Take that, freakin' Ewoks! I hope these things live underground 'cause otherwise those eyes are extremely ridiculous. Oh, who am I fooling, those eyes are completely ridiculous any which way you slice it. If the Fuzzies get wet do they turn into gremlins?
Also freaking out children everywhere is this book from reader Melanie's library's easy reader collection:
Melanie says, "Now, I know this girl is blind, but she MUST be aware of where Annie Sullivan's hands are. I feel dirty just for having looked at it." Better hold onto that belt, Helen, or that dress is going to come flying off and this book will move from "easy reader" to the "adult" section!
16 comments:
One can only wonder how awful H. Beam Piper's first name is that he (she?) has to go by "Beam" instead.
My guess? "Horizontal."
WTF was Irene Trivas thinking?
Hey there! Little Fuzzy, Fuzzy Sapiens, and Fuzzies and Other People are all great books!
I'm slightly biased - when I first moved up to the adult section of the library, Little Fuzzy was one of the first books I took out from there. 1962 science fiction - wonderful stuff.
H. Beam Piper appears to have told people that his name was Horace, as he didn't like his real first name Henry. Or at least that's the impression I get from Wikipedia...
Did some more googling, and it's available on Project Gutenberg!
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/18137
"He turned quickly to see two wide eyes staring up at him out of a ball of golden fur. Whatever it was, it had a round head and big ears and a vaguely humanoid face with a little snub nose. It was sitting on its haunches, and in that position it was about a foot high. It had two tiny hands with opposing thumbs. He squatted to have a better look at it."
"It was a mammal—there was a fairly large mammalian class on Zarathustra—but beyond that he was stumped. It wasn’t a primate, in the Terran sense. It wasn’t like anything Terran, or anything else on Zarathustra. Being a biped put it in a class by itself for this planet. It was just a Little Fuzzy, and that was the best he could do.
That sort of nomenclature was the best anybody could do on a Class-III planet. On a Class-IV planet, say Loki, or Shesha, or Thor, naming animals was a cinch. You pointed to something and asked a native, and he’d gargle a mouthful of syllables at you, which might only mean, “Whaddaya wanna know for?” and you took it down in phonetic alphabet and the whatzit had a name. But on Zarathustra, there were no natives to ask. So this was a Little Fuzzy."
Almost as horrible to contemplate as that cover is the premise of Helen Killer: Helen Keller is given a machine by Alexander Graham Bell that not only lets her see and hear, but gives her super-human strength and agility that she uses to protect President McKinley.
Only almost, though.
One of the better aspects of the Fuzzy series is the fact that Piper was very interested in the process of law and the huge conflict in the first book centers around a court case— to whit, determining the sapience of the bipedal "Fuzzies."
Doesn't sound like high drama, does it. Except that the legal status of the entire planet— and the corporation that literally owns it— hinges on the planet being "uninhabited." And some of those folk fight dirty.
At any rate, that cover is by Michael Whelan, which is rather surprising since he did a better job with the first cover he did, I think. Maybe he thought the bare faces were too twee. (He did the furry faces best on his cover for the third novel, which involves a very well-rendered wildfire.) I guess I'm mostly surprised since his covers are, in general, very high-quality work and this looks like a knockoff.
The Helen Keller cover has a high Ick Factor.
Don't think "Ick!", think bad-ass kung-fu Keller rips the head off of Anne Sullivan.
snow: You've given me the first literal laugh-out-loud today. Ta very much!
I loved the H. Beam Piper books. Seems odd that a man who could create Fuzzies killed himself. Anyhow, I thought the big-eyed fuzzies were cute.
And that Helen Keller cover is just...unfortunate is the best word I can think of.
I really can't think of a legitimate reason for Sullivan's hands to be under young Helen's skirt.
Stare into those Ewokian eyes long enough and you'll want to kill yourself too.
Here's another good "Where's the hand?" picture.
rp
Yeah, I'm in the "Helen Keller is executing a flying drop-kick to the face" camp. You can't see Annie's hands because the ruffled skirt is hiding her guard posture.
Oh yay - mucho updates! I checked the site every hour on the hour while I was at school but now that I'm at home with the internets from the Stone Age, I lapsed, so I got to catch up.
That Helen Keller book frightens me. I can't even come up with a feasible concept the artist might haven't intended. It just has to be dirty.
I read the Fuzzy books when I was a youngster back in the early 1970s. They're very cute and a great choice for kids.
Those fuzzy things are freakin' me out!
Oh man, I read that Helen Keller book all the time when I was younger! EVERYTHING I KNOW IS A LIE!
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