Jul 16
Click for full imageGood Show Sir’s Art Direction: Look all I want is a bald man with a robot heart… a comical cartoon heart! Cause that’s just what crazy futuristic electronic LSD taking engineers would do. The back? People put stuff on the back of these things? Standard woman… and we’re done!
Published 1979
(Average: 7.41 out of 10)
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July 16th, 2013 at 12:03 pm
Beneath his masculine, rugged exterior, the bald Conan wannabe possessed a warm, beating human heart… okay, a heart… or something heart-shaped, at least.
A propos: this explains a lot.
July 16th, 2013 at 12:07 pm
Shiny! Oh, so shiny! Shiny well-oiled muscular frame! Shiny coif! Shiny metal reflecting shiny man despite being in the shadow! Me eyes! They sting so!
July 16th, 2013 at 12:22 pm
Her smouldering gaze is directed just a bit behind his left elbow. My wife looks at chocolate cake like that. I like to think he’s accidentally bumped his elbow into the cake, so hard that his heart plate flopped open. Goodness, what a social faux pas!
July 16th, 2013 at 1:31 pm
I see they ran out of money before they got to the android’s eyes.
July 16th, 2013 at 1:35 pm
There’s an awful amount of flesh on display here. Is this some more of that “ribald SF” I’ve been reading about lately.
By the way, is that a self-portrait by cover artist Adrian “Chest”-er-“man”?
And also BTW, before my eyes could focus on this mess I thought the book title was MAC LEOD.
July 16th, 2013 at 2:12 pm
HAHAH, wow, truly horrible cover.
Anyhow I dont like this new sexy look to the Wizard of Oz….Tin Man looking for a heart and Dorothy looking for a good time…
July 16th, 2013 at 2:31 pm
Somewhere out there, this image has surely already been repurposed for some sort of “Get Ripped Today With This One Weird Trick!” advertising scam.
July 16th, 2013 at 2:47 pm
I can’t decide if the “(female)” aside in the description is your standard mysogeny (if we don’t tell you the scientist is a woman you’ll never guess. it’ll almost be false advertising! let’s just give them a clue) or the last visible remnants of an editor’s reservations over the name of the protoganist/title (but… Xanthe… really? ok ok. are you sure? but… ~sigh~).
July 16th, 2013 at 2:52 pm
Even though the author’s husband was in Manfred Mann, the song running round my head is ‘I’m Too Sexy’ by Right Said Fred.
And the Fairbrassbot is looking at the way his pectoral glove-compartment’s popped open AGAIN and seems to be thinking ‘I’ll pop some Blutak on that when I get home’.
July 16th, 2013 at 3:32 pm
I don’t want to think about opening the breast plate of the female robot to do heart maintenance… or…. do I …. WAYYYHEYYYY
July 16th, 2013 at 3:42 pm
“I’m just here holding up this wall…and this wall.”
July 16th, 2013 at 3:44 pm
Pity. That back cover description would have so much more punch if it had read Xanthe was a member (male) of a research team..
A sentient penis? How could you not want to know how that all works out? Apparently the writer of the back cover has no knowledge of pronouns. Or is that the writing style from within? Ray (male) met Lola (transvestite) in a club in Soho…
July 16th, 2013 at 4:16 pm
Gentlemen, we can rebuild Michael Berryman. We have the technology.
July 16th, 2013 at 5:11 pm
Not only making the (female) in the story parenthetical, it looks like they’re also trying to play down (Sheila) the author. From across the room, I’d guess the writer was Mac Leod. Close up, and with my specs on, I can see that it’s Sheila Macleod.
July 16th, 2013 at 5:12 pm
@Bibliomancer: at first I thought this was written by one of those first name only authors. MAC LEOD by Sheila.
Has anyone read this ‘mainstream novel of character’ the back cover is referring to? Sounds like a gritty read.
July 16th, 2013 at 6:55 pm
‘…mainstream novel of character.’ Is that what they called Harlequin romances in the 70’s?
July 16th, 2013 at 11:04 pm
I am Sheila MacLeod, born 400 years ago in the chest of a beefy cyborg. I am an author and I am not alone. For centuries we’ve waited for the the time of the Gathering, when a bird leaning against a wall and a horrid frock will release the power of the robots. In the end, there can only be Xanthum. Gum. Xanthe gum. Whatever. I’m brilliantly realized.
July 17th, 2013 at 2:19 am
But you’re weak MacLeod. I will take your head. For I am the Corrigan. I may look like a bald and baby faced alternative music icon from Chicago, and you may think my music vastly overrated, and even my band’s name horrific. But it is your death that will be horrific. Remember, MacLeod, it’s better to burn out than fade away!
July 17th, 2013 at 3:53 am
Love those boots girl!! Red so suits you.
July 17th, 2013 at 7:22 am
Oh wow, so the (female) scientist falls in love with a robot, and things get weird, right? Because that’s what everything about the cover appears to be screaming. After taking all that in, if it turned out they were just characters who interacted with each other on a professional/friendly/adversarial basis in whatever scifi adventures take place in this world of far-future robotics, it would almost count as a mind-blowing twist ending.
July 17th, 2013 at 7:59 pm
Mr. T-Wiz, sir, I think when I go to look up “weird pecs” in the dictionary, I’m going to see this picture. And not just for the obvious, “oh, there’s a robot heart here behind this hinged plate in my chest,” but check out the other pec, also quite weird. And I think there might be a FACE TREE in his heart, a little robot face with one red and one green eye, or perhaps he’s found the Homunculus.
BTW, the thumb of the person holding the book is perfectly aligned with the right elbow so that it looks like he has Popeye arms!
November 3rd, 2013 at 2:52 pm
I’ve looked at this a lot (I have this copy, somewhere) and it’s finally obvious what was wrong. The face, looking in that direction, need the neck to have moved. It’s as if his head was flipped over in Photoshop decades before Photoshop. Either that or his features have slid to where his left ear ought to be. He turned his head and his loosely-applied plastic-bag face stayed where it was through inertia.
I didn’t know Amstrad made androids.
November 4th, 2013 at 2:32 pm
I’ll bet she’s thinking: “Sure, he’s a cold, lifeless machine… but I CAN CHANGE HIM!!”
November 4th, 2013 at 4:22 pm
Belated thanks, BC. As for the face tree… I get you, I get you. Youngsters might call it a “Super Meat Boy Heart.”
No blame or shame, but should we consider implementing “pareidolia” as an omnitag this coming April?
November 4th, 2013 at 4:58 pm
@Tag Wiz—most glorious mage, you be one of the smartest folks around, even including Bibliomance-man! I think, humbly, shamblingly, meekly, of course, there should indeed be a “pareidolia†omnitag, though I do confess there’s something goofily appealing to the phrase “Face Tree.”
🙂
June 29th, 2023 at 3:35 am
It’s Olivia Newton-John (RIP 😢)on the back, and the entire Electric Light Orchestra on the front, advertising “Xanadu and the Robots”