Saturday 22 September 2012

The Gate to Women's Country



Wikipedia suggests that this is the cover to the Italian translation of Sheri Tepper's 1988 novel The Gate to Women's Country. The title, in English, means 'Postwar Chronicles', which applies to Tepper's powerful book only in the most oblique manner; and the artwork (by Oscar Chichoni) is not of any scene in the novel. There is a moment, late in the narrative, when the main character has a contraceptive implant cut out, but from her arm, not her back, and with a regular knife, not a weird swastika-shaped scalpel torture device.  It is, all in all, really not a pleasant image: a queasy blend of sexual lubriciousness and petty male-on-female sadism-domination.  I was prepared to chalk this up to a Wikipedia mistake; but a quick trip to the Urania.it website disabuses me -- this is indeed the Italian translation of the novel. Ugh.

2 comments:

Archie_V said...

Italian version published by Mondadori. Mondadori is a Fininvest group company. Fininvest is owned by Silvio "Bunga-Bunga" Berlusconi. Next question.

Ruzz said...

See also the splendidly "off" Sphere paperback cover of Cecelia Holland's marvelous Floating Worlds. (Google images for Floating Worlds Cecelia Holland.)

Semi-naked sleeping blonde being ?menaced? by strange green thing.

Not only not from the novel - but main character (admittedly female) is not Caucasian, or blonde, or .... This could be put down to the unreformed nature of the 1970s, but I note that the SF Masterworks cover still has a Caucasian woman, even if fully clad.