Oct 12
Billy Awesome Comments: Pull out all the stops. I want the head of Sturgeon as a devil, floating on an asteroid made partially of humanoid hands and torsos, and partially of a futuristic city that looks like a garbage truck, his hair a naked lady with a peacock feather magic aura, his brow haloed by dollar store xmas tinsel. I want a topless mermaid riding a unicorn over a chain that secures nothing. I want an astronaut trying to take a smoke break through his bubble helmet, and a nude baby on a floating cockle shell awestruck by the majesty of it all. Don’t let me down. Let’s make some magic!
Published 1964
October 12th, 2015 at 10:45 am
When Jake and Dinos Chapman redesigned the ISS, it wasn’t pretty. But it is art!
October 12th, 2015 at 11:28 am
words cannot express how much I love this.
October 12th, 2015 at 12:08 pm
This is indeed so over-the-top to be GSS-worthy…but it is also classic SF cover art, and so well done. Read the “About the Cover” section within for what Ted Sturgeon had to write about it. Not only has this book followed me home, so has the issue of F&SF for which this cover art was painted.
October 12th, 2015 at 2:16 pm
Like the hair and nails, goiters can grow (briefly) after decapitation.
October 12th, 2015 at 2:21 pm
Swish! … Nothing but net!
October 12th, 2015 at 4:06 pm
Sturgeon’s Third Law: A Man needs a Woman like a Mermaid needs a Unicorn.
October 12th, 2015 at 4:06 pm
And he’s looking at us as if to say: Go on, then – ask the next question.
October 12th, 2015 at 4:09 pm
Baen Editor to Artist: “For this new book release, I want you to go apeshit. I want a giant soldier with genitals made of hand grenades and cannon barrels, and on both arms he carries two naked chicks bodypainted in camouflage patterns — one in jungle patterns, one in desert patterns — who fire bazookas, while he’s trampling aliens of six different colors underneath his combat boots which are painted like flags, and… and… ”
[Editor passes out from lack of oxygen]
October 12th, 2015 at 4:18 pm
Well, that beats a fleet of Death Stars for intergalactic awesomeness. Solid gold caviar.
Behind you?
October 12th, 2015 at 7:53 pm
The description somehow left out what looks an awful lot like a tangle of naked people by Sturgeon’s neck, and the giant hand grasping at them. It’s probably Sturgeon’s hand.
Also, I had no idea that being a giant-headed space devil could cause naked women to sprout from your head.
October 12th, 2015 at 11:00 pm
I’m certain I’ve seen a different cover (not necessarily on this site) in which another sci-fi author is depicted having naked women emerging from his head – as in “Sex on the Brain” – but I can’t remember who it was. That said, our friend Sturgeon not only has sex on the brain, but some sort of orgy going on in his big… veiny… neck… Ew.
October 13th, 2015 at 12:56 am
@AnnaT: Neckromancer?
October 13th, 2015 at 1:49 pm
I’ll never understand art directors. Why in space doesn’t this cover depict an actual sturgeon orbiting a planet, thus elegantly combining surrealism with wordplay?
(I mean if Sturgeon was sensitive about his silly name he’d have changed it, right?)
October 13th, 2015 at 7:42 pm
Sturgeons!
October 13th, 2015 at 8:31 pm
BTW, if you read the highlighted word you get THE NEW STURGEON O. I’m not sure I really want to read about that, neck-romancing or not.
October 19th, 2015 at 5:27 am
If the baby and smoking astronaut are meant to represent other aspects of Sturgeon’s life, then I guess we’ve got:
THE THREE STURGEONS IN ORBIT
… I’ll get me coat.
July 24th, 2018 at 12:15 am
I see after 3 years that no one’s mentioned the tentacle monster behind hair lady.
March 4th, 2019 at 9:39 am
The astronaut is thinking: “How did this happen? It looks nothing like in the pictures. This is the last time I buy a space station from IKEA.”