Brave New World as a pulp novel

Not as crazy as the pulp treatment for Orwell's 1984 that Cory found, this silly cover for Aldous Huxley's Brave New World is still worth a gander.

Brave New World pulp exploitation paperback (via Hang Fire Books)

[#1 posted by SpinkySulks , August 8, 2008 12:24 PM]

Why is some naked guy pulling Edith Keeler out of the Guardian of Forever?

[#2 posted by Mina , August 8, 2008 12:33 PM]

I used to have a great pulp cover D.H. Lawrence ("Aaron's Rod"--I mean the title kinda asked for it...) and I have a great pulp cover of the sadly lesser-known- than-it-deserves-to-be Sinclair Lewis novel, "Kingsblood Royal."

[#3 posted by Church , August 8, 2008 12:44 PM]

It's got its pulp elements, so not surprising.

[#4 posted by foobar , August 8, 2008 12:51 PM]

He's not naked, he's wearing a dry-ice thong.

[#5 posted by Stefan Jones , August 8, 2008 12:56 PM]

That's not dry ice, it's Soma fumes.

Breath deep. Feel your troubles melt away.

Ahhhh, happy!

[#6 posted by coop , August 8, 2008 1:01 PM]

OMG!
It's Stargate's Quantum Mirror!

http://stargate.wikia.com/wiki/Image:QM1.JPG

[#7 posted by buddy66 , August 8, 2008 1:53 PM]

There should be a special collection of sexually suggestive covers of otherwise staid classics. It's how paperback publishers back in the 40s and 50s tried to unload the ''dogs'' on their lists to what they imagined typical paperback readers to be: drooling, hollow-eyed onanists.

[#8 posted by Cowicide , August 8, 2008 2:15 PM]

I just hope this promotes more people to actually read the damn book and quit blindly saying, "hey, it's a brave new world" like it's a positive connotation.

It makes me want to slap them silly and say, "You illiterate fool!! It denotes a BAD thing!".

On that note.... It makes me wonder, is the drug manufacturer here trying to be "funny" or just oblivious???
http://www.drugs.com/soma.html

[#9 posted by buddy66 , August 8, 2008 2:40 PM]

I think Huxley and the drugco got it from the same source, Hindu antiquity. Seems unlikely that pharmacists would have gone anywhere near a name that carried such negative connotations.

[#10 posted by mdhatter , August 8, 2008 2:45 PM]

I have this one. It's even better in person.

[#11 posted by Bender , August 8, 2008 3:13 PM]

Reminds me of Tom Ewells occupation in The Seven Year Itch. He worked for a pulp publisher and sexied up Little Women for example.

They still do this on a more subtle level.

[#12 posted by Sister Y , August 8, 2008 3:20 PM]

Cowicide, my reactions to reading BNW were "sign me up!" and "if only it were possible." But then, I think human suffering is worse than . . . anything.

When Miranda herself speaks the words in The Tempest, she uses them to indicate a fairly "good thing" (first contact, excitement, novelty, mystery).

So people who think "brave new world" has positive connotations could either be illiterate fools, or have a different take on things, or be Shakespearean scholars.

[#13 posted by TEKNA2007 , August 8, 2008 3:44 PM]

#1 @SPINKYSULKS:

Why is some naked guy pulling Edith Keeler out of the Guardian of Forever?

"Forget!"

[#14 posted by franko , August 8, 2008 4:03 PM]

i wish *i* were that dry ice thong. that guy's kinda hot in all the right ways.

[#15 posted by Takuan , August 8, 2008 4:06 PM]

bloody mammals

[#16 posted by TEKNA2007 , August 8, 2008 4:10 PM]

@FRANKO #14:

i wish *i* were that dry ice thong. that guy's kinda hot in all the right ways.

You mean to say, he's a Bantam Giant?

[#17 posted by Ugly Canuck , August 8, 2008 4:59 PM]

Oh such a Brave New World,
that hath such pulpy covers on it.

[#18 posted by TEKNA2007 , August 8, 2008 5:08 PM]

Is he luring her in by casting a trail of Soma in front of her?

[#19 posted by mdhatter , August 8, 2008 7:59 PM]

gee, I guess she is pneumatic.

[#20 posted by Bruce Arthurs , August 8, 2008 8:55 PM]

Caption contest!

"Come with me! Oh, and watch out for the dog poop over there."

[#21 posted by Cowicide , August 8, 2008 9:28 PM]

#12 posted by Sister Y:

So people who think "brave new world" has positive connotations could either be illiterate fools, or have a different take on things, or be Shakespearean scholars.

Touché

Cowicide, my reactions to reading BNW were "sign me up!"

Jesus Christ.... I hope you are kidding. Where you on Soma while you read it?

Welp, guess it just goes to show that one person's living hell is another person's utopia.

[#22 posted by Bruce Arthurs , August 8, 2008 10:53 PM]

Cowicide @ #21: "Welp, guess it just goes to show that one person's living hell is another person's utopia."

That comment reminds of Damon Knight's story, "I See You", which revolved around the consequences of a device small and cheap enough for everyone to afford, which could let you see not only what was happening anywhere, but also had adjustment knobs that let you see into the past as well.

Some time after the story was published, I was surprised to see someone referring to it as "a horror story." From my point of view, a world where there are no secrets, and no possibility of secrets, is a utopia.

[#23 posted by BizarroPippy , August 9, 2008 4:39 AM]

brave new world is a shtoopid book anyway as it posits a dystopia that is way preferable to any society that has ever existed (unless you count insects)

[#24 posted by Gag Halfrunt , August 9, 2008 6:24 AM]

Reminds me of Tom Ewells occupation in The Seven Year Itch. He worked for a pulp publisher and sexied up Little Women for example.

One British publisher (I forget which) has put out Jane Austens with bubbly chick-lit style covers and the slogan 'the original romance author' (or words to that effect).

[#25 posted by Joel Schlosberg , August 9, 2008 2:13 PM]

Another great pulp cover for an un-pulpish book: Kurt Vonnegut's Player Piano, which is even given a pulpy title, Utopia 14:
http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/images/n0/n3378.jpg

[#26 posted by Cowicide , August 10, 2008 6:28 PM]

#22 posted by Bruce Arthurs:

That comment reminds of Damon Knight's story, "I See You", which revolved around the consequences of a device small and cheap enough for everyone to afford, which could let you see not only what was happening anywhere, but also had adjustment knobs that let you see into the past as well.

Reminds me of the Wayback Machine . I've used that to call bullshit on more than a few foes with pretty hilariously utopian results.

[#27 posted by stalepie , August 11, 2008 7:38 PM]

But it IS a pulp novel. Has anyone actually read this thing, or his annoying eugenics writings? There's probably much better, actually well written pulp novels out there than ALDOUS "I ain't what I'm cracked up to be" HUXLEY.

[#28 posted by Teresa Nielsen Hayden / Moderator , August 12, 2008 8:35 AM]

Stalepie, "pulp" isn't (or ought not be) a synonym for "bad". Pulp has its own virtues. A book that doesn't aim for those virtues, and arrives at dullness via another path, is simply dull.

[#29 posted by hubs , August 12, 2008 9:04 AM]

*sigh* back to the feelies.

[#30 posted by Joel Schlosberg , August 12, 2008 11:35 AM]

Yet another great pulp paperback cover, for The Fountainhead (aka "The Sensational Bestseller of a Man and Woman Who Defied the World!"):
http://praxeology.net/roarkpb.jpg