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Jun 21

The Shape of Further Things

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Pathetic human race. Arranging their knowledge by category just made it easier to absorb. Dewey, you fool! Your decimal system has played right into my hands! Ha ha ha ha!Click for full image

Good Show Sir Comments: Ensign… go get a giant fridge… chilled space brain is on tonight’s menu!
Published 1974

Many thanks to Robert Van N for sending this in!

Actually, that cover IS a classical work of artI would touch it without protective glovesI have seen worse. Far, far worseInteresting, but I would still read it in publicMiddling: Neither awful nor awfully goodWould not like to be seen reading that!Awful... just awful...That belongs in a gold-lamé picture frame!Gah... my eyes are burning! Feels so good!Good Show, Sir.... Good Show! (Average: 6.73 out of 10)
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20 Responses to “The Shape of Further Things”

  1. Darren N Says:
    June 21st, 2013 at 9:46 am

    Never mind the brain – read the quote!

  2. THX 1138 Says:
    June 21st, 2013 at 10:06 am

    No, no, it’s not a brain-powered spaceship, it’s a giant walnut-powered spaceship.

  3. FearöfMusic Says:
    June 21st, 2013 at 10:25 am

    Is that even a compliment? Versatile? Not talented, or imaginative, or skilled, or hell, even interesting. Versatile? Ah, but at least you’ve some sparkling fine artwork to…oh, hmm. Well, it WAS published in 1974, so there is a chance his mum was stoned when Mr. Aldiss stopped round to show her this.

  4. Jaouad Says:
    June 21st, 2013 at 10:33 am

    Prophetic cover, this. After the zombie apocalypse, all further things will be shaped like BRAINS!

  5. Druaightagh Says:
    June 21st, 2013 at 10:43 am

    Now I am leaving Earth for no raisin!

  6. Tom Hering Says:
    June 21st, 2013 at 12:10 pm

    Fleeing from the Cylon tyranny, the last Battlebrain, Galactica, leads a ragtag, fugitive fleet on a lonely quest – for a shining planet known as Earth.

  7. Dead Stuff With Big Teeth Says:
    June 21st, 2013 at 12:12 pm

    Funny thing is, Observer was the guy who kept his brain on a plate. Maybe Joel & Mike & the Bots didn’t send it into a stable orbit…?

  8. Tom Hering Says:
    June 21st, 2013 at 1:04 pm

    So, the cover designer thought the best way to express the far-future sense of “The Shape Of Further Things” was by combining a groovy ’60s font with an Old English style capital “T.” The art department’s stock of Letraset rub-on transfer sheets must have been pretty low that day.

  9. Rags Says:
    June 21st, 2013 at 1:23 pm

    LOL< oh boy….

    Check out the assorted, and completely out of time spacecraft floating around out there. We have a "Flash Gordon" ship, a Chimp-o-naut pod and some sort of intergalactic star destroyer prototype with floaty balls around it. (phallic?)

    All this glory in front of what appears to be Mars and the very nearby Saturn, haha!! I would say everyone involved in this cover are "versatile".

  10. Tom Hering Says:
    June 21st, 2013 at 1:46 pm

    Not Mars, but the tenth planet Ultra. Aldiss’s alternate titles were Dragon’s Domain and Tony Cellini and the Monster.

  11. Bibliomancer Says:
    June 21st, 2013 at 1:58 pm

    If Brian Aldiss is a “versatile” writer that must mean he is really good at writing everything: science fiction, fantasy, greeting cards, menus, suicide notes, drug prescriptions, bank holdup notes, porn, Ikea instruction manuals, limericks, … Quite the “versatile” writer indeed!

  12. FeàrofMüsic Says:
    June 21st, 2013 at 2:12 pm

    Hmmm, yes. I believe he has also used the pen names Reginald Bogscrotum, Sven Penisson, Deeply Depressed Testes, and Tim Mayfield as well. At least that’s what UtterRubbishandPureNonsense.org claims.

  13. Bibliomancer Says:
    June 21st, 2013 at 2:15 pm

    Artist to publisher: “Don’t blame me for your typo! You wrote asking me to do a cover for your new Brain Aldiss book.”

  14. fred Says:
    June 21st, 2013 at 3:17 pm

    A 70′s version of the space sheep, only using Einstein’s brain instead?

  15. B. Chiclitz Says:
    June 21st, 2013 at 5:27 pm

    Publisher to Aldiss: “Well if you’re so damned versatile, just change your name to Brain.”

  16. Phil Says:
    June 21st, 2013 at 7:35 pm

    I like it when the GSS Tagmeister gets a return on his investment. It was some time ago that the “space brain” tag debuted, but here at last is it’s second deployment.

    I’m disappointed that I didn’t get here earlier. I so wanted to do the Brian/Brain gag, but others got there long before me.

  17. Tat Wood Says:
    June 21st, 2013 at 8:47 pm

    The Observer quotation is odd – if Aldiss in 1974 is their idea of ‘younger’, are they judging by the standard where Lucian of Samothrace is recent?

    Those mid-seventies Corgi covers are uniformly naff. I have most of them. May I recommend the Bulmer-edited New Writings in SF editions.

  18. A.R.Yngve Says:
    June 23rd, 2013 at 9:42 pm

    Is this the plot twist of that Serenity/Firefly movie…? (“We’ll lure those Reavers into the black hole with a giant brain!”)

  19. Tat Wood Says:
    June 24th, 2013 at 4:03 pm

    @ARYnge: That was the plot of every third episode of Lexx, in between Benny Hill-in-Space malarkey and ending every episode with blowing up a planet.

  20. Anti-Sceptic Says:
    July 18th, 2013 at 4:02 pm

    The Shape of Future Things: Where there is no escape from the gravitation field of the brain!” *dum, dum, dum….*

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