Saturday, March 31, 2007

Another PKD Cover Unearthed!

The collection of cover art at philipkdick.com is sufficient for a whole afternoon of viewing pleasure. Here's an amazing find:



I can't tell if this is a Bluejay special edition or a "Masters of Science Fiction" series edition. The portrait of PKD is clearly taken from this picture:



That's PKD on the right (is that a SUEDE Members Only jacket!?) looking a bit like an aged Dr Johnny Fever standing next to Ridley Scott. My question is what's up with this cover? Is Dick supposed to be a character posing along with these other characters? (the insectoid snout creature is a great touch -- I forget are there aliens in Clans of the Alphane Moon?) Is that Philip K Dick, the author, posing with his far-out creations?

This cover is post-1982 as it hypes Dick as the author of "Blade Runner." I wonder if Dick appeared on any cover art before the rumors of his erratic behavior and rampant drug use were widely known. A portrait of Dick appeared in his introduction to the counter culture: Paul Williams' 1977 Rolling Stone Article "The Most Brilliant Sci-Fi Mind on Any Planet: Philip K. Dick." In Williams' article, PKD is identified with drugs and more importantly as a "crazy" arguing on behalf of lunatics everywhere. At the end of Clans of the Alphane Moon the crazies are diagnosed as sane and the doctors are diagnosed as schizophrenics.

8 comments:

Henri said...

If you really want to appreciate Philip K. Dick's cover art and find out more about these covers the place to go is http://pkdickbooks.com.

Anonymous said...

I own a copy of the book with that cover.

Anonymous said...

I too own a copy of this edtion of Clans of the Alphane Moon. It is a very bad cover indeed, but what can you do? I much prefer some of the Vintage publishing editions.

Ragle Gumm said...

I once bought a hundred PKD titles on ebay for $5. They're amazing, but I don't have this one.

MDK said...

Hey David,

Good buy from Ebay. Just wanted to say that I dig your site. I just read Clans just a few months ago. If there was a an Instectoid then I believe it was a fairly minor role. In the apartment that Chuck Rittersdorf moved into after separating from his wife, there was a variety of non-Terrans. That's about all I know.

Anonymous said...

There are insectoids aliens un "Clans..." they're a political pressure for the autocracy of the alphane moon and the wackos inside.

Anonymous said...

By far the best Clans cover is the '72 Ace version

http://www.pkdickbooks.com/LargeCovers/SFNovels/ClansAlphaneMoonAce1972.jpg

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