The Pleasure Tube by Robert Onopa

Published July 20, 2024

The Pleasure Tube is the first novel by Robert Onopa (b. 1943), today professor emeritus in the Department of English, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. It was published in 1979 by Berkley Books, with cover art by Vermont artist Eric Ladd (b. 1949).

The display typeface is Sintex, used with tight spacing and an overlayered re pair. In Aldo Novarese’s design, caps are as tall as the x-height of the lowercase forms – as one can see in “The” and the author’s name. In the title, though, the initials reach the height of the lowercase ascenders. This suggests that the uncredited typographer either used Keyhole, Formatt’s copy of Sintex in which the caps were scaled up to standard height, or that they made this change themselves.

Joachim Boaz shared his initial thoughts on the book:

I know little to nothing about Robert Onopa’s work. SF Encyclopedia describes the novel as follows: “a tale in which an astronaut returns from space to a hallucinatory America and becomes entrapped, in the narrative present tense, in a Sex machine; Barry N. Malzberg’s influence seems clear. Onopa continues to publish sf short stories, the later ones told with sharp-tongued gonzo Equipoise.” As a fan of Malzberg, I am intrigued to read SF inspired by his unusual brand of comedic nihilism.

[More info on ISFDB]

The synopsis on the back is set in Antique Olive:

SciCom’s reward for eight years on the Star Ranges was eight days in the Pleasure Tube – timeless days of total and perfect sex, endless orgasm bathed in luxury. For most crews, it was paradise. But for the “survivors” of the Daedalus, the reward was part of the nightmare. For they had seen the horror through the Hole in the Universe, and how could they be sure they had really survived?

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