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Jul 19

Does this sci-fi water healing tube make my ass look fat?Click for full image

Frank Comments: I just thought it was cute because it was another Campbell Award nomination and the artist put a nude girl on the cover, even if it was tasteful back-side nudity.
Published 1995

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: 3.11 out of 10)
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18 Responses to “Lethe”

  1. Sophaloaf Says:

    “Let(he) me out!” (a must-have groaner)

  2. Smith Says:

    “You can do it! Be the Dolphin!”

    “Oh damn. Bob, get me another one. This one’s drowned too.”

  3. THX 1138 Says:

    “And you simply must try the spa’s divine flotation tank. No, you can’t get out, but it’s sooo relaxing.”

  4. Alessandra Kelley Says:

    It’s actually a beautiful painting. My pedantic inner optics person tells me liquid-filled cylinders don’t work like that, but a person visually stretched out tremendously horizontally due to diffraction and lensing effects would be a lot harder to recognise as human, so good use of artistic license there.

  5. Phil Says:

    The only thing that concerns me here is the slight excess of bubbles emanating from the region of her derriere.

  6. Tom Noir Says:

    Damn, Phil beat me too it: where are those bubbles coming from?!

  7. Dead Stuff With Big Teeth Says:

    She looks a lot happier than the fellow at back left.

    @Alessandra:note that the light from the monitors is distorted. Let’s wave our hands about and say ‘polarized light’ and ‘phase conjugation’ and look clever.

  8. Phil Says:

    I hadn’t noticed the fellow on the left. He DOES look troubled, as if he’s been doing the Houdini trick and it’s gone wrong.

    I also hadn’t noticed (until now) that the lady appears to have some slender curved wires attached to her shoulder blades, going… where? (Or is this just a scratch on the cover?)

  9. fred Says:

    Dolphins? Better get Brin.

  10. Adam Roberts Says:

    The blue and red lights around the top of her container say: _ _ . _ . _

    That;s international morse code for ‘G, N, T’.

    Just thought you ought to know.

  11. Dead Stuff With Big Teeth Says:

    @fred: I hang my head in misery because I get it. XD

    @Adam: a trendy acronym for Girl’s Nudie Tube, no doubt.

  12. THX 1138 Says:

    Or maybe she’s floating in a gin and tonic? Hence the bubbles.

  13. Frank Says:

    @Phil: I think the “slender curved wires” were part of the artwork. I think I took them to be tubes.

    This photo was something of a reply to Alessandra Kelley’s comment here:
    http://www.goodshowsir.co.uk/2012/06/the-door-into-fire-2/#comment-186197

  14. Tom Noir Says:

    You KNOW it must be Nebula-worthy if there’s nudity on the cover!

  15. Dead Stuff With Big Teeth Says:

    Many of us wish we could play our massively multiplayer oceanic rorqual playing games every hour of every day, without having to eat, drink, sleep or bathe.

    Ethel did something with the idea, and she also removed ‘breathe’ from the list!

  16. A.R.Yngve Says:

    The Girl In A Tube is an old, old SF cover cliche. I think it dates back to the Hugo Gernsback era, or even earlier.

    While this particular cover is pretty good, I’m a bit concerned about how the motif crops up again and again… why this obsession with putting naked people in tanks?

  17. Jaouad Says:

    Just thought you should know that the author’s original title was ‘Lethal’. So you see, there’s a good reason for this cover.

  18. GSS noob Says:

    So there’s 4 spouts shooting bubbles upwards on the bottom of her tank. Second from left, she’s got going up her bum like an inverse bidet. Third from left, she’s got tickling her ladybits. Surprised the Morse code isn’t spelling out “oooh, aaahhh, YES!”

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