Friday, February 16, 2018

Paperback 1008: Rogue Queen / L. Sprague de Camp (Dell 600)

Paperback 1008: Dell 600 (1st ptg, 1952)

Title: Rogue Queen
Author: L. Sprague de Camp
Cover artist: Mike Ludlow

Condition: 7/10
Estimated value: $8-10

Dell600
Best things about this cover:

  • That seems a reasonable way to learn about sex tbh
  • "OK, so, step 1: put the spear away"—Earth-man
  • I'm sure that phallic rocket is in no way a phallic symbol
  • That is some very convenient cape and forearm
  • Her hair is amazing


Dell600bc
Best things about this back cover:

  • "You ... complete ... me ... seriously, do it, complete me, I'm not a woman yet, get on with it."
  • You take the good you take the bad you take them both and there you have the Facts of Full Womanhood, The Facts of Full Womanhood!
  • That is the sloppiest damn ringed planet I even did see. It's like a 5-year-old drew a ball of yarn


Page 123~

"It is a curious feature of Terran culture that when the men do something of a stupidity they always blame their wives."

I like her.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

5 comments:

Muscato said...

L. Sprague de Camp fun fact: when I was a stripling, I worked for a museum of which he and the Missus were patrons. They were a very stately pair, and very demanding about things like what table they sat at at galas and how they were recognized in print. A colleague once listed them as "Mr. and Mrs. Sprague L. DeCamp," and there was hell to pay...

Margaret said...

I am so delighted that you're posting these! Will keep my eyes open for more.

Rex Parker said...

Thanks. I miss my babies when I don't spend time with them, and I still have thousands to go... :)

RP

DemetriosX said...

Over at http://theinferior4.livejournal.com/ Paul Di Filippo does this thing he calls the Counterfactual Sixties where he takes covers from 60s erotic/exploitation novels and slaps the titles of science fiction novels and appropriate but exploitative copy on them. For a second there, I thought I was over there and not here.

This is considered by some to be the novel that broke the taboo on sex in SF. It was widely hailed when it first came out, but doesn't seem to have aged well.

ISFDB notes the Ludlow credit, but suggests the artist might be EMSH. http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?28450 I'm not so sure. That doesn't really look like one of his spaceships. She might look a bit like Carol, though

bandit said...


that's my kind of not a woman!