Wednesday, August 19, 2015

PaperBack



Robert Sheckley, Untouched by Human Hands, Ballantine, 1960

7 comments:

Todd Mason said...

A good one, and a good cover for it. (One of the current water bottlers likes to let us know that their water is untouched by humans...damn, and I'd so miss the hint of skin oil I find in all the other water I drink...and I guess only the most natural of robots filter, boil and package it...)

Don Coffin said...

I am often amused by blurbs. For example, is Derby Line, Vermont a person living in Vermont, or a publication in Vermont? is H.H. Holmes America's first serial killer (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._H._Holmes) or was the publisher trying to be funny?

Unknown said...

I don't know about Derby Line, but H. H. Holmes was Anthony Boucher.

Don Coffin said...

Oh, yeah. Both I and Wikipedia managed to forget Anthony Boucher. But the notion of a blurb from a serial killer amuses me anyway.

Unknown said...

Boucher used that name for his SF reviews in, I think, the NY Post. He had a good many blurbs over the years.

Todd Mason said...

Nope, that was his NY HERALD-TRIBUNE pseud...hence he's quoted twice. Along with Holmes the reviewer (while simultaneously being the NY TIMES reviewer as Boucher), he would also use the known aka of Holmes, "Herman W. Mudgett", as byline for doggerel he would publish as filler in F&SF, his magazine.

He also spooked Barry Malzberg a little once, in an episode of his Pacifica Radio opera show, as he seemed to find something about castrati a bit risible in a turn of commentary phrase. A man who could enjoy his grim little jokes...

Derby is indeed a town in Vermont.

Unknown said...

HERALD-TRIBUNE, right. Brain shorted out briefly.