Title: Beat Not the Bones
Author: Charlotte Jay
Cover artist: Uncredited (come on, someone must know this...)
Yours for: $10
Best things about this cover:
- Let's start with the title ...
- Because honestly, I'm not sure where to begin ...
- Beat Not the Bones! - for if you do, the Psychedelic South American Tree God will alight on your head with mind-altering fury!
- Revealed!: the secret of soprano Alma Gluck's outstanding voice!
Best things about this back cover:
- "Hair-raising" is not an effective qualifier of or follow-up to "persuasive." I mean, really - how do you en-dash your way from "hair-raising" to "persuasive?" That is nuts, New York Herald Tribune.
- "Proceeding?" It's not a trial. Horrible blurbs! Hey, I have a new blog tag.
- Civilization = innocence = sanity. Nice.
- "Rumors whispered suicide" - yes, when you play it backwards, the American version of Fleetwood Mac's most popular album does just that. And to think, Judas Priest and Ozzy Osbourne got all the bad press.
Page 123~
"I'm not at all well," he stated. "Fever always put my nerves on edge and those damn Kerema dogs come over and root up all my vegetables."
~RP
5 comments:
OK, I admit to being less than terrified by the passage on p. 123. Also, is that really the most glowing review they could find for the back cover? It seems... somewhat tepid and... rather full of ambiguous qualifiers. And I always wonder what gets left out behind the ellipses...
"A writer of rather astonishing capacity... [astonishingly limited, that is]. most persuasive - [if you're easily persuaded.] All in all a most unusual and compulsive proceeding. [I was compelled to proceed directly to the used book store and trade this book in for a Graham Greene reprint.]"
Erik, Mad magazine did some riffs on the same idea, re-inserting "deleted" text from quotes.
RP:
I mean, really - how do you en-dash your way from "hair-raising" to "persuasive?" That is nuts, New York Herald Tribune.
The NYHT probably had a more coherent quote in the original. The text was likely lifted and altered by whomever designed or edited the back cover.
Not that it excuses the quality of the blurb, of course...
Scary indeed -- Europeans are well-known for their innocence...
Technically, there's only one kind of death....
Wikipedia credits Roger Hane for this cover
(as well as 3 others in the series).
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