Sep 15
Click for full imageAshton Comments: Usually when there’s a naked woman on the front of a book it’s to titillate the viewer, but this brave artist went against convention and made the most unappealing cover he could think of.
Published 1989
Many thanks to Ashton!
(Average: 8.16 out of 10)
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(9.25 out of 10)
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September 15th, 2010 at 11:02 am
i guess this is what inception should have been. A tree with a moon and some funny blob.
September 15th, 2010 at 11:07 am
I do like the shape of “SHAPES” – that could be a groovy logo for a shapeshifter club. or a gym.
but yeah. hideous cover.
September 15th, 2010 at 11:39 am
Two lines connect the nude woman to the screen-thing. One is red, one is blue. Are the woman and the screen connected to the same veinous system?
September 15th, 2010 at 2:14 pm
He looks like an Easter Island statue, like uncannily so.
September 15th, 2010 at 2:23 pm
At first glance I thought the tree was a cannabis bud.
September 15th, 2010 at 3:10 pm
You think the guy would shape his face into something attractive.
September 15th, 2010 at 3:47 pm
yeah seriously. the guy looks like the old host of “Double Dare”…
September 15th, 2010 at 6:13 pm
That title logo looks like it was supposed to be lower, into her cleavage, but then they rearranged things at the last minute.
September 15th, 2010 at 8:55 pm
So is this book about a plastic surgeon?
September 15th, 2010 at 10:07 pm
– HE WHO BOTOXES.
Looking at his mug, all I can say is: “Physician, lift thyself!”
September 16th, 2010 at 4:02 am
Busorama bold, baby!
September 16th, 2010 at 2:43 pm
Is it possible that the guy’s face is supposed to look distorted because it is his reflection on the oddly shaped metal water barrel?
December 10th, 2013 at 2:43 pm
Yikes! I’d forgotten about this. Or possibly blocked it out.
So is this book a crappier, more disturbing version of The Matrix or what?
October 29th, 2014 at 11:54 am
A randy young lassie named Reba
Had a thing for a purple amoeba.
That amorous jelly
Stuffed her in the telly
And whispered, <<Ich liebe! Ich liebe!>>
September 7th, 2018 at 8:45 am
An interesting cover that’s both sort of right and completely misleading. I read this story many years ago and vaguely remember it–it’s the novella that Zelazny extended into The Dream Master (http://www.goodshowsir.co.uk/?p=2953).
The lady is in the story all right but not doing anything particularly saucy, as far as I can remember. The man is a dream therapist who is trying to teach the woman how to become a therapist also, but she is blind. She proves to be stronger than he is. So the cover represents the story, kind of, but suggests all kinds of stuff that aren’t there.
No idea about purple amoeba (GSS, Dead Stuff, wherever you are).
September 7th, 2018 at 10:51 am
“What have I told you about playing in the top loading tumble dryer?”
September 7th, 2018 at 1:37 pm
@LL – Perhaps the cover artist misread “By the author of The Ameba Chronicles”?
September 7th, 2018 at 1:59 pm
That neck….is she a descendant of Ronaldo?
September 7th, 2018 at 2:57 pm
Is that Arnie in the reflection?
I think I see how this went down. Editor reads somewhere that Arnie’s making a bid budget “adaption” of We Can Remember It for You Wholesale. This story’s a bit like that. So slap Arnie on the cover. Make sure you distort it a bit for plausible deniability and, voilà, instant cash-in.
September 7th, 2018 at 4:05 pm
@fred—We should lobby for an “Elongated Neck” tag.
September 7th, 2018 at 4:08 pm
I like the way the cover seems deliberately trying to subvert our desire for symmetry. Yep, nothing symmetrical on this cover, nothing at . . . oh, wait.
September 7th, 2018 at 5:09 pm
If anyone has read the book, is the woman supposed to have two antennas, one with a dangly ball on the end? She must look hilarious when she turns her head and it keeps going bobble-de-bobble-de-bobble. And she gets mad and says, “Ahem, my eyes are down here.” Or am I reading too much into this?
September 7th, 2018 at 8:51 pm
He shapes she-shapes by the sea shore.
September 8th, 2018 at 5:18 am
@Tor: I used to have a set of antennae like that, but they both had matching things on the ends. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deely_bobber
It was the 80s. I guess she got to the fad too late.
She’s definitely not had any plastic surgery on the cleavage area. Those are middle-aged norks if ever I’ve seen them, which (looks downward). Thankfully my neck isn’t so long and misshapen. He Who Misshapes?
Brian B, lo those 8 years ago, might have been right that the chap’s face is distorted by the curve of the… whatever she’s sitting in.
@Yoss: GSS.
September 8th, 2018 at 5:19 pm
About time we had a “philtrum” tag.
September 9th, 2018 at 4:29 am
@B’mancer: Few covers deserve it as much as this chap, though. Even allowing for possible reflection distortion… dayum.
I realized The Mermaid/man Menace goes back further than we thought:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSyB7I6Lzm4
Look what happens to the little kid in the first 15 seconds!
September 9th, 2018 at 8:52 am
“People assume the mind works through logical chains of reason and analysis. But from a non-subjective viewpoint, it’s sort of a big amoeba of wibbly wobbly mindy windy stuff. With stars in.”