Aug 08
Joachim Comments: I love most of Richard Powers’ surrealist covers — but, this one… Surrealism exponentially cheapened with a gigantic looming OUTRAGEOUSLY pink girl with strategically placed element models and a pistolled cowboy with a space suit and matching pink gloves and boots… And throw in some little men with spears, a spaceship and scattered cacti for good effect.
Published 1955
August 8th, 2011 at 10:11 am
I don’t believe it!
August 8th, 2011 at 10:18 am
Madonna called. She’d like her bra back.
August 8th, 2011 at 1:48 pm
THX 1138 stole my gag.
August 8th, 2011 at 1:49 pm
“The invaders of Earth were beautiful … a different science-fiction novel!”
Judging by this cover, a different kind of “beautiful” too.
August 8th, 2011 at 2:04 pm
A very phallic spaceship that, despite obviously flying away, still has the pointiest part pointed straight between her legs.
August 8th, 2011 at 3:41 pm
“Toy Story 8: The Final Frontier”
August 8th, 2011 at 4:43 pm
Jami’s right! That space ship is trying to see up her skirt! Well if you could call it a skirt… more like a belt to my eyes!
August 8th, 2011 at 5:23 pm
http://io9.com/5223300/could-the-girls-from-planet-5-be-the-best-novel-ever
http://crookedtimber.org/2009/04/20/the-girls-from-planet-5/
Un-frikken-believable.
August 8th, 2011 at 5:38 pm
This reminds me of the Tom and Jerry cartoons from the sixties. Maybe that cowboy is Tex Avery.
August 8th, 2011 at 7:54 pm
I like the term “femaliens” used on the io9 web site.
August 9th, 2011 at 1:21 am
I think those element symbols are supposed to growing out of her breasts. It would explain why her girls are at 90 degrees from the torso without so much as a bra.
August 10th, 2011 at 3:22 am
I dunno about you guys, but as a male, I like the other cover MUCH better
August 10th, 2011 at 12:13 pm
Are these titular (um) ‘girls’ too lazy to name their own planet? “We’ll just call it Planet… 5.”
August 11th, 2011 at 2:06 pm
@SI – I also just realized that the phallic ship is – um – well – ejaculating another phallic looking ship, though judging from the vapor trail line it’s cu – coming from a rather odd place.
So we’ve got a pink girl sprouting what in the 60s will be the typical wall decorations. (Actually I know a go-kart racing place that has something similar on lamp posts in their parking lot that flash different colors.) Wearing a metal lampshade and carrying a smoking spike covered thingie. A Tex Avery style space cowboy. A phallic ship coming out of a phallic ship. (Phaliception?) Tiny orange people looking up giant pink space girl’s skirt. And a whole lotta orange.
You sure this is a book from the 50s and not someone’s visions while dropping acid?
August 24th, 2011 at 8:04 pm
It looks like Tex there was trying to use his psyonic powers on her, but 50 foot tall woman had a machine that could capturer it and redirect the power…..to the moon?
He’s gonna have a whole world of hurt when she decides to use her spear on him!
January 5th, 2016 at 7:46 am
Come on… GINGER aliens? That’s just unbelievable.
(What’s that? Me, prejudiced against red-haired people? Nooo! Many of my best friends have red hair!)
September 30th, 2022 at 2:47 pm
I imagine this as an Ed Wood movie but with transvestites.
September 30th, 2022 at 3:37 pm
Tiny men with spears have always been awestruck by what looms above their heads, and often end up worshipping it.
September 30th, 2022 at 3:54 pm
@BC: Heaven’s above.
September 30th, 2022 at 10:22 pm
@fred (8): Sometimes books get the covers they deserve.
@jami (14) (and no longer here): LSD was still legal in 1955.
Planet 5? She doesn’t look Jupiterian.
Either the cowboy is electricity-powered, or he’s got a very big antenna for broadcasting, I dunno, excerpts from MRA’s? Maybe shooting electricity to zap the giant girl from Planet 5? Not sure why he’s wearing a space helmet in Texas, though. And WTF is she holding?
Also, besides having odd breast coverings, she doesn’t know where to apply blush.
Really not sure why the “girls” spaceships are rainbow surfboards with joysticks installed, but maybe that’s the “different” part.
@BC: GSS!
October 2nd, 2022 at 12:01 am
At last, the boob molecule revealed!
@Anti-Sceptic: perhaps the energy is actually going in the opposite direction and she’s using Moon energy to hit him with a wussification ray or some such. Gotta be careful what you pick up with your antenna.
@GSS ex-noob: Perhaps it’s a Hidden Planet. Or maybe it’s the planet SF writers liked to think had blown up and made the asteroid belt.
October 4th, 2022 at 2:33 am
Don’t they have sunscreen on Planet 5 ?
October 4th, 2022 at 2:43 am
@The Blue: good question. That skirt also will reflect more rays upward.