Agent Of Chaos by Norman Spinrad
1967 – Belmont
Cover artist uncredited
An occasional series of book covers whose outlandish design evokes bafflement and confusion in equal measure.
Ok, so this one is a little more conventional – or is it? Psychotic despot standing behind a trestle table dressed in a pink jumper – check. Army of black clad thugs firing heavy weaponry – check. Giant eyeballs on posts shooting green rays from their pupils – er, check. The number of people caught up this terrible crossfire of hideous laser beam destruction who appear to have been mortally wounded or killed – zero. Not quite the end of the human race yet then.
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For all the evil genius that went into this scenario, you’d think that a bit of weapons calibration might have been included in the preparation! I think immediately following this illustration, a committee was formed to conduct an enquiry to see if lessons could be learned for future annihilations.
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I concur mr Lestaret, there are a lot of lasers but very little annihilation. the chaos factor is high amongst the dozen or so members of the human race present but no one has sustained any injuries. I think a committee meeting should be called immediately by the pink jumper wearing despot to get to the bottom of this conundrum.
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This is a scene in the book 😉
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It’s still very light on the expected carnage given the amount of weaponry on display.
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haha, yeah, definitely. Not Spinrad’s best book by a long shot — just acquired another bizarre Spinrad cover!
Another Moll cover of course — http://www.isfdb.org/wiki/images/2/29/NODIRHM1975.jpg
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That’s fabulously odd! Roll another brother…
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The woman looks like she is straining from peeing. It’s terrible. Love the astronaut.
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Ha ha, maybe you’re right there Joachim. This is definitely my kind of bizarre cover!
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Perhaps it’s one to acquire. Will read it relatively soon….
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Just found a copy on eBay for £3 – thanks for the tip my friend, always happy to pick up a recommendation.
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