NH: Oh, those covers! I think my history of reading sf has been one of
ignoring the evidence of my eyes. Friends who read 'serious' literature
roll their eyes in alarm when they look at my bookshelves. I've given up
pleading that there's real writing between those covers. I've read whole
Samuel Delany novels, looking in vain for the people portrayed on the
cover (and being quite happy not to find them, but wondering what in the
world the publisher was thinking). And I've heard snatches of an sf
writer's filksong that laments, "there's a bimbo on the cover of my
book." Publishers pick the cover art, and it seems they have little
respect for the intelligence of their readers. I wonder how many
potential readers they scare away brass-bra'd bimbos? I think that
Warner has done well by Octavia Butler with the paperback editions of her
work, and I was pleasantly stunned to realise that the Ace paperback
cover of Emma Bull's _Bone Dance_ responds excellently to the contents.
-nalo
On Tue, 1 Apr 1997, lissa bloomer wrote:
> Sitting in my office late at night -- had to add to Judith's discussion.
> I never read Sci-Fi until college, when I took Len Hatfield's class (here
> at Virginia Tech) called "Speculative Fiction." I don't know if he
> disguised the course title for those students like me who would have never
> ever ever taken a course on what we thought was bimbos and blasters pulp,
> or if he used the new titling to better explain the emerging/growing genre.
> We certainly didn't read Heinlein or Asimov, so I don't quite know enough
> about the works I so readily scoff. All I know about such authors comes
> from my sad, albeit quiet, dismay of the cover designs on such texts. (I
> am one of those who gravitates towards beautiful covers. Yes.) The only
> woman I know who can wear such fashions displayed on such covers is Sherah,
> Princess of Power. And her hair and horse are both pink.
>
> I have not read any Marge Piercy. I will.
>
> -lissa
>
> elisabeth bloomer sometimes you just gotta eat
>
> instructor, english pancakes for dinner.
> virginia tech
> blacksburg, va 24061-0112
> ebloomer@vt.edu
> 540.231.2445
>
"Words. She knows so many. She knows seven languages, and all of them
different, and in all of them she is hungry."
-Candas Jane Dorsey, _Black Wine_
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