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Apr 18

The Jupiter Theft

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Look out!! The Washington monument is heading to space!!Click for full image

MisterBob’s Art Direction: Are there any flowers on Jupiter? Bet they look alien, paint one with the planet behind.
Published 1979

Actually, that cover IS a classical work of art!I would touch it without protective gloves.I've seen worse. Far, far, worse.Interesting, but I would still read it in public.Middlng: Neither awful nor awfully goodWould not like to be seen reading that!Awful... just awful...That belongs in a gold-lame picture frame!Gah... my eyes are burning! Feels so good!Good Show Sir! (Average: 7.24 out of 10)
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13 Responses to “The Jupiter Theft”

  1. THX 1138 Says:
    April 18th, 2012 at 11:07 am

    I guess the author was untied from the couch to pen this paperback?

  2. Adam Roberts Says:
    April 18th, 2012 at 11:11 am

    ‘Hello, Domino’s Pizza? Can I have one with cheese,rancid banana peel, giant bug and giant teepee-shaped rocket, please?’

  3. Alessandra Kelley Says:
    April 18th, 2012 at 11:55 am

    The tongue-like qualities of that flower are pretty off-putting.

    And what’s with the dinky Great Red Spot? It looks like Jupiter is vaguely disappointed.

  4. Tom Noir Says:
    April 18th, 2012 at 12:09 pm

    I’m just relieved the ‘theft’ didn’t happen on Uranus.

  5. Dead Stuff With Big Teeth Says:
    April 18th, 2012 at 1:20 pm

    Phallic insect crawling into lush, blood-red flower. Enormous yellowing splotch in the background. Good night, people!

    @Alessandra: Jupiter looks like it’s trying to steal a kiss from the logo in the lower right, doesn’t it?

  6. Scott B Says:
    April 18th, 2012 at 4:12 pm

    When bananas go bad, they can *really* go bad…

  7. fred Says:
    April 18th, 2012 at 4:20 pm

    Reading the synopsis of the book at Wikipedia I am surprised this cover is so bland.

  8. Jaouad Says:
    April 18th, 2012 at 5:10 pm

    I’ve never tried to fold a paper rocket, but I imagine this is what it would look like.

    Stealing Jupiter, one flesh-eating banana peel at a time.

  9. A.R.Yngve Says:
    April 18th, 2012 at 9:11 pm

    In the background, NASA’s future project: The world’s first diesel-powered rocketship.

  10. tahrey Says:
    July 20th, 2012 at 11:10 am

    Having actually read this book (fully recommend it, btw), this isn’t TOO far adrift of the actual story content, and might be a way of Getting Crap Under The Radar (to dirty my fingers with a TVTropes term).

    SPOILERS…

    Jupiter… check
    What appears to be the little hydrogen-syphoning probe thing that the aliens use to “steal” Jupiter… check
    And a close but not entirely accurate rendition of the alien mating process, as (posthumously!) witnessed about 2/3rds the way through… (they have bodies with 3-way rotational symmetry – hence the triangular rocket – and generate something which could be described as megasperm; independently mobile zygote packets which make their way to and into the partner’s tri-lobed (not 4-lobe, tch) genital opening… Even if one partner is killed by a rogue human during the process. So long as a friendly human helps out…)

    Really, bit of a weird scene to choose, but that possibly makes it LESS of a GSS cover?

    The true GSS version would include a crappy rendition of the full size aliens themselves (something akin to lion-sized annelids with legs and stalk-eyes), the human protagonists (scantily dressed, which is vaguely justified given they spend so much of the story (unwillingly) naked) with a few poorly-rendered examples of the few random tools they were able to grab during their abduction (a 1970s idea of an iPad, a Moog synth, etc) plus someone firing a laser gun into a computer terminal for good measure, plus and a few of the other species the aliens have picked up along the way (fuzzy pink antennae-monkeys – one of whom might be riding a hydrogen-fusion broomstick, jovian stingray-whales, etc) running towards the reader along a triangular corridor, not quite making eye contact. On the same background.

    Or, yknow, just a hooded figure with one starry eye cradling jupiter in their arm.

  11. Tom Noir Says:
    November 22nd, 2013 at 2:17 pm

    Does the book include a scene where the Washington Monument turns out to be a rocket-ship in disguise?

  12. Anna T. Says:
    August 25th, 2015 at 3:53 am

    Had the artist even SEEN a picture of Jupiter? The zones and bands are red and white, not yellow. That’s something they would have known in 1979. One unnecessarily bland planet portrait, CHECK!

  13. GSS noob Says:
    January 6th, 2017 at 5:45 am

    I have the cover seen on the Wiki article, which I believe is the original, and is less hideous.

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