Jun 24
Lauren Comments: This cover does in fact show a scene from the book, but I think maybe there could have been a better choice. I look at this cover, and all I can say is: What?? If you haven’t actually read the book, it makes no sense at all.
Published 1988
Awesome hat!
Many thanks to Lauren.
June 24th, 2010 at 10:08 am
Was that type of hat ever in fashion for secret cults? If so.. awesome…
Their just isn’t enough robe wearing in todays society.
June 24th, 2010 at 10:18 am
Love it!
Fleeing from the dead gift of immortality to some nice little cafe for and chat, some chili and then maybe a tour on one of those little train things you get on piers. A great day out for all the family!
June 24th, 2010 at 10:19 am
That should have said ‘for a chat’…obviously… damn, it’s too early in the morning for this…
June 24th, 2010 at 10:20 am
..and dread not dead…god, I’m going home…
June 24th, 2010 at 11:19 am
Its ok Little Mi, you just need more coffee. Like me!
June 24th, 2010 at 12:37 pm
Is that the dread gift of immortality in the background, then? That thing that looks like a steamroller stuck in a train carriage?
June 24th, 2010 at 1:12 pm
Sure is a dread gift if all you get to do is a sightseeing trip on one of those umbrella carts down a straight road in the desert with the occasional stop-over at some unbranded, robot catered road-side-cafe with a guy in a burka.
Especially if you’re McGuyver: http://bit.ly/b29iwB
June 24th, 2010 at 1:30 pm
@Tommi I second that MacGuyver!
My first thoughts were since when do MacGyver and Orko holiday together?
June 24th, 2010 at 2:31 pm
I don’t know who this guy is but he appears to be having tea with the Sorting Hat from Harry Potter.
June 24th, 2010 at 2:32 pm
So, in the future, the Sorting Hat decides what you are going to order for tea?
(Again with The Prisoner-esque stripey transference -wat up with dat?)
June 24th, 2010 at 2:32 pm
Damn you Tom Noir! I will eat your soul!
June 24th, 2010 at 2:42 pm
“So… you just going to sit there or help me get this traffic cone off my head?”
June 24th, 2010 at 3:33 pm
Really a wonderful book, one of my favorite Simaks. When I was 18 and bought it new, it seemed like a perfectly acceptible cover.
June 24th, 2010 at 3:37 pm
Its an evil wizard version of the UK 80s shows Knightmare.
“before you, a tiny robot holds a tray”
“you may take either; the magic wand of doom misiles, the grapes of doom, or the French toast of doom. Choose carefully”
June 24th, 2010 at 4:41 pm
What caster level is the wand?
Also, cute doggy. Considering his/her prominence, I hope s/he has a bigger part than George does in Alan Dean Foster’s Taken trilogy.
(Listen, I once bought a book because it had a red panda on the cover, only to find out [i] it was an Anne McCaffrey and [ii] there were no red pandas whatsoever in there, so I’ve been burned before, OK? 😉
June 24th, 2010 at 5:28 pm
It looks like Christopher Lambert chillin’ with the black wizard from Final Fantasy 1, while a robo-servant brings them a bucket of tasty KFC chicken.
The far future is… strange… and very ’80’s
June 24th, 2010 at 7:47 pm
There’s some bizarre perspective going on there if the bloke/witch/black mage/oh whatever in the hat is actually taking something from the robot’s tray.
June 24th, 2010 at 10:28 pm
If you ride on the canopied, house-tank-train and let us serve your dog for desert to potential candidates, then you too can be one of the headless immortals!
June 25th, 2010 at 2:23 am
Is that a member of TISM ?
June 25th, 2010 at 3:16 am
@DeadRobot: You may have my soul, but I’ll still have said “Sorting Hat” first!
BWAHAHAHAHAHAH
June 25th, 2010 at 11:40 am
The publisher suggested the following sequels, which the author for some reason turned down:
RUSH HOUR OF FOREVER
OVERPASS OF INFINITY
FREEWAY EXIT OF BEYOND
PARKING LOT OF THE GODS
June 25th, 2010 at 10:31 pm
I think that’s the robot from Buck Rogers.
June 26th, 2010 at 9:56 pm
Darn. I actually have that book. I remember reading quite a few Simak novels from the library when I was a kid.
June 29th, 2010 at 12:27 pm
“I ain’t ascared of no witches! Hah! I just pulled your hat down over your face! What’re you going to do now, huh?!?
July 3rd, 2010 at 3:42 pm
‘Highway of Eternity’? But this cover depicts the Futuristic Motorway Service Station of Overheated Cafeteria Fare!
December 30th, 2015 at 1:08 am
Consume mass quantities!
December 30th, 2015 at 8:23 pm
A man and his dog negotiate with Vader Wizard.
December 30th, 2015 at 8:30 pm
Nobody tell Harlan Ellison, but they’ve remade ‘A Boy and His Dog’ with Orko from ‘He-Man & Masters of the Universe” gone over to the Dark Side.
January 27th, 2022 at 4:13 am
Okay. I’m going to be *that guy* (not to be confused with That Girl, really).
“Enternity”?
June 18th, 2023 at 9:34 pm
I think Highway *to* Eternity would make a better title. The Highway *of* Eternity is the Garden State Parkway coming back from the Jersey shore on summer Sunday afternoons.
June 18th, 2023 at 10:47 pm
@JJYoyo: The *Interstate* of Eternity is I-5 between Sacramento-SF area-LA-San Diego on holidays in warm weather. Sometimes even during cold. At least with the GSP, I presume there’s the famous exits where you could get off and find a gas station, a bathroom and some fast food, maybe even a diner.
Not so I-5. Sure, it’s flat and straight, but for much of its rural length, you’re lucky to get a gas station and fast food (in the same building) every 30 miles, and the occasional rest stop. And the terrain is boring; you can spend an hour at max speed looking at nothing but alfalfa or lettuce or almond trees. Occasionally a crop duster will fly overhead, spewing chemicals.
It’s freezing in the winter, broiling in the summer, and the most excitement you get it the occasional herd of cows and some damn fine split pea soup. And in/near major cities, it crawls like the GSP. Frankly, the whole damn thing from Vancouver to Tijuana alternates between boring and congested. With occasional surprise mountains.
The Freeway of Eternity is 101 between Hollywood and the Valley, at any time. It’s not great up the west side of the SF Bay either.
June 19th, 2023 at 7:23 am
@GSSxn—As someone who lived in L.A. for the final 18 years of the last century, it was with a flood of memories that I read your freeway remarks. Your obvious first hand and thorough knowledge of the subject brought those beasts back to life for me, for I did often think of them as living entities, with a not-so-funny sense of humor. Let me add for the record the useless “Sig Alerts,” the ever-broken “information” signs on the Santa Monica, and above all the “Crossover of Doom” on the 405 going North, trying to exit at Sepulveda to get onto Wilshire Blvd. in Westwood by cutting through an unending stream of maniacal vehicles merging from the right.