Pulp/Sf/Fantasy Paperback Covers

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Oo audible might be cool.

Just added it to my Audible list, the reader Mirron Willis sounds good on the sample available, I find a good reader is really important for audiobooks.
 
Just added it to my Audible list, the reader Mirron Willis sounds good on the sample available, I find a good reader is really important for audiobooks.

Just saw that the author (Charles Saunders) died last year, might give them a reread myself.
 
I had no idea that Carter was involved with an edition of Orlando Furioso.

I assume it's a partial translation; the Penguin edition is two big, fat volumes:

View attachment 29204

Not at all pulpy, but what the heck.

I think Orlando Furioso was the popular litetature of its time and so sort of pulp in that regard.
 
I think Orlando Furioso was the popular litetature of its time and so sort of pulp in that regard.

That makes sense. I meant that the covers aren't pulpy; one is a detail from Paolo Uccello's Battle of San Romano and the other from Franceso des Cossa's April--the Triumph of Venus.

I like the Penguin covers better than the ones used by Oxford World Classics for their one-volume prose translation. They used to feature an illustration from the Codex Manesse, an early 14th-century manuscript of Minnesinger poetry. It's too early and too German for Ariosto, for my taste. Now they have an reproduction of Jean Ingres' Ruggiero Rescuing Angelica (1819).

Oxford Old Ariosto.jpgAriosto OWC 2008.jpg
 
So, to get this back on track, how about some covers of Chelsea Quinn Yarbro's alt-history novel Ariosto.

The 1980 Pocket Books cover by Don Maitz and the Tor re-issue of 1988 by Neal McPheeters:
Ariosto-1980.jpgAriosto-Chelsea-Quinn-Yarbro-Tor.jpg

Two French editions from Denoël: the 1981 by Stéphane Dumont and the 2003 by Sparth:
Ariosto1981.jpgAriosto Later French.jpg

I like the Maitz cover for Pocket Books the best, but that may be because it's the version I own.
 
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I'm sure I've read something by Chelsea Quinn Yarboro - maybe a post-apocalyptic setting where people can regenerate limbs. Can't remember the title, though.
 
I'm sure I've read something by Chelsea Quinn Yarboro - maybe a post-apocalyptic setting where people can regenerate limbs. Can't remember the title, though.

She's most famous for her series of books about the vampire Saint-Germain, but I've never read any of those. In fact, Ariosto is the only title of hers I think I've read cover-to-cover, though I started To the High Redoubt at one point.

I think the book you read is probably her False Dawn, which sounds way too graphic for me, based on this online review/summary. To stay in keeping with the thread, here are some covers for it--the 1979 Pocket Books by Jim Dietz and the 1980 Heine translation by R.S. Lonati.

FLSDWNQWSV1979.jpgFLSCHDMMRN1980.jpg
 
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I don't remember regeneration as part of False Dawn - as I recall most of the mutations leaned toward the somewhat plausible - but it's been a couple of decades since I've read it so I may well be misremembering. It was a pretty dark read.

She also wrote a short story prequel that appears in one of her anthology books.
 
I don't remember regeneration as part of False Dawn - as I recall most of the mutations leaned toward the somewhat plausible - but it's been a couple of decades since I've read it so I may well be misremembering. It was a pretty dark read.

She also wrote a short story prequel that appears in one of her anthology books.
I could well be wrong. The review/summary I linked to above claims that
one of the main characters loses his arm in a fight but it later grows back; this is part of his mutant nature.
 
Could be. Like I said, it's been a few decades since I've read it.

I think the female lead had something unusual with her eyes, like a nictitating membrane on her eyelids or somesuch?
 
Could be. Like I said, it's been a few decades since I've read it.

I think the female lead had something unusual with her eyes, like a nictitating membrane on her eyelids or somesuch?
That rings a bell. I thought the bandit leader was growing his arm back.

Edit: It was False Dawn. I recognised this cover.

FLSDWNHWQN1981.jpg
 
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That rings a bell. I thought the bandit leader was growing his arm back.

Edit: It was False Dawn. I recognised this cover.

FLSDWNHWQN1981.jpg

This is a good book. One of my fav 70s feminist sf books (but don't worry, it isn't politically dogmatic).

Tiptree is another favourite from that era, she did her best work around novella length, I think 'A Momentary Taste of Being' is her nihilst masterpiece. It can be found in this collection.216319.jpg

Other covers of her collections.

cb78fe3b6f37fbfcff61a594b813d12f.jpg5076b6b5b4649eabdf701f71340aa7aa.jpg216317.jpgWarmWorldsAndOtherwise.jpglf.jpeg
 
Alright give me a synopsis of False Dawn. I'm curious but don't have time to read it.
 
Farmer in the Sky is probably my all-time favourite Heinlein. Most of the covers are rather boring and take the title too literally, the earliest cover is still probably the strongest.

unnamed.jpg

This was the one I first read.

830993.jpg
 
My runner-up for best Heinlein is Time for the Stars.

Here I think my preference is for the second one, my original paperback purchase.

Again the latest cover is the most generic and uninspired.

Tfts56.jpga43b9d7f08d16ca23febf49caff32c31.jpgimages.jpeg356.jpg
 
Alright give me a synopsis of False Dawn. I'm curious but don't have time to read it.

This is the synopsis from Science Fiction Ruminations:
False Dawn‘s central protagonist, a “mutant” woman named Thea, is remarkably resilient. The novel stars off with her winding her way through a scene of incredible destruction caused in part by the Pirates: dead bodies, a raped woman splayed on a billboard, packs of wild dogs, dead animals whose decayed bodies show the signs of viral infections. Her objective: Gold Lake, where civilization might still exist. Her trek takes her across Northern California: a vast expanses of mutilated landscapes, dying peoples, and horrific surprises.

However, her solo journey ends when she encounters Evan Montague, the ex-leader of the Pirates. Evan is dying, his men, increasingly radicalized, turned on him and cut off his arm. The Pirates will stop at nothing to kill their ex-leader. Thea, against her gut feeling and desire to remain alone on her journey, joins up with him on her quest.

A third character “joins” Thea and Evan, an unstable man named Lastly who fought for the C. D. militia. Thea and Evan are disarmed by Lastly at rifle point and forced to march with him. Lastly lusts after Thea and rapes her as Evan collects fuel for their fire: no punches are pulled, the scene is devastating. Evan returns and kills Lastly.

As their journey becomes increasingly difficult for a one-armed man, Yarbro strategically has his “mutant” modifications manifest themselves: “Evan’s arm grew back as fall came on. It sprouted slowly as they left the contamination behind them, beginning as a tawny spatulate paddle below the angry cicatrix marking the path of the saw […]” (38). The majority of the story’s plot concerns the daily survival of the pair—investigating abandoned houses, building crossbows, avoiding the Pirates—as they make their way across snowy mountains towards Gold Lake.

The more thematic arc of the novel novel follows Thea’s slow recovery from the mental trauma she experienced. I found Yarbro’s treatment of the Thea’s extreme difficulty of recovery from such an experience is admirably conveyed and believable. As she recovers, Evan rekindles her memories of the past—they often reminisce about food, remember fragments of music. Also, she slowly begins to overcome the more general trauma generated by the virtual destruction of the world.

The end is bittersweet.
 
Surprised to see a reference to Paganini on the cover of Fantastic Adventures! Their art may not have been as sophisticated as some of the other pulps, but it can be striking, as in this cover by James Settles for July 1949:

Fantastic_Adventures_v11n07_1949-07_unz.org_0000.jpg

I wonder if I could crop that robot head for use as an avatar?
 
Today is the birthday of Adrien Stoutenberg, who is better known as a poet and children's author. She did write at least one SF title, though, Out There, published in 1971 by Viking. This is the cover of the 1972 Dell version:

Out There.jpg

Here's what the Science Fiction Encyclopedia has to say about it:
Her one sf novel, the Young Adult Out There (1971), significantly anticipates many later novels, being set in an early twenty-first century Dystopian Near Future where a diminished population lives in Keeps insulated from the countryside, which has been devastated by Pollution. The cast of young protagonists, led by an older woman who remembers the real world, venture into the badlands, eventually finding signs of a living flora and fauna (see Ecology) in the Sierra Nevada; the novel ends without any assurance that, now that it has been discovered, the land will remain immune from the old exploitative cycle that had brought the planet to the edge of extinction. Stoutenburg wrote several nonfiction volumes about the extinction of animal species; Out There is eloquent and deeply felt.
 
I am a big fan of Jack Vance's "The Last Castle." It's a novella, so there are not that many covers featuring it--it often shows up in collections of Vance's works, not as a stand-alone publication. There have been a number of 'doubles' over the years for it, though.

The cover of April 1966 Galaxy, where it first appeared, and its first book publication (as an Ace Double) in 1967, both by Jack Gaughan:

Last Castle Galaxy.jpgLast Castle 1967 Gaughan.jpg

Some interior art by Gaughan from Galaxy, showing a Phane and an Mek:

Galaxy-Science-Fiction-1966-04-p-23-Phane.jpgGalaxy-Science-Fiction-1966-04-p-41-Blog.jpg

The 1973 Ace Double cover by Josh Kirby and the Best of Jack Vance (1979) cover by David Schleinkofer. I think it may illustrate "The Last Castle."

Last Castle Kirby 1973.jpgBest of Vance.jpg

The 1982 Ace Double cover by Richard Courtney and the 1989 Tor by Brian Waugh:

Last Castle 1982.jpgLast Castle Tor Double-Crop.jpg
 
I had a copy of the '73 Ace double at one point, but it got lost somewhere along the way over the years.
 
I had a copy of the '73 Ace double at one point, but it got lost somewhere along the way over the years.

That's the one I have. I'm thinking about replacing it with the Spatterlight Press collection that has "The Last Castle" and "The Dragon Masters" someday, since there are a fair amount of typos in the Ace edition. I think the Spatterlight is a reprint of the Vance Integral Edition, which cleaned up problems like that and restored the texts of some of his works.

Here are the Spatterlight cover for an e-book version (2012) by Todd Tennant and the Gallimard cover from 2016:

Last Castle Spatterlight.jpgLast Castle Gallimard.jpg

And the Alicia Austin dustjacket for Underwood-Miller edition of 1980:

Last Castle.jpg
 
I am a big fan of Jack Vance's "The Last Castle." It's a novella, so there are not that many covers featuring it--it often shows up in collections of Vance's works, not as a stand-alone publication. There have been a number of 'doubles' over the years for it, though.

The cover of April 1966 Galaxy, where it first appeared, and its first book publication (as an Ace Double) in 1967, both by Jack Gaughan:

View attachment 29677View attachment 29679

Some interior art by Gaughan from Galaxy, showing a Phane and an Mek:

View attachment 29682View attachment 29683

The 1973 Ace Double cover by Josh Kirby and the Best of Jack Vance (1979) cover by David Schleinkofer. I think it may illustrate "The Last Castle."

View attachment 29684View attachment 29685

The 1982 Ace Double cover by Richard Courtney and the 1989 Tor by Brian Waugh:

View attachment 29687View attachment 29688
That 1989 cover clearly takes some inspiration from the shape of Jabba's palace in Return of the Jedi.
 
My first Vance was The Dragon Masters, which still remains one of my favourites by him. The chilly, amoral tone in his sf (as opposed to the generally greater humour in his fantasy) is almost unique among the pulp generation, it reminds me more of Ballard than anything else.


220px-Galaxy_196208.jpg3729245.jpg7417196._SY475_.jpg200px-Dragon_masters.jpg1467740.jpg
 
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