Jul 08
Scott’s Art Direction: So there’s this rocket, that’s also a dude with an afro, taking off through a thundercloud that’s coming out of a water faucet, and the cloud’s holding some sort of city or something. Just trust me.
Published 1976
July 8th, 2011 at 9:31 am
Something wrong with the word “futuristic”?
July 8th, 2011 at 10:04 am
Well, the title is recognisably the same in Polish, and when Michael Kandel chooses a translation you are obliged to agree with it because he’s so sodding awesome. (It may simply be that words ending ‘ological’ were In in Poland that decade.)
But boyoboy what a silly cover. However, _The Futurological Congress_ is pretty absurdist itself, at least at the start, and by the time it turns unremittingly bleak you might want to look at the cover just to brighten up every now and again.
However: number of spaceships in the book: 0. Number of city-supporting clouds emerging from faucets: 0. Number of robots: lots and lots (at least at first), yet they don’t have a single one on the cover. I suspect the artist heard the title and thought he should draw a cover appropriate to a futurological congress, when that’s just the framing story…
July 8th, 2011 at 4:09 pm
Don’t you just hate it when your cloud city hat runs out of water. It’s such a pain to refill.
July 8th, 2011 at 7:20 pm
Metaphorical mushroom cloud or a molded jello salad. I suggest the Futurological Congress empanel a special blue-ribbon panel to investigate the matter until the controversy blows over.
July 9th, 2011 at 2:49 am
I see somebody had their dreams of a career doing record-sleeve art crushed.
July 9th, 2011 at 9:35 am
It has to be said, though. Sweet design with the “a”s in the author’s name.
July 9th, 2011 at 9:36 am
Jamiroquoi’s new hat was just going too far.
July 9th, 2011 at 10:31 pm
Cover notwithstanding, the novel itself is great. Stanislaw Lem goes Philip K. Dick.
July 9th, 2011 at 10:32 pm
Cover recycled from the booklet “The Experience of Drinking a Pan-Galactic Gargleblaster.”
July 9th, 2011 at 11:25 pm
Futurology is a real word though – “the study of possible futures”, as opposed to futuristic, which is “of or relating to the future”. The Futurological Congress actually happens in the book, and is a convention of futurologists…
Admittedly, only the very start of the book has anything to do with said congress.
July 18th, 2011 at 1:46 am
“Purple haze, all in my brain.”
July 25th, 2011 at 1:27 pm
@THX 1138. The title refers to a congress of futurologists, i.e., of people who try to scientifically predict the future, not a futuristic congress, which would be a congress with fins and ray guns. Just as a congress (or convention) of archaeologists might be called an “archaeological congress” rather than a “prehistoric congress.”
July 26th, 2011 at 9:50 am
OK, OK, I get the idea, everyone! Just sounds like somebody gargling, that’s all.
August 25th, 2015 at 4:33 am
Aren’t those Goa’uld ships?
March 1st, 2016 at 3:09 pm
How naturopaths treat hydrocephaly.
March 2nd, 2016 at 2:51 pm
Now I have to dig out my copies of Lem to see what other interesting covers they gave him….
March 2nd, 2016 at 2:57 pm
The remake of ‘A Boy and his Dog’ starring Crystal Tipps and Alistair…
January 14th, 2022 at 12:51 pm
If you look at this cover using another definition of the word ‘congress’ break out the space sheep.
January 14th, 2022 at 3:46 pm
Rocketmen with their heads in the clouds are always building castles in the air.
January 14th, 2022 at 9:01 pm
Good to see that even in the futurological futuristic future plumbing will still be a matter of old fashioned clunky pipes, valves, hoses and, no doubt, cracks in the ass.
January 15th, 2022 at 3:07 am
I remember this series of paperbacks. My high school had them.
Yes, Lem’s stuff was surreal and absurdist, but… not like this.
I lived a long way from the public library, so it was good the school had an excellent SF collection, but it did mean I was at the mercy of 70s Wacky Cover Art. Which, of course, I literally had to read on the school bus and often make sure Mom didn’t see them.
You will be unsurprised I didn’t date much!
January 17th, 2022 at 12:25 pm
The really frightening thing is that I’ve seen a paperback of this Lem with an even worse cover…