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Jan 14

Sorry... The toilet is on the 3rd floor. Not the 45,0000th. Click for full image

MisterBob Comments: OK, a tower from earth goes all the way to the stars, but the spaceman doing the fonts has fallen off the top.
Published 1988

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: 6.22 out of 10)
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21 Responses to “Tower to the Sky”

  1. THX 1138 Says:

    “You won’t copy Felix very well without the parachute now, will you?”

  2. Phil Says:

    Awww, I was going to do a Felix Baumgartner joke.

    I wonder what the guy on the left is going to do with his gigantic micrometer. I also wonder if that’s the longest stick of Blackpool rock ever made (look, it even references Blackpool Tower!).

  3. Adam Roberts Says:

    There’s so much in this cover, and yet all I can think when I look at it is “shiny red arse”. That says more about me than about the cover, I fully concede. Baboony.

  4. Phil Says:

    Does EVERY tall building have words on its roof telling you what it is? I must look at Google Earth more often.

  5. Dave42 Says:

    I’m somewhat unconvinced by the practicality of a sky tower reaching thousands of miles into space which appears to be only about 7 feet in diameter. Conditions for the occupants would be cramped to say the least, and what happens at the end of a movie on one of the (presumably several hundred) theater levels when 200 people all try to get in to the toilets at once?

  6. fred Says:

    Argentina builds a space tower? If I were approving this cover for publication my one word to the art department would be ’emboss’.

  7. A.R.Yngve Says:

    American Gladiators… in spaaaace!

  8. A.R.Yngve Says:

    Honest, Guv, sci-fi is not about overcompensation fantasies…

  9. FearofMusic Says:

    This cover would be sublimely excellent were this book published in 1948…but 1988? Apparently Dustin Hoffmans character was given good advice in The Gradute. Plastic…in the future buildings and even people will be made of plastic.

  10. FearofMusic Says:

    Also, because you CAN build something, it doesn’t mean you SHOULD. Upon gazing upon this cover and realizing what he had wrought, a stunned Phillip C. Jennings was heard to mutter “I am become…plastic.”

  11. Dead Stuff With Big Teeth Says:

    I checked the perspective three times to make sure that it wasn’t off. But it still looks all wrong! Is there a word for that?

    (I realize it’s rather a mistake asking a question in a forum like this one, but I’m in need of a larff on a Monday, even if it’s at my expense.)

  12. FearofMusic Says:

    In space no one can hear you scream…or question the artist’s inability to master the basic techniques.

  13. Ian Says:

    Phil, that isn’t a “gigantic micrometer” it is what they use to replace the letters. probably a new corporate sponsor… tough job.

  14. Jerk of all Trades Says:

    Sure, it goes to the sky, but what the hell does that actually mean when every “floor” of the tower is just wide enough for a person of average height to try to lie down and end up banging their head on the wall? Just what are you using all that space for? Microgravity-farmed weasels?

  15. A.R.Yngve Says:

    What that tower is for (looking the way it does)? Some suggestions:

    A) BP’s new technology for polluting space instead of the oceans

    B) An exhaust pipe for hot air, emerging directly from Washington D.C.

    C) Actually a drill in disguise, built to penetrate the Earth’s crust and extract thermal energy

    D) A snapshot from the calcified mind of a middle-aged science-fiction fan

  16. FearofMusic Says:

    @A..R. Yngve. If I visit your website in the near future and find any of those ideas incorporated into your own works I will be crushed, disillusioned…and intrigued.

  17. Tat Wood Says:

    It’s probably an Orbital Tower, intended to connect to a geosynchronous satellite and thus function as a lift to space. (As in ‘Web Between the Worlds’ and ‘The Fountains of Paradise’). In which case, he said pedantically, fixing the bottom end in Buenos Aires rather than an equatorial base would make it flail around, probably wrecking the weather and snapping about halfway up. And besides, you’d have to spend ten days not making eye-contact and pretending it wasn’t you who farted, whilst listening to lift-music, Argentine-style (probably Astor Piazzolo, which is fine for the first five minutes but ten solid days…)

  18. Jaouad Says:

    Wow, that deep-sea diver really took a wrong turn somewhere.

  19. FearofMusic Says:

    @A.R. Yngve. Sir, if I viisit your site in the future and find any of these ideas incorporated into your own work I will be dismayed, disillusioned, disgusted….and intrigued.

  20. Anti-Sceptic Says:

    “Ok, I think I know where this key goes….Hey Eddy, can you turn around for me?”

  21. Anna T. Says:

    That’s one oddly designed space elevator . . .

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