I have a penchant for old sci-fi with trashy covers so terrible they are brilliant. My dream is that someone creates a wallpaper of them so I can use it to paper my downstairs bathroom.
In the meantime, I recently came across a book in a charity shop I ended up loving: Sheri S. Tepper鈥檚 . This was published in 1989; the edition I found (pictured above) is from the 1990s, and has a pleasingly weird jacket.
It also turned out to be a great read, of the dense, 鈥渕essagey鈥�, 1980s sci-fi sort. It鈥檚 set in a far future in which humanity has settled many planets. A plague might wipe them out, unless they discover why the inhabitants of a world called Grass, covered in multicoloured prairie, are immune.
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The Grassians are insular and weirdly obsessed with hunting the planet鈥檚 alien 鈥渇oxen鈥�. The secrets of the hunt are enjoyably disturbing, and Tepper鈥檚 world-building is superb. I鈥檓 going to track down her other works 鈥� especially ones with standout covers.
