Venus on the Half-Shell assumed that Vonnegut wrote the book. This problem was solved by the book being reprinted under Farmer's by-line. A common element to this novel is the origin of many of the characters' and locations' names. Farmer "put in a lot of references to literature and fictional authors... Most of the alien names in Venus were formed by transposing the letters of English or non-English words." The title and paperback cover art are a reference to an Italian Renaissance tempera painting by Sandro Botticelli, "The Birth of Venus", which depicts the birth of the goddess Venus as her rising from the
Virgin and Child with an Angel (Botticelli) Virgin and Child with an Angel (Botticelli) Virgin and Child with an Angel also known as Our Lady of the Eucharist (Italian: "Madonna dell'Eucarestia") is a tempera on wood panel painting by Sandro Botticelli made c.1470. It is now held by the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, Massachusetts, acquired from Prince Chigi in 1899. The painting measures and one of a series of Madonna paintings by Botticelli from 1465 and 1470. It shows influences from Filippo Lippi's "Virgin and Child and Angels" of c.1465 held by the Uffizi. The Virgin Mary is shown in a three quarter view, with