Sep 25
Vincent’s Art Direction: So here’s what I’m thinking. A man and a woman in a landfill. I want the woman tastefully nude, so have the man covering her naughty bits even though they’re standing about twenty feet apart. Lastly, have an army of giant preying mantises coming over the hill.
Published 1976
September 25th, 2012 at 9:21 am
I like to think the guy is directing some sort of post apocalyptic Broadway dance number.
September 25th, 2012 at 10:32 am
“Either we’re really small or something’s getting bigger!”
September 25th, 2012 at 11:30 am
Which story is this supposedly depicting? ‘The Mantis Who Murdered Mohammed’? Is his left arm preternaturally long? He seems to be attempting foreplay from twenty feet away. To allow this he has absorbed his right foot and forearm. But not his clothes.
September 25th, 2012 at 12:08 pm
“They Don’t Make Life Like They Used To” would be my guess. No giant mantises though there are some insectoid heads; no nudity though there is semi-nudity. All limbs were of normal length in the story, as far as I can recall.
September 25th, 2012 at 4:57 pm
I have that book! Awesome stories. Awful cover.
September 25th, 2012 at 9:28 pm
“In this volume we’ve assembled all the great short fiction of Alfred Bester. In the other volume is the not-so-great stuff.”
September 26th, 2012 at 12:28 pm
Bester writes some of the smartest SF around, but we know the SF market is made up of people who just like giant insects, so let’s put some on the cover and hope they’re not disappointed when they discover there aren’t any in the book. They’ll only make the discovery after they’ve bought it, so it doesn’t matter.
September 26th, 2012 at 5:24 pm
The largest praying mantises are females. Your whole sacrificial maiden thing may be about to backfire, Tastefully Flailing Arm Guy!
(Accuracy demands that I mention that the post-coital snacking of female mantises on their mates does not happen all, or even most, of the time. See Snopes for details.)
September 27th, 2012 at 4:06 am
Beware the clothes-eating giant space mantids!
September 27th, 2012 at 2:56 pm
“Jill, I think if you do the Watusi and I do a Luau they will be highly entertained and not want to eat us….Plus, you should take your clothes off for extra effect.”
September 28th, 2012 at 10:13 pm
There by his right knee. Is that the head of the robot maid from the Jetsons?
January 26th, 2014 at 12:17 pm
‘Cheer up, human! If he’s all that into you, he’ll GLADLY let you chew his head off in your carnal ecstasy while his pulsing loins continue to sire your hideous monkey larvae.’
January 26th, 2014 at 8:06 pm
Editor: “Whew! That was a close one. We ALMOST released a book with just the author’s name and the title on the cover. Lord knows what could’ve happened! Thank my lucky star I found that poster for THE DEADLY MANTIS and slapped it on the cover at the very last minute…”
January 29th, 2014 at 4:23 pm
Wait, is that a music cue I hear?
We represent the Lollipop Guild
The Lollipop Guild, the Lollipop Guild.
And in the name of the Lollipop Guild
We’d like to welcome you to Mantis Land
Followed by:
Ding! Dong! my mate is dead
He dropped his sperm then lost his head
Ding! Dong! my mantis mate is dead . . .
September 27th, 2015 at 10:47 pm
Star Light, Star Bright, Star Knaked
January 3rd, 2017 at 4:36 am
Ah, yes, the SFBC. You paid less in money, but more in embarrassment.
I just checked the copy on my shelves. Damsel seems to be wearing the shredded remains of a bikini. So she’s about 2% short of starkers.
May 18th, 2017 at 4:22 am
I know what happened. Imagine the cover art minus the people. Pretty cool, I think. That’s what the artist submitted. Publisher says, “put some people in the foreground, so that customers know there are people in it, and not just a bunch of insects.”
Artist says, “fine,whatever.”
October 9th, 2020 at 10:37 am
I see that in eight years nobody has commented on the fact that the buildings in the background are pointing randomly in the way that buildings don’t. Maybe this is a planet with random gravity. That would probably explain what the hell is going on in the foreground. But not the giant mantises. Nothing explains the giant mantises.
October 9th, 2020 at 1:00 pm
What if the ‘The Man in the White Shirt’ had to use nukes instead of ordinary explosives.
https://vimeo.com/119281929
October 9th, 2020 at 3:46 pm
TFW you accidentally travel into the post-apocalyptic future and leave your clothes behind.
October 9th, 2020 at 7:27 pm
“Hey, Earl, when does she bite off his head?”
“SShh. Quiet Bob. They have to have coitus first.”
“When will they do that?”
“As soon as he figures out how to take off his clothes, I guess. Until then, just hold perfectly still.”
“We’re good at that.”
October 9th, 2020 at 9:23 pm
@Francis: apparently this illustrates the ever-popular “giant bugs after nuclear bombs” meme and that’s why the buildings are all cattywumpus. Which I don’t remember if it’s in the book or not. Never mind that the odds of all of her clothes disappearing and all his remaining are very slim, and the giant bugs can’t exist.
Less gravity might make the mantises possible but it would have to be a LOT less, and more oxygen in the air.
Maybe they’re very large mantises, in the 6-7 inch range, and the people are actually tiny dolls. It would explain her clothes being missing — Barbies always end up naked.
October 9th, 2020 at 10:03 pm
The reason she lost her pants is
They were eaten by a mantis
Cause the mantis eats them up like red currants.
Are they pants or are they trousers?
Still it makes me go “oh, wowzers.”
When a praying mantis preys upon her pants.
October 9th, 2020 at 10:31 pm
The Grimdark Future, where there is only Interpretive Dance (and giant bugs).
@GSS ex-noob: the fact that something can’t exist has rarely stopped SF writers, especially in the old pulp days of writers like Edmond “basic physics-smasher” Hamilton. I would be a bit surprised if people actually were unaware of the “radiation leads to giant insects” meme, but then again it’s been 60 years since the 1950s ended and even “Mystery Science Theater 3000” has been (mostly) off the air for two decades.
October 9th, 2020 at 11:28 pm
@Tor M—nice verse, GSS!
October 10th, 2020 at 4:10 pm
Well, it’s the “great short fiction”, and everyone on the cover is very short, so…
October 10th, 2020 at 6:30 pm
@gssxn I think you nailed it with the Barbie dolls. This makes the mantises extra terrifying as they may actually exist.
October 10th, 2020 at 9:14 pm
Here’s a big one…
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/HE5dx2jhDFE/maxresdefault.jpg
October 11th, 2020 at 1:15 am
Keeping perfectly still, as is their wont!