Mar 12
Click for full imageA naked man wrestles a lion man – who is wearing a speedo I should point out – on top of a mound of fire. Yes, I did just say that out loud. And I want a huge snake in there, with a collar. And I do mean snake, that’s not a euphemism, but then again nothing to stop us from putting some ass on there too.
(Average: 9.06 out of 10)
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March 12th, 2010 at 9:11 am
Wow… this cover is simply glorious. There’s nothing on it that isn’t simply, awesome.
March 12th, 2010 at 2:35 pm
Do you think that if I were on class-A hallucinogenic drugs this cover (and indeed the decisions that led to it being used on the book) would make more sense?
March 12th, 2010 at 2:45 pm
Red Moon? More like a pink moon to me.
Man.. that’s taken me all day to think of.
March 12th, 2010 at 2:51 pm
That’s a bum cover.
March 12th, 2010 at 3:17 pm
This is a totally perplexing cover. I DO love the pose of the lion about to gut punch that guy.
This is what happens if you let David Lynch direct the ThunderCats movie.
March 12th, 2010 at 4:27 pm
Wow…I read that book, albeit a different edition. I wonder if it would have been more memorable with that cover?
March 12th, 2010 at 5:53 pm
AAARRGHHHH
aaaargrghhh nooooo the angle noooo the white cueball buttocks
noooooo the potential dangling aaaaaarggghhh the lack of dangling nooooooo
aaaaaaahhhhh the devil’s fist clenched having ripped off said tadger oooooohhh
Oh wait, there’s a sock-puppet snake here to distract me. All is well.
March 12th, 2010 at 7:03 pm
The illustrator got the wrong end of it 😛
March 12th, 2010 at 9:48 pm
Truly impressive. Gotta love the 70s, you really have. (Book first published in 1973, according to the ever-useful ISFDB.)
March 15th, 2010 at 10:24 am
Actually I have decided that the snake with a collar is in fact a fancy modern water tap for your bathroom.
March 31st, 2010 at 1:03 am
Snake: “HI GUYS WATS GOIN ON”
April 13th, 2010 at 6:45 am
I read this when I was about 13. It was a bit disturbing. The story is _almost- about a naked guy fighting a lion guy while a snake lounges in the foreground.
April 13th, 2010 at 8:54 am
Almost? The snake is the wrong colour… right?
April 19th, 2010 at 9:49 pm
I have a different version, with more T&A. I shall send it to you, forthwith!
April 27th, 2010 at 11:20 am
this is what the internet is about. Awesome post.
April 27th, 2010 at 11:37 am
I agree Spam! This post pretty much sums up the internet.
April 27th, 2010 at 2:01 pm
That almost deserves to go on one of those motivational posters.
“A naked man wrestles a lion man on top of a mound of fire:- This is what the internet is about”
May 1st, 2010 at 7:50 pm
“but then again nothing to stop us from putting some ass on there too.”
Please . . . stop . . . I can’t breath.
/literally brought tears to my eyes.
May 5th, 2010 at 11:05 pm
I read that book – it’s actually excellent. He is armed with a Katana right through it, and sharpens it correctly. I don’t recall the wrestling at all.
The cool thing is, at a Maplecon way back I ran into MZB in an elevator and mentioned it to her. She said, ‘oh i wrote that years ago’ but a good book is forever and its a good book.
August 2nd, 2010 at 11:37 am
Actually, a more accurate poster slogan would be:
“A naked man wrestles a lion man on top of a mound of fire:- This is what the 70s were all aboutâ€Â
December 21st, 2010 at 8:20 pm
The snake-on-a-wrist in the foreground illustrates what my mother told me:
“If you keep making shadow-puppet snakes with that hand of yours, it’ll end up being that way!”
January 28th, 2011 at 12:38 pm
After reading this I can confirm there is indeed a naked man and a lion man in the first 10 pages.
They don’t wrestle on top of a hill of fire.
Nor is there a snake… A lizard man but no snake.
Anyway, it’s actually not bad at all. Nothing super exciting, but a good bus read! Plus getting looks of, “Look at what that guys reading, naked man wrestling a lion man. He must be awesome.” is pretty sweet.
February 5th, 2013 at 2:22 pm
LOL i cant stop laughing, this is my favourite cover!!! So many questions….
November 15th, 2013 at 7:16 pm
I was checking out the Original DAW cover.
I noticed that the Arrow Books cover was published six years later. Both covers have the same content: man fighting beast, red moon in sky, photobombing reptile. It is like the cover was described over the phone and the new cover artist tried reproducing it sight unseen. With hilarious results!
November 16th, 2013 at 1:41 pm
@Bibliomancer. Even the snake is explicable now– the original version is clearly SI’s lizard man!
Well, well. Who would have thought party games were actually used in cover design?
November 16th, 2013 at 4:58 pm
This cover always confuses me. That moon is clearly NOT red.
November 20th, 2013 at 1:22 pm
Guys! Guys! It’s me again!
Believe it or not I did the cover for the ebook version. And it is properly weird too.
I’ll send in a copy right away! I do my best, I truly do, but sometimes I just don’t have the time or talent to make things aesthetically beautiful and it comes up…well…. functional. And weird.
But we can do weird, hereabouts.
December 29th, 2014 at 8:56 pm
This cover bums me out.
December 29th, 2014 at 8:57 pm
Cleverly, this picture is both the front flap AND the rear flap.
December 29th, 2014 at 8:57 pm
I know this is supposed to be a red moon but I keep seeing Uranus.
December 29th, 2014 at 9:00 pm
I’m guessing this was approved by the Ass. Art Director.
January 5th, 2015 at 8:50 am
The illustrator must be left-handed because that snake quite clearly was originally a sock puppet.