Though Emma @ Words and Peace, I have come to know of an interesting meme: Friday Face Off, hosted @ Lynn’s Book Blog. According to Lynn, “Each week, following a predetermined theme choose a book (this doesn’t have to be a book that you’ve read), compare a couple of the different covers available for that particular book and choose your favourite.” This week’s theme is: In space nobody can hear you scream – murder mystery in space. I thought it’d be fun to see and compare the various covers of Isaac Asimov’s classic The Caves of Steel. It has long been on my wishlist and seeing the covers makes me all the more keen to read it.
The ninth cover reminds me of Joe and Frank Hardy; the 12th cover seems to be of a robot with swollen belly; 16th leaves me perplexed: just what is it? My favourite is the last one with the hands. Which one is yours?
And now do visit two wonderful blogs Words and Peace and Lynn’s Book Blog.
a hot cup of pleasure 
That last cover is a good one, Neeru; I can see why you like it. Cover #7 is the most familiar to me; it’s the one on the copy I read. I’d have to really think about whether I like it best, but of course it drew my eye right away.
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Margot, I really liked the hands with the (steel?) veins. most of the covers, including the seventh one, makes it feel like a buddy-buddy book. I had no idea that it was one of those. It has made me look forward to it all the more.
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Neeru, I actually owned those two GALAXY issues when THE CAVES OF STEEL were serialized. I donated my collection of GALAXY and other SF magazines to the Special Library at the State University of New York at Buffalo back in 1996. GALAXY was known for its cover artwork, much of it by EMSH.
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WoW! How could you bear to part with them George?! Such beautiful artwork! What is EMSH?
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I actually like the one next to the one you like and looking at them again they’re very similar – just your favourite has a pair of hands.
Thanks for taking part. Lovely to see all these covers together like this – you can count on Asimov to have lots of choice.
Lynn 😀
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Welcome to the blog, Lynn. Yes the covers are very similar with just the hands superimposed on that scene. Thanks for hosting the meme. I had great fun looking at and selecting the covers.
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So thrilled you found this meme through my blog, I only discovered it recently myself, thanks to Tammy at http://booksbonesbuffy.com/ . She usually participates, except this week.
You can see for instance what she did last week: https://booksbonesbuffy.com/2022/01/21/the-friday-face-off-vintage-sf-written-before-1975/
wow, these covers are quite intense. My favorite is #3, for the quality of the detailed art work. And now I need to see what the book is about!
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Thanks Emma for pointing me to Tammy’s post. The covers of Levin’s books were quite creepy. I also rather like the third one with the shattered spacesuit and other details as well as the first with the reflective figure and another person’s outline.
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EMSH is the signature artist Ed Emshwiller would sign his artwork with. You can usually find EMSH in the right hand corner of his artwork. Emshwiller provided hundreds of great covers for SF magazines and paperbacks in the 1950s and 1960s. Here’s a link if you want to see more of Emshwiller’s work: https://www.pulpartists.com/Emsh.html
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Thanks George for that information and link. I’ll have a look.
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My favourite is the seventh, which I think is most like the book, though the second last one is good too. Some of these don’t seem to have anything to do with the story at all!! Haha, it’s a good mystery though – hope you enjoy it when you get to it whichever cover you end up with!
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Seventh and some other covers make it seem like a buddy-buddy book. It has increased my desire to read it. It has been on my wishlist for so long. if only there was enough time…
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