Jun 06
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Joachim Comments: Old man breasts, stump hands, back slug, purple eggs, fanged man baby chillin’ out in one of the purple eggs while a snake bites…
Published 1976
(Average: 8.80 out of 10)
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June 6th, 2014 at 10:56 am
If you were related to that, it would indeed be strange. If you wanted relations with that, “strange” would be a mild way of putting it.
June 6th, 2014 at 11:11 am
I know the positioning isn’t quite right, but isn’t there implied slug/ hemaphrodite sphynx coitus?
If so, what do they see in each other?
June 6th, 2014 at 11:22 am
Do not let children look at this, they would be traumatised for a long time, if not for life!
June 6th, 2014 at 11:46 am
Sexual Education: the Benedict XVI Years.
June 6th, 2014 at 12:21 pm
Good Grief, Sir!
June 6th, 2014 at 12:34 pm
Hideous. I think I’m having an acid flashback. Or a stroke.
June 6th, 2014 at 1:18 pm
No space sheep could ever be enough to protect our eyes from this cover!
June 6th, 2014 at 1:29 pm
“I am the eggman … you are the eggmen …”
June 6th, 2014 at 1:40 pm
“… I am the freaky old lion-man with tits … goo goo g’joob!“
June 6th, 2014 at 2:17 pm
Wow.
June 6th, 2014 at 2:22 pm
Gosh, I hope this scene is in the book…
June 6th, 2014 at 2:41 pm
That sphinx is posing a tough riddle. “Why should you read this book after seeing this cover?”.
June 6th, 2014 at 3:03 pm
Kenny Rogers has taken his plastic surgery too far this time.
June 6th, 2014 at 3:05 pm
Philip José
FARMER
STRANGE
RELATIONS
June 6th, 2014 at 6:57 pm
What….the…..F*&$?
June 6th, 2014 at 7:51 pm
The cover is so odd no one noticed someone, not pointing fingers, forgot to add tags!
June 6th, 2014 at 8:59 pm
Thanks sheeping that out – I mean, do I REALLY want to see man boobs?
Ah, no.
SI’s right…the tags. Where are the tags? Was our esteemed GSS Admin so freaked or grossed out by this cover that the tags were forgotten? Not that I could blame him.
June 6th, 2014 at 11:55 pm
GOOD SHOW TROPES: Strange Relations
Philip Jose Farmer’s Strange Relations is the novel of Marissa, an out-of-work sphinx with a Dark Past. She can’t get over her ex-boyfriend and flatmate Rog, a Nudist periwinkle! Rog fears commitment and an unlikely Love Dodecahedron between Marissa, Sven (her gynaecologist python), and billiards legend Steven Davis. Hilarity Ensues.
Tropes appearing in Strange Relations include:
All Snails are Hermaphrodites
Aliens
BEHIND YOU
Beard-Wielding
Beard-of-the-Face-Wielding
Cleavage
Coupling (Not the Television Show)
Devil’s Dumplings
Evil
Here Panther Panther!
Hunk
Font Problems
Interesting
Monster Mash
Once You See It You Want To Tear Your Filthy Eyes From Your Head
Our Sssserpentssss are Different
Planets
Space
Space Sheep
Sphinx Stinx
Tag Wizard Drops the Ball
I am unable to alphabetise and I must scream
That’s Me in the Spotlight
Thousand-Mile Stare
Unlikely Arbors
WTF
Xeroxed Art
Yelling
Zoology
June 7th, 2014 at 12:36 am
@Tagperson — only one tag needed: “WTF?”
June 7th, 2014 at 1:58 am
@Dead Stuff. You forgot to claim that at least three of the tropes have been “averted” or “subverted” or something.
Thus-
All Snails Are Hermaphrodites (subverted)
Hunk (averted)
Zoology (semi-inverted)
June 7th, 2014 at 3:07 am
Look, it’s Phillip José Farmer. Which means there is a good chancetthat the cover actually underplays an actual scene in the book.
June 7th, 2014 at 2:39 pm
‘Billiards legend Steven Davis’
That’s… ‘interesting’
June 9th, 2014 at 9:43 am
“I sing the body electric” toppled from the throne of good-show-siryness by a frisky slug.
Who woulda thunk it?
June 10th, 2014 at 5:20 pm
Ok so the baby has fangs too! What does this mean?
The snake’s fangs are so long they’ve pierced the baby’s skull and their tips are coming through
the roof of his mouth?
The baby is the bastard offspring of the snake’s mate and the milkman (hence, “Strange Relations”),
and the snake is just at the moment of discovering this on the cover?
And the slug, what is he whispering into Old Lion-Sphinx-Man-tit’s ear?
Wow, you need a sports bra big time!
Hey, sis, how’s they hangin’?
I think the baby needs to nurse.
June 10th, 2014 at 9:26 pm
Great. It’s “awaiting moderation” time again. Ah the perils of a GSS post gone through the wormhole. . . . again.
June 11th, 2014 at 4:18 pm
So, it’s not all that difficult to find out what the book is about, if anyone actually cares:
http://sciencefictionruminations.wordpress.com/2014/01/26/book-review-strange-relations-philip-jose-farmer-1960/
http://www.scifidimensions.com/May06/strangerelations.htm
June 12th, 2014 at 10:32 pm
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
June 13th, 2014 at 1:51 pm
(╯°□°）╯︵ â”»â”â”»
June 13th, 2014 at 1:55 pm
@NUK: No, but thanks anyway.
/|\~^w^~/|\
June 13th, 2014 at 4:04 pm
@NUK: I’ve read it, but I don’t recognise it from these descriptions. I’m also intrigued by the reviewer’s idea of ‘stereotypically French’: I’m in Lyon at the mo and the lack of naked drunk women in the supermarket is noticeable.
June 15th, 2014 at 9:03 pm
@Tat Wood: Thanks for the tip. That was the only reason I was going to Lyon. Maybe I shall have better luck with spotting the elusive Naked Drunk Frenchwoman in Marseilles. Last time I use a sci fi/fantasy novel as a travel guide.
June 25th, 2014 at 12:54 am
@RachelJ: have a heart! It was bloody well enough for me to use the word ‘ensue’ on the Internet. I may as well walk around with a sign saying ‘I CAN HAZ MUSTASH TATU ON FINGUR’ or ‘I ARGUE ENDLESSLY ABOUT WHAT NAME TO CALL MY HAT’.
July 28th, 2014 at 9:13 pm
@StevenLP Difficult to say, but we see it results in eggs with weird snakefood babies in them.
April 17th, 2015 at 8:12 am
The cover is likely less strange than the contents of the book. Acid. That’s my only explanation for the output of Philip Jose Farmer :).
June 4th, 2015 at 3:33 pm
The mouse-over text sums up my reaction to the cover very nicely.
June 5th, 2015 at 4:06 pm
Farmer was actually a very early example of a successful fanfic writer — long before E.L.James…
August 25th, 2015 at 4:27 am
It’s the Sphinx of Thebes doing a very poor job disguising herself as a man.
October 9th, 2016 at 5:17 pm
I would feel more comfortable reading the Baen edition in public, bizarre Silverberg quote and all.
October 9th, 2016 at 5:35 pm
@Dead Stuff: this is LARPing taken to a whole new level.
March 21st, 2020 at 11:25 am
RIP Kenny Rogers. He gambled… and won!
March 21st, 2020 at 4:28 pm
Is that sphinx tired? It seems a bit sluggish.
(gets coat.)
March 21st, 2020 at 8:35 pm
@THS 1139 – The Gambler should’ve known when to hold ’em.
This was that time.
March 21st, 2020 at 11:12 pm
@DSWBT (wherever you are): The original cover is suitable for bus reading.
The Panther/Granada 1982 one isn’t too odd. Their 1985 cover is perhaps not bus-suitable but does illustrate the first story well.
The Japanese one is nowt to do with it, but not embarrassing.
And the BAEN!manly man and alien babe, duh… well, it’s not orange and there aren’t any explosions, but the font abuse is more embarrassing than the artwork. PJF seems a bit out of their usual milieu, though.
And how out of it am I that this is the way I learned Kenny Rogers is dead?
(The “condition that his condition was in” was… very bad.)