Aug 23
![So tired... [insert funny caption]](https://www.goodshowsir.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/clandsoftheair.jpg "So tired... [insert funny caption]")
Click for full imageJo’s Art Direction: So we’ll have a human-like albino with totally gnarly fluorescent earrings clinging onto a stern-looking tree-alien holding a striped gun and sitting in a spotty spaceship, with an oddly-proportioned firefight going on in the background. Get to it!
Published 1987
Many thanks to Jo!
(Average: 7.47 out of 10)
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August 23rd, 2010 at 9:03 am
“[So tired]”? For shame, scrollover fairy! For shame!
August 23rd, 2010 at 11:59 am
Adam> Haha Sorry it was very late.
It probably should have said something like.
“Our remote control space ship is a symbol of our love, everlasting and…. hey!”
August 23rd, 2010 at 12:11 pm
Awesomely erect nipple on the ‘dude’ with the Bowie stage performance costume.
August 23rd, 2010 at 12:37 pm
My first thought was that Tall-head had beaned Albino with the barrel of his/her/its/whatever’s gun, causing spaceships to go flying out. That would explain why Albino looks so etiolated.
August 23rd, 2010 at 2:43 pm
Gotta admit, I think this cover is kind of awesome.
August 23rd, 2010 at 7:44 pm
I sort of like this cover too. At first I was like “whoa Philip K Dick wrote a space opera with alien love against the backdrop of an interspecies war?” Alas reading the wikipedia link makes it clear that this novel, like most of Dick’s work, is in fact mostly interested in people’s minds and perceptions of reality, using the trope of science fiction to explore that topic. Still I suppose the cover did it’s job in inspiring me to “pick up” the book and read the back cover.
August 23rd, 2010 at 7:45 pm
I do like how the conflict between cover image and actual story displays the inherent conflict between publishers and writers in the genre. Dick “I have a complex psychological story that explores people’s understanding of reality and the nature of mental illness using a fictionalized science fiction setting.” Publisher: “Great slap some aliens and explosions on the cover and we’ve got a winner!” Dick “Well there WAS a war but that happened long before the events of the st…” Publisher: “I SAID aliens and explosions!”
August 24th, 2010 at 8:50 am
“I do like how the conflict between cover image and actual story displays the inherent conflict between publishers and writers in the genre.”
I just wish the same disconnect was present in other genres too.
Just imagine a children’s book:
“But I wanna hear about the horsies!”
August 24th, 2010 at 3:05 pm
Wow — cover has absolutely nothing to do with Dick’s story! You just know this was on top of the generic-art pile.
August 24th, 2010 at 5:02 pm
This is old school but also very cool.
Doesn’t match the contents of the book you say? Pfffftttttt! I say
August 24th, 2010 at 7:20 pm
I love this cover. There, i said it.
January 2nd, 2014 at 11:55 pm
Caution! Excessive space battles in the cockpit can release dangerous aerosols, leading to melanin loss and swooning.
January 3rd, 2014 at 4:09 am
Having read this book, I’d like to share the following insights:
1. This cover art is indeed generic (no albinos or tree-aliens appear in the book). However:
2. The cover of my edition, which does illustrate the story, is basically quite similar to this, since:
3. Battles and explosions are in fact featured heavily at the book’s climax. Aliens are in it quite a bit, too. In fact the thing *is* largely space-opera with some of Dick’s usual preoccupations as window-dressing.
Moral: don’t trust cover art OR Wikipedia.
January 3rd, 2014 at 4:57 pm
Imagine how many people would have read Philip K. Dick back then, if those covers hadn’t scared them off first… it’s as if the sci-fi community wanted to keep him to itself, like some cool secret treasure…
(Conspiracy theorists ahoy! ;-))
December 29th, 2014 at 8:55 pm
Incidentally that’s quite a rash his lady friend has there. Ouch.