Enough

While writing the previous post, 1976, I was aware that the clueless male sexism I was describing continued for many years afterward, and indeed, is still alive and kicking today—though much of it has grown less clueless and more malicious. I referred to Robert A. Heinlein’s novel, Time Enough for Love, published in 1973. Many of Heinlein’s later works feature guru-like old men mounting very young and very grateful women, and honestly, I can’t remember if my queasy memories of these variations on a theme are principally from Time Enough for Love or from his 1970 novel, I Will Fear No Evil. I gave up reading Heinlein after those two weighty products of one-handed typing, and I can’t bear the thought of slogging through either of them now in order to check.

In any case, while researching the last post, I came across some book covers for Time Enough for Love. I couldn’t see how to fit them in at the time, but they’re just too delightful not to pass on. First, here’s the cover of the Berkley Medallion paperback edition that I bought at MidAmeriCon in 1976:

Obviously, this is a reference to Adam’s rib, from the gospel according to Heinlein: “And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a bevy of bathing beauties as helpmeets for him.” This same artwork was on the 1973 Putnam’s hardcover edition; it’s by Vincent Di Fate, who was born in 1945.

In 1980, Berkley Books put out a new edition:

(Stunned silence.)

It was this cover that made me feel I could not not write this post. The artwork is by Carl Lundgren, born in 1947. Oh, also—love the hair.

Were things any better by 1988? Here’s the Ace Books edition from that year:

Well, 16.5% of the women now have clothes on. (A toga is only half a costume, as all frat boys know.) Intriguing details to note: the two adoring clingy nudes appear to be identical twins, whereas the gal in the toga looks more like an indulgent wife, or—knowing Heinlein—a sister who’s also a sex-romp partner. Is the similarity to James Fortune’s often-reproduced Hugh Hefner photograph accidental?

Or maybe we’re supposed to think of James Bond:

The kilt, in any case, teases the idea of the man’s unconstrained genitalia, for which the cane is, of course, a stand-in. The artist is James Warhola, born in 1955.

Okay, then, how about the new millennium? Here’s Matt Stawicki’s cover for the Ace Books’ Science Fiction Book Club hardcover edition of 2001:

Stawicki is a generation younger than the previous artists, having been born in 1969. Is it my imagination, or is there a hint of subversion here—the man’s palpable smugness; his florid face and drinker’s nose; the fact that, instead of a throne, he appears to be seated on a trash can? And is the woman standing on the right looking down at him with a touch of. . . skepticism? Derision?

Okay, it’s probably my imagination.

It wasn’t until October of last year that Ace Books finally replaced the Bond/Hefner mass market cover with a new trade paperback edition. This time around, who knows, maybe the unpaid interns and underpaid editorial assistants—most of whom, if Ace is similar to the publishing houses I know, are female—spoke up:

I haven’t located an artist credit for this cover, but the hourglass placed on its side is a clever idea, given the time-loop aspect of the novel’s plot. The hero goes back in time to have mind-blowing sex with his mother, a hot young babe. If you really want to know.