Frick'in Laser Beams!

The golden age of science fiction writing was also a stellar period for cover artwork, and this 1976 cover of Philip K. Dick's Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said is one of the best. You've got jet cars, a super funky police uniform (check the helmet!), and that laser beam cleaving a path through the air¹... whoa.

Pretty much all the sci-fi novels published by Panther in this era had cover artwork as awesome as this one, it's always worth a quick scan of the science fiction aisle in 2nd hand book shops to see what you can pickup.

Incidently, this is one of Dick's best books, it hits most of his favourite themes: dystopian setting, paranoia, stolen identity. He also tells this story without getting so trippy that you have to strain to follow along, making it one of his more accessible novels.

1. OK, we acknowledge that this cover may in fact depict a conventional gun firing with one hellava flame coming out of it rather than a laser beam, but c'mon... what's cooler?

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