Oh dear.
-and you can still smell the cat pee.

Sorry! Sorry. Old memories of my older brother's houses.
Many books...many cats.

That's the first thing I thought when I saw the cover: Dune rip-off. Not the best of the Dune "art."

what's more impressive to me is the fact that somebody pimped out the Oscar Meyer Weinermobile on the back cover.

Oh, dude. I thought the point of this post was going to be how everything looked like a kind of penis.

Which, I guess, is appropriate, really, for a book by a guy named Dick.

@braak: THAT is funny!

lol Penis-mobile

@zerofritz: "What do you think of my wiener now!!!! HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!"

Sorry... been a long day...

Don't worry, Braak, you're not alone. My first thought was to look for the shapes . . . then I realized it was about Dune. Ahh, the dirty minds of sci-fi nerds.

I don't see any phallic imagery at all. What's WRONG with you people?

Ah the lovely "LADY" named Murilee Martin.

Maybe "SHE" needs to post the covers on Jalopnik for the PCH!

I didn't realize Oscar Myer had a weinermobile on Dune. Even in the future, Arrakis-ians enjoy the processy goodness (sand worm) of hot dogs.

@chriswren:
The "weinermobile" on the back cover . . . but mostly I was looking for it b/c I've come to expect that--I am a product of today's society.

@ManchuCandidate: Oscar Meyer gets around. He's been packing his sinuses with the Spice since the early days, and can now fold space in order to transport delicious hot-dogs and meat-related-substances throughout the galaxy.

The first thing I thought of was the Klan was colonizing planets with a giant penismobile.

@zerofritz: One two three four, I declare an avatar war

@latoberg:

Same here.

@latoberg: yep. and notice where this strange penis ejaculates? that's what I call imaginative! I'm afraid to look at my own wiener now.

Hey that DOES look like a thingy!

I just want to take a step back and re-iterate that that is a truly crappy Dune cover.

"We can totally re-use this cover. It was so piss-poor for Dune that most readers probably won't even notice."

See the skull in the foreground? What do you think happened to it??? Space penis attack!

That's right -- that penis is MADE OF PEOPLE.

@Rick Chandler: Look Rick, I can see you're really upset about this. I honestly think you ought to sit down calmly, take a stress pill, and think things over.

@Annalee:

SOYLET PENIS IS PEOPLE!!!!

He who controls the CHEW-Z controls the universe.

You're missing the point. Read the letters on the left edge:

P
T
S
P
(E)

PTSP!! PTSP!!! Tom Cruise, you sly vixen, is this a message?

(The E is obviously something you have to know, you know?)

I was just going to buy that PKD novel but instead I bought one from the Dune chronicles today. I _KNEW_ there was a connection! Or could this be a message coming from Zebra in a shape of pink laser light pointed at my forehead, just for me?

@strider_mt2k:
dude, what the hell does YOUR thingy look like, if that thing looks like... nevermind.

i seriously hope nobodies schlong is yellow and adorned with racing stripes.

@nutbastard: Looks just like my thingie! It's the "Arrakis ship model" from Good Vibrations.

@nutbastard: I don't know; my wife may find the treads... interesting.

@AlfaCharger: Yeah, that's exactly what I was thinking.

Paging Mr. Murilee Martin to io9... Paging Mr. Murilee Martin to io9.

mmm... spice harvester...

Honest to god, the first thing I did was read the description on the back and thought "'...would enter, control and be a god'? There's no Oxford comma!" Then I noticed the Oscar Mayer weinermobile, and the finally I was like "Oh, hey, this looks like a crappy Dune cover."

i assume we are saying this looks like star wars? :)

WOW! I was looking at the harvester and reading about the drugs thinking that it WAS Dune...

"The spice extends life. The spice expands consciousness. The spice is vital to space travel."

@Annalee:

I don't care what it's made of.. the fact that it's spewing from its SIDES is the creepiest shit ever. Must be some DUNE STD I haven't heard of.. nor do I want to!

@AlfaCharger: @s0crates82: Looks like everyone wandering over from Jalopnik gets the joke. I'm guessing that Annalee Newitz hasn't met her colleague in person yet, maybe they should meet up for some coffee and girl talk?

Didn't realize that Murilee collected classic sci-fi covers, I've still got a bunch of '50s and '60s editions that I've picked up at book sales and such over the years stored at my parents place.

@Schweppes: Yeah yeah I know Murilee is a guy, OK? Jeez. I just thought, you know, Murilee is like a girl persona. So maybe I should go with the persona's gender. Sorry, I've read WAY too much gender-bending science fiction for my own good.

What the hell! this is so freaky, i finished reading the Dune book last night then stumbled upon this! hahah, i was thinking the cover does look like dune then scrolled down and Wow!

The Dune I read didn't have that cover. What I thought was wrong with the cover is that the Shredder from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was on the cover.

[www.ninjaturtles.freewebtools.com]

@s0crates82: Hmm... science fiction PCH?

@Murilee Martin: Sure, all you need is a couple of cars with (real or fake) rocket motors, or maybe a DeLorean vs. the last of the V8 Interceptors.

HeeHeeHeeHeeHee....hes said PENIS.....HeeHeeeHeeHee

Okay, I happen to have this very version of the book, and that's not all that's wrong with it. The ads on the last three or four pages are strange indeed; one of them is for a Gordon R. Dickson novel upon which is based the movie Soylent Green. Except, of course, Soylent Green is based on the novel Make Room, Make Room! by Harry Harrison. And the last ad is for a cookbook!

Heh, I prefer the cover that looks like a hamsa, similar to the Second Life logo:

» [en.wikipedia.org]