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ATTACK OF THE KILLER BLURBS
A blurb is a brief description of the contents of a book, designed to tease or entice a casual browser into buying it. A blurb should be short, accurate, tantalising, and give some evidence that the blurb writer has actually read the book being described.
However, even a cursory glance at a few book jackets shows that such blurbs are in the minority.
Science fiction is, of course, not the only literary genre to suffer. Veteran SF author Frederic Pohl worked as an advertising copywriter in the late 1940s and mentions in his autobiography The Way the Future Was that he was responsible for such gems as:
In the wickedest city in the world this copper-haired giant built an empire out of gunplay, gambing and the eager hearts of women.
And the classic:
He knew the whole town’s secrets but he had one secret of his own: the huge white bride’s bed that he kept for the wife of another man.
These clearly demonstrate that, like all advertising, the blurb attempts to appeal to humanity’s basic drives - the most accessible being SEX.
THE BLURB SEXUAL
Every woman in the city was his!
brian aldiss, The Male Response
It proclaims on the front cover. And on the back:
This timely story is destined to become the top adult science fiction novel of the year. Mr Aldiss’ treatment of the many problems of sex and superstition met by a modern scientist in darkest Africa is startling. How a modern Englishman copes with the pagan passions and primitive perversions of today’s torrid continent will keep your interest at fever level.
The Male Response is not science fiction, and bears little resemblance to the plot description given here.
His fancies had come true - he was a lone man on a planet entirely inhabited by women.
poul anderson, Virgin Planet
WOMEN’S LIB GONE WILD. Dr. Henrietta Caret, Leader of the FEMS, the first women candidate for president, and the perfector of VITA-LERP, the biological skin cream design to do away with surplus men, it spelled WAR BETWEEN THE SEXES.
john boyd, Sex and the High Command, (Bantam)
Under the surgeon’s knife, Griff Sheridan had bocome more than any woman dared hope for... a super-human twenty-fifth century lover capable of driving all girls wild!
ross camra, Assault
louis charbonneau, Corpus Earthling. In the British Edition (Digit) the cover shows a man, and the messgage:
He was marked for extermination by the invaders from Mars.
The American cover is almost the same, but the man had been replaced by a full-breasted young lady and the blurb now reads:
She was marked as the first victim of the Martian invaders.
(Remarkably, both blurbs are accurate).
He defined the twenty-fifth century with a woman who was NOT HIS WIFE - and a WIFE who was NOT A WOMAN!
philip jose famer, A Woman a Day (also known as Timestop or The Day of Timestop), (Beacon)
Forced to make love to beautiful women! This is adult science fiction at its best.
randall garrett and larry m harris, Pagan Passions
The young earthmen explored a fascinating planet, twin to the sun, where one-eyed runts played endless games of sex.
james grazier, Runts of 61 Cygni C. (Belmont)
(Actually, the planet was twin to the Earth, not the sun; however the blurb is far more exciting than the book it came from.)
The Major Cult Author of our time challenges the concepts of morality and social organisation in Podkayne of Mars. Through the eyes of beautiful adventuress and beautiful Podkayne, Robert Heinlein examines the worlds of tomorrow.
robert a heinlein, Podkayne of Mars, (NEL)
(A blurb design to make the book, a fairly staid juvenile, sound rather naughtier than it in fact is.)
He came from Mars and changed EARTH’S IDEAS OF MORALITY!
robert a heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land, (4-Square)
On a world older than time, built on dope and vice, this was... SIN IN SPACE! An expose of the Scarlet Planet!
cyrill judd, Sin in Space, (4-Square)
While most of these books are very innocent and have just been repackaged to appeal to "adult" buyers, there have been a few SF porn books, such as the next two.
She was all woman. Ask the men who made her.
jack kahler, Latex Lady, (AKA Rubber Dolly), (4-Square)
Harder than human! A bionic man with a computer crotch satisfies the lust cravings of a super feminine world. More than Mortal Meat!
horst klepple, Hard On, (Spicy Reader)
Bizarre! Uproarious! Chilling! The most extraordinary things happen then French l’amour meets SF.
damon knight, ed., 13 French SF Stories, (Corgi)
(One of the few known examples of a franglais SF blurb...)
Satyrs from outer space on a lusty earthbound spree.
fritz leiber, The Green Millenuim
Potions in the house... Evil in the air... And a Witch in his bed!
fritz leiber, Conjure Wife
Sex kittens from outer space send two Earthmen into an orbit of eternal ecstacy.
victor loman, Starship Women, (Hustler Books)
What happens when the world’s most brilliant mind, inside the world’s finest body, is thrown for a loop by a mere woman?
felix mendelshohn, jr., Superbaby
(The assumptions about men and women implicit in this blurb are staggering.)
Janet’s mission is to find a planet where sex reigns - and when she does, you can imagine her bodily gains!
monica mounds (Do you think that could be a pseudonym?), Outer Space Embrace (AKA Pleasure Planet AKA Janet’s Sex Planet AKA Intergalactic Orgy - etc.(4-Square)
A startling view of life in 1984! Forbidden love! Fear! Betrayal!
george orwell, 1984, (Signet - 1953 edition)
The scourge had spread all over Earth - killing all but a few women, for whose favours the price was DEATH!
leonard proyn and day keene, World Without Women
("Yeah," he muttered, "but what a way to go!")
A sexy young witch can get into all sorts of trouble these days.
keith robers, Anita, (Ace)
It was love - between a mad scientist and a degenerate speck of hyper matter.
rudy rucker, The Sex Sphere, (Ace)
Free Drugs! Easy Sex! No Job Hassles! Some people just don’t know when they’re being oppressed!
rudy rucker, Spacetime Donuts, (4-Square)
He had to be stopped, for all women were his playthings and all men his pawns!
olaf stapleton, Odd John, (Beacon)
(The cover shows a naked man chasing a naked woman. One suspects that neither the cover artist for the blurb writer had read Odd John, a pleasant tale of a spiritual and intellectual superman, who founds a utopian community on a Pacific island.)
She Was A Century Ahead Of Her Sex!
jack williamson, Dragon’s Island, (Paperback Library)