Saturday, May 12, 2007

Cover of the Day


This is a great cover for a German edition of 'The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch.' Notice the metal teeth. In the book the three stigmata of Palmer Eldritch are his metal eyes, hand, and teeth. Each time a character sees any one of these they know that they are in a false reality, or more precisely, they are at least one reality removed from the one they have grown comfortable with.

It's like that game you play when one person knows the location of something the other person is looking for: saying warm, colder, hot, warmer, depending on how close that person is to finding it. The metal teeth, the robotic arm, the metal eye, say to the characters, 'looking for your Reality?.. you're ice cold man.'

But wait, it's the Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch not Three Palmer Eldritchs. Perhaps a mishap in translation. Also notice, the flying saucer is shooting the laser beam into the cool-looking alien-guy's third eye. Subtly referencing Dick's 2-3-74 pink-light experience, or am I - as my students sometimes accuse me - 'reading too much into it'?

2 comments:

MDK said...

Don't forget about how near the end of Stigmata everyone begins turning into beings like Eldritch. Perhaps this is what the publishers were trying to signify. Then again, it could very well be a translation error. Interesting note about the spaceship and the ray.

Anonymous said...

"Reading too much into it" ? If you can see it, it's there.