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Possibly the greatest ad for books, ever

Cory Doctorow at 3:23 pm Sat, Feb 2, 2013

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I, Robot

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

MORE:  ads • books • Old school • robots • science fiction

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  • Preston Sturges

    Definite Cybermen vibe in the graphic.

  • http://www.facebook.com/paul.wilmot.shuster Paul Shuster

    Ah, I used to read all these guys (and C. L. Moore, the distaff side of Padgett, too!) as a kid.  I don’t know if I’ve read anything except for I, Robot on this particular list though.  (Sometimes they re-released stuff under different titles.)

  • sockdoll

    It’s a picture of a robot just looking at a banana, from the banana’s point of view.

  • Eden S.-G.

    Funny that the name if the publisher is the same as the Linux distro., – GNOME.

    • tacochuck

       GNOME is a Desktop environment, not a linux distribution.

      • Eden S.-G.

        Sorry, you’re right.

  • http://twitter.com/digitalArtform Joseph Francis

    Somewhat interesting wiki page for the publisher
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnome_Press
    Asimov was not happy with them.

    Location looked nice. I street viewed it out of idle curiosity.

  • Douglas Rushkoff

    Robots have no tails? 

    • NickPheas

      Can we be sure it’s not a forgotten masterpiece?  5 the others have held up. 

  • Kibo

    Ooh, that’s Ludlow Tempo Heavy with the alternate characters that make it think it can try to pass as Linotype’s Metroblack No. 2, rather than the ones that make it look like Futura Bold.  Such pointy “A”s!

    I still wish someone would finally digitize all the styles of Tempo, especially the happy slightly-curly italic:

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/myfonts/7008821545/sizes/o/in/photostream/

    Sorry for the tangent, it just always makes me sad to see cool old graphic design using the few common fonts of the 20th century that HAVEN’T been digitized to keep them in circulation. If Asimov ever writes his first book again, how will we advertise it? Arial? Papyrus?

    …Comic Sans?

    (Also, “Daddy, what was a ‘Please rush books I have listed on separate sheet with my enclosed remittance’? When were ‘sheets’, Daddy?”)

  • Kibo

    And, for anyone who finds the big-shouldered Scary Laser Death Robot too menacing, here’s some non-threatening line-art of Asimov using his mental powers to symmetrize butterflies:

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/tellygacitua/3941366671/

  • SamLL

    Jarring implicit reader gender assumption in the big headline?

    • Kibo

      They’re just using “man” as the opposite of “robot”. “Woman” wouldn’t be appropriate because all right-thinking Earthmen know “woman” is a synonym for “dishwasher”.

      Besides, we don’t know what this scary robot’s capable of. Everyone he’s staring at might be a man now! GREETINGS, EARTH-MANS READING THIS, YOU HAVE JUST TURNED MALE BECAUSE OF MY EYE-RAYS. YOU HAVE BEEN GENDERVIZED. BEEP.

      • http://www.facebook.com/paul.wilmot.shuster Paul Shuster

        Maybe it’s a female robot?

    • http://www.facebook.com/paul.wilmot.shuster Paul Shuster

      Also, planetary origin assumption…

  • Halloween_Jack

    “Crammed full of chuckles and startling gadgets” sounds exactly like the sort of thing that Chris Ware used to write in his pages full of fake comic ads.

    • Preston Sturges

      What about geegaws, gizmos, and gimcracks?

  • http://artdonovan.typepad.com Art

    Hey, Mr. Earth Man! I want to be an Earth Man too! 
    Budda-Bah. Budda-Buh-Ba. Buh-Ba.

  • Andrew Porter

    These books are classics of science fiction; they were NEVER released under different titles. ROBOTS HAVE NO TAILS was a collection of stories involving Gallagher, whose creator made him when he was drunk. The robot liked to admire himself in mirrors. Beer features in all the stories, and it turns out the robot is the perfect beer…. ack!