What is this?

Look at this terrible book cover. I hate terrible book covers.

I read this book recently, a collection of Roger Zelazny's short stories, and hated the cover every time I picked it up. It makes it look like throwaway sci-fi trash. A volcanic eruption; a flying saucer; a human male protagonist with a rifle; a female alien sidekick with an alien gun. Ugh.

And you know what makes this book cover even worse? It doesn't illustrate any of the stories! None of them feature a volcanic eruption, or a flying saucer, or a human male protagonist with a rifle, or a female alien sidekick with an alien gun. Or a single gun: there are no guns in any of the stories! Why was this cover chosen? I don't understand!

There's an SF retelling of Moby-Dick; a bleak story about terraforming; an SF Western with rogue AI cars as bandits; 'A Rose for Ecclesiastes', about a poet translating the biblical Book of Ecclesiastes into Martian; a talking stone; an almost mystical ascent up a forty-mile tall mountain; etc. I liked almost all of them, and they are far more interesting than the cover, or my list here, would have you believe.

I don't understand why this cover was chosen! It's worse than the 'Journey to the Centre of the Earth' covers with Tyrannosaurs on, or the 'Around the World in Eighty Days' covers with hot-air balloons on. At least they illustrate the movie adaptations. Grumble. Grumble.

[This is my fourth Zelazny book, after 'Lord of Light' (about the Hindu pantheon being recreated on a distant colony planet), which I liked; 'Creatures of Light and Darkness' (a far future story which is simultaneously a re-imagining of both Judeo-Christian and Egyptian mythologies - hard to explain in a sentence), which I liked; and 'Nine Princes in Amber' (the first in his long fantasy series), which I didn't like. I bought this one, despite the terrible cover, because it was recommended by reviewers who liked 'Lord of...' and 'Creatures of...', but didn't like 'Nine Princes...']

'Paul Bookland' by Domo

Domo's work always pushes the boundaries of creative expression and forces us to reconsider what we think we know. His most famous piece, 'Paul Bookland', is a perfect example: why is it, we wonder, that the artist can announce Paul's fate with such confidence? There are not enough resources available to help people off drugs: Paul Bookland is a smack head for life. The War On Drugs has failed: drugs are cheaper, purer and more available than ever: Paul Bookland is a smack head for life. Or perhaps it's more than that? What if Paul has inherited a strong genetic predisposition towards addiction? Paul Bookland is a smack head for life; free will is an illusion; all of us, in our own ways, are smack heads for life.