Psychedelic book cover: "Tongues of the Moon"

• Title: Tongues of the Moon
• Additional cover text: "A plot to set the stars on fire ... chilling science fiction"
• Author: Philip José Farmer (1918-2009)
• Cover illustration: Unknown!! It would be really nice to sleuth this one out, so the groovy artist can be acknowledged for the record.
• Publisher: Pyramid Books (T2260)
• Year of this edition: Second printing, July 1970
• Original publication date: 1964 (also by Pyramid Books, with a different cover)
• Pages: 143
• Format: Paperback
• Cover price: 75 cents
• Back cover excerpt: "This is Science Fiction — but — perhaps less Fiction than Science ... Man's fate has always been to play deadly games with the enormous forces of the universe ... tempting doom. And now it may be too late ..."
• Grim opening passage: Fireflies on the dark meadow of Earth ... The men and women looking up through the dome in the center of the crater of Eratosthenes were too stunned to cry out, and some did not understand all at once the meaning of those pinpoints on the shadowy face of the new Earth, the lights blossoming outwards, then dying. So bright they could be seeen through the cloudmasses covering a large part of Europe. So bright they could be located as London, Paris, Brussels, Copenhagen, Leningrade, Rome, Reykjavik, Athens, Cairo ... Then, a flare near Moscow that spread out and out and out. ...
• Excerpt #2: Earth, dark now, except for steady glares here and there, forest fires and cities, probably, which would burn for days. Perhaps weeks. Then, when the fires died out, the embers cooled, no more fire. No more vegetation, no more animals, no more human beings. Not for centuries.
• Excerpt #3: "He'd have to be a raving maniac to do that!" said Broward. "He's a maniac all right, but he knows what he's doing and how to do it," said Scone.
• Excerpt #4: Broward patted her back and said, "I know, sweetheart. Try to forget what's happened, think of it as a nightmare. Now we're awake and in a world that needs to be gardened and needs love as never before." 
• Rating on Amazon: 3.6 stars (out of 5). 
• Rating on Goodreads: 2.97 stars (out of 5). 
• Goodreads review #1: In 2023, Jim wrote:  "One of PJF's earlier books, from 1964, and not one of his better books, but still of interest. In this one, Earth is destroyed in a nuclear war — but the war is not over. There were Earth colonies on the Moon and Mars, and led by power-mad dictators, are going to continue the war. Our hero, Broward, is one man who wants to stop the fighting ... and killing. Farmer has a rather cynical view of human nature — much like Mark Twain. However, in this story, he gives us a hero who has the courage to stand up against the insanity of war."
• Goodreads review #2: In 2019, Dave wrote: "Awful! Lol. I was hoping for a little cheesy sci-fi but this was terrible! No chapters, just one long run on story with weak one dimensional characters. Unbearable. I pity the Little Free Library that will house this. Not only will it cheapen the company of the other books where it resides, but some poor soul may choose it thinking it a small hidden masterpiece. Only when they reach home and crack it open will they realize their fate. I can’t even bear to stash it during daylight; one night, soon, I’ll be off to some darkened street to hide this poor mistake of a story."
• That's really harsh: Agreed. There's no need to disparage books that are placed in Little Free Libraries. Let readers explore and decide for themselves. A much more in-depth and thoughtful review of the strengths and weakness of Tongues of the Moon can be found in this 2022 post on MPorcius Fiction Log, which has been going strong since 2013 and already has 42 posts (!) this year. MPorcius writes: "I like the broad outlines of the plot of Tongues of the Moon, and its themes and ideas.  All the Biblical references and the theme of an atheist acquiring faith are a good change of pace from the references to Greek and Norse mythology and to Shakespeare, and the insistence that religion is a scam, that is the norm in the science fiction I generally read. ... There is a lot of talk about culture and ethnicity in Tongues of the Moon, and while it seems Farmer admires all the various people of Earth, and the whole point of the book is that we should all get along, some of his depictions might be considered uncomfortably stereotypical." 
• Related headlines from this morning, 61 years after the novel's publication: Trump says he’s "angry" at Putin’s remark questioning Zelensky’s legitimacy: The president said he would mull secondary tariffs on Russian oil if Putin stalls the peace process with Ukraine ... and ... Elon Musk’s Mission to Take Over NASA — and Mars (Musk & government officials have discussed a scenario in which SpaceX would give up its moon-focused Artemis contracts to free up funds for Mars-related projects) ... and ... Nuclear risk from military AI prompts calls for US, China and others to seek agreement

Stripe and Bandit are checking out the grooviness.