Paperback 1160: Dell SF 12648 (PBO, 1978)
Title: Visions and Venturers
Author: Theodore Sturgeon
Cover artist: Wayne Barlowe (illus. by James Odbert)
Condition: 7
Value: $5
- The Man Who Shot Fire From His Nipples!
- This cover is disorienting. The man is apparently part of some illustration that has been torn open to reveal a vibrant green spacescape of some kind. But what is the illustration and illustration of? What on god's green planet is happening there on the left, under the title and author. An inscrutable sepia jumble.
- Now that is an artist's signature! Dated and everything. Of course the book itself doesn't credit the cover artist (only the interior illustrator), but that signature is clear and unmistakable (thanks to the isfdb for the identification—what a resource)
Best things about this back cover:
- "Sturgeon's People" sounds like a public access show featuring interviews local freaks, weirdos, cranks and crackpots
- I have some questions for Dad (if that is your real name...). Namely, what have you done with my peanuts?
- I like when characters throng a story. None of this meek "inhabit" or "populate" bullshit! Throng or move along!
Page 123~ (from "Won't You Walk—")
He kept the bathrobe they gave him pulled snugly over his amplifier, and under a hot towel he reached almost the euphoric state he had been in last night.
"His amplifier" sounds like some kind of euphemism, so I don't really want to know what's going on under that towel, thank you very much...
~RP
[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Letterboxd]
1 comment:
That cover is a real puzzle, the mess on the left is part of the overall design failure of a ripped kraft packing paper, had to find a larger size to make sense of it.
Post a Comment