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May 16

Set phasers to bang

Good Show Sir Comments: Adult science fiction … or fantasy?

Published 1959

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: 3.80 out of 10)
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30 Responses to “Pagan Passions”

  1. Line Noise Says:

    How many phalluses can you get in one image?

  2. Bruce A Munro Says:

    “Randall Garrett and Larry M. Harris, Forced to make love to beautiful women!”?

    I bet Garrett and Harris _wish_ they were forced to make love to beautiful women.

  3. Cornelius Says:

    “So, Mr. Bond…”

  4. fred Says:

    Back cover.
    The front cover teases Guccione’s ‘Caligula’, the back cover delivers a Powell/Loy overly complicated comedy romp.

    https://www.ebay.com/itm/385634459985

  5. Ryan Says:

    Why do they need to be forced?

    What has happened to the buildings in the background to make them so crufty?

    Perhaps a great planet-engulfing war, in which the Pope and the church are exterminated, and that is why the Passion is so Pagan? Because those are some WASP-y looking folks on the cover, and therefore not particularly Pagan-looking. Unless they mean this Pagan: https://youtu.be/nvCoaBme8Jo

  6. Emster Says:

    From the smirk on her face, I suspect her real passion is for him to get started on a long “honey do” list, starting with demolishing those run down apartments across the street (eyesores!), washing the floor to ceiling windows (old school, with newspaper!), then cleaning the pool (no floating insects!), while she and the girls are at brunch. Ta!

  7. MaxBathroom Says:

    “I don’t care how passionate your paganism is, either you find a shirt or I’m going to the steakhouse on my own.”

  8. Bruce A Munro Says:

    @Ryan: Wiccans?

    @Emster: now you have me wondering where they get the laundry done in post-apocalypse Big Citytown. (Keeping those pants white in the atomic wastelands must be a problem.)

  9. NomadUK Says:

    Sure, enjoy yourself now, lady, but John Saxon’s gonna be crashing your party and reëstablishing the patriarchy any minute now!

  10. Emster Says:

    @Bruce: Hmmmm. That’s got me overthinking…
    Also, looks more like space pants than pagan pants, maybe she’s trying not to chortle at his attempt at roleplay? Then again, she seems to have a thing for men in space pants because here she is again with another shirtless space pants dude:
    https://www.goodshowsir.co.uk/?p=12661#comments
    Looks like she and the gals are back from brunch and ready to head to the pool.

  11. Tat Wood Says:

    ‘Passion’ means many things: maybe they’ve just crucified a Druid.

  12. GSS ex-noob Says:

    I guess he has to attach things to his belt since his trousers don’t have pockets and he doesn’t have a shirt.

    He doesn’t look forced here, does he?

    @Bruce: Too true.

    @Emster: I like your idea! Also, well-spotted reference to the earlier cover. They were drawn by the same artist, so apparently this babe was his type. And he could only draw shiny trousers without zippers. One wonders about his personal life.

  13. Verylatetotheparty Says:

    @Emster and all: Something about the art on both covers makes me think ‘These are two Ladybird books I definitely don’t remember reading.’

    @GSSxn: In the Fempire of the future men will be made to understand what it’s like to have no pockets.

  14. Francis Boyle Says:

    And here’s me thinking utility belts were just for lesbians and Batman but apparently in this world any Sean Connery wannabee shmuck can wear one.

  15. Tat Wood Says:

    @Emster, GSS ex-Noob, Verylatetotheparty: maybe she’s read Fear of Flying…

  16. GSS ex-noob Says:

    @FB: It’s not like he can carry much in the tiny box with knobs he’s got attached.

    @Vlttp: I approve of this message. No pockets are terrible; fake pockets add insult to injury. Pockets too small to hold so much as a credit card/hotel key are also insulting. Which is why I generally go around in jeans, preferably men’s. A great number of us ladies gasped in awe and admiration after the Hugos one year when Mary Robinette Kowal had made her own dress and proudly said “It has POCKETS!” I was wearing some smart black velvet trousers which had, you guessed it, pockets.

    In our youth, Mr. xn and I often wore the same size jeans/khakis. He was aghast when he put mine on accidentally and tried to put his usual amount into the tiny excuses for pockets, and thus grokked my complaints.
    (Which is as naught compared to the near-swoon he had when he was the chaperone for my pelvic exam in the ER. I was in a great deal of pain but did get a laugh from the horror on his pale face when he saw the speculum deployed.)

  17. B. Chiclitz Says:

    “Hmmm . . . judging from those pocketless and bulgeless trousers, I think that feeble crumbling tower behind you isn’t the only thing not quite up to snuff. I’ll just keep drinking, thank you.”

  18. Hammy Says:

    @BC (#prev.):

    She does have more than a bit of a smirk on her face, so I think you’ve hit the nail on the head.

    *Insert your own joke here*

  19. GSS ex-noob Says:

    @BC: She has the men brought in one at a time, and he literally didn’t measure up. The stretchy trousers leave no mystery. Maybe she doesn’t like guys who wax, either.

  20. B. Chiclitz Says:

    @GSSxn—So true. Nothing dampens Pagan Passions quicker than a bad space wax job.

  21. Bruce A Munro Says:

    @B. Chiclitz: is space wax made by space bees?

  22. GSS ex-noob Says:

    @Bruce: Eminently logical! But this appears to be on Earth, so regular bees will do. Although with the looks of the outside, maybe it’s robot bees, or more likely some Super-Science Wax of the Future! (or just petroleum like now)

    Seriously, did straight men bother to wax or shave their chests in 1959? I wasn’t born yet, but waxing seems to be a many-decades later thing. Selleck’s chest pelt was much admired throughout the 80s, after all.

  23. GSS ex-noob Says:

    Hey, maybe I answered my own question; perhaps he had to be forced cuz he prefers the fellas, and she’s only his best gal pal who’s more interested in booze anyway.

    Although ISTM that the fellas would have approved of more, er, up to snuff bits as well. She might be smirking about to say “Sweetie, ain’t nobody going to be satisfied with that.”

  24. DaveM Says:

    @GSSxn, as someone who is the same age as this book, I can attest that chest shaving or waxing was not a thing (at least not a thing in the Australian outer suburbs anyway). Sometimes the heroes of these books would be smooth chested, but only to mark them as being more evolved than the hairy primitives they were always rescuing people from.

    And of course, drawing realistic chest hair is hard! Far too much bother for a pulp cover. The Artist seems to have a thing for smugly amused women and muscly guys with no shirts (and nothing in their pants).
    https://www.goodshowsir.co.uk/?p=12661

  25. GSS ex-noob Says:

    @DaveM: I don’t remember chest shaving in the western US suburbs in the 60s, 70s, or 80s either. Except we’d occasionally see pictures or TV of bodybuilders. But no man working on a hot day or in the pool had removed hair (although with the backs of some of them, you wished they had…DAD). Certainly my husband, who’s slightly older than this book, never has. Apparently in The Future, the current trend has gone completely the other way and we’re the hairy savages of the past.

    @Emster and I were speculating about the artist’s predilections up at comments #10 and #12 based on the other cover.

    Find a bunch of Bob’s works by searching Robert C. Stanley. He did like the redheads, female or male.

    https://www.flickr.com/photos/56781833@N06/albums/72157628114383784/with/5347014365

    Interesting analysis at the end of:
    https://www.askart.com/artist/Robert_Stanley/109081/Robert_Stanley.aspx

    And somehow that led me down the rabbit hole to reading a Continental Op story I’d never come across.

  26. B. Chiclitz Says:

    @GSSxn—which one? I love that chubby Op. Some of Hammett’s best writing in those stories.

  27. A. R. Yngve Says:

    If you enjoyed PAGAN PASSIONS, then try the other scintillating titles in this series:

    TERROR IS LIKE A BOX OF CHOCOLATES
    Forced by aliens to eat boxes of chocolate all day long! Culinary SF at its best.

    BRASSIERES OF THE YEAR 3000
    Against his will, he must inspect women’s underwear of the future! Couture SF at its best.

    SNORE AND SNORE AGAIN
    What evil conspiracy forced Mike McHero to constantly oversleep and amuse himself with computer games and TV, without leaving the comfort of his own bed? Deadbeat SF at its finest.

  28. GSS ex-noob Says:

    @BC: The House on Turk Street. It was on the Internet Archive. The 10th Op story, in the April 1924 Black Mask.

    @ARY: I would like to star in #1 and #3, although I’d add books to the latter.

  29. B. Chiclitz Says:

    @GSSxn—just downloaded it. I thought I’d read all the short stories but never saw this one, Thanks muchly. First page has me hooked!

  30. GSS ex-noob Says:

    @BC: Exactly my experience! Glad to help out a pal.

    Did I ever tell you the story of stopping still and doubling over laughing on a random street corner in San Francisco? While my non-reader and non-watcher of old films companion looked on in confusion?

    I’d seen the sign… of the plaque that indicates where Miles Archer was shot by Brigid O’Shaughnessy.
    https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/place-where-miles-archer-died

    For the Op story we’re discussing, here’s an easier to read version:
    http://ereserve.library.utah.edu/Annual/ENGL/2600/Wilson/house.pdf

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