picture started its life as one of those SF magazine cover illustrations sadistic editors assign writers to build a story around. Wasn’t there a Harlan Ellison [1] story based on a similar picture?

    [1] Or possibly Alfred Bester

  15. Emster Says:

    (Dangit @Bruce, I’ve been humming the MST3K theme song all night!)

  16. GSS ex-noob Says:

    Of course he’s got PP pants, he’s strapped to a not-large space rock unable to move at all! Must be hell if he has an itchy nose, or sneezes or coughs, or even would like to be able to use any of his joints in the future.

    Maybe he’ll get lucky and a Space Babe will come along and free him.

    @Tor: GSS! I don’t think any of us can be Clifford B. Simak! Possibly no one else in the 20th century was either. (It can’t be that common a name)

    Further GSS to: Tat, Max, Bruce, Emster, and BC.

  17. Max Bathroom Says:

    @Bruce
    There was, and it was Bester not Ellison. One of his better stories, and an extremely funny one, iirc. I think this is an independent story, though, because the guy in the Bester was wearing a prison vacuum suit with his inmate number on it, rather than space strides with P on them…

  18. Leak Says:

    Another case of ‘stroid rage?

  19. Hammy Says:

    “The World that Couldn’t Be”?

    Ya mean, the USA post-2016?

  20. The Blue Are Coming Says:

    @Tor – “Astroid” is actually a word. It’s a graphical representation of a single point on the edge of a circle as it rolls around the inside of another circle four times larger…

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astroid

    The result looks like a ninja star.

  21. Tor Mented Says:

    @Blue: Yes, I checked the spelling just to make sure that astroid wasn’t a variant spelling of asteroid. But Mr. P-P pants obviously is not sentenced to a penal group of a particular type of roulette curve: a hypocycloid with four cusps. (At least I don’t think he is. I admit I haven’t read the book.) So it’s more a matter of the editor that couldn’t be … arsed.

  22. GSS ex-noob Says:

    It could be ‘astroio’ or ‘astrdid’. No spelling classes at UAI. Or at UEI.

    @Bruce: So that’s what that is. Spirograph had me draw them but I don’t remember any of the names.

    Also, this world couldn’t be because it doesn’t have enough mass to even be a dwarf planet. It’s a rock maybe 10 feet across.

  23. Bruce A Munro Says:

    Another knockoff of this cover: https://pulpcovers.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Imaginative-Tales-January-1958.jpg

  24. Hammy Says:

    @Bruce A (#prev.):

    That cover brings up even more questions.

    1) Why does the live, but shackled guy get a helmet, but the dead, now-a-skeleton, didn’t?
    2) Re: #1, did the skeleton *have* a helmet before, but they took it off him to give it to the live guy as a form of torture?
    3) Re: #2, how bad would a helmet that someone was wearing when they died smell?

    …and more that I dare not type….

  25. GSS ex-noob Says:

    @Hammy::Such as:

    4) What good does the helmet do when he’s got no air tank and his entire body is out there exposed to zero air pressure, especially his chest?

    His body water should be boiling away, whole body inflating as his internal organs rupture….

    Maybe that’s what happened to skeleton guy.

    Anyway, he’ll only be able to smell for a few seconds before hypoxia sets in.

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