Oct 23
Good Show Sir Comments: The hottie on the right is the mutant Mother of Blades. From the book:
“She faced him, her four calloused hands set firmly on her broad hips. Her eyes were reddened from staring into the furnace in which she heated her metal; sweat ran down her wrinkled face into the sparse gray mustache which disfigured her upper lip, and dripped onto her bare chest…” Spot on, cover artist Patrick Turner.
Published 2007
October 23rd, 2015 at 1:23 pm
“No Zaphod, actually, nobody ever says ‘Two heads are better than four arms.'”
October 23rd, 2015 at 1:50 pm
At 4:30 in the afternoon, one perilous Friday in the Baen cover art department, masked hoodlums with guns burst in and shouted, ‘Red and yellow on the covers! Or it’s your lives!‘
October 23rd, 2015 at 1:53 pm
The great Heinlein aside, the close proximity of the words “Baen” and “literate” is kind of funny.
October 23rd, 2015 at 1:54 pm
I’m seeing smug here, if not a wee touch of smirk as well.
October 23rd, 2015 at 2:08 pm
@B. Chiclitz – I’m seeing smug on left head and smirk on the right. Or is it the other way around?
This is the fix-up novel of Heinlein’s short story “Universe” which was the first generation ship tale. It’s fascinating how Douglas Adams got the Zaphod Beeblebrox character from Joe-Jim the two-headed leader of the mutants (and the 4-armed Mother of Blades).
October 23rd, 2015 at 2:39 pm
I am mesmerized by the elaborate construction of the letters in HEINLEIN, they look like delicious petit fours.
October 23rd, 2015 at 2:54 pm
Now, have The New York Times ever used an exclamation mark in their reviews?
October 23rd, 2015 at 10:54 pm
So, which body part does the bald guy have more of?
October 24th, 2015 at 8:53 pm
@Perry: Teeth. Mm, yes. Definitely teeth.
October 26th, 2015 at 4:13 pm
This cover screameth not “generation ship”, but “Space Nightclub”. Or possibly “Space Pimp”. Judging by the quote from the book, I would say this cover’s been hit with the BAENIZER. I suggest a search-and-destroy mission for this legendary weapon of mass blindness.
October 26th, 2015 at 4:34 pm
@THX 1138 – I agree. I’m calling bullshit on the NY Times Baen blurb. They never reviewed Orphans of the Sky. Also, I just did a Lexis Nexis search of the NY Times archive and there has never been an instance of “Heinlein” “literate” “exciting” and “informed” being in the same article. I got Heinlein+literate in a Stranger in a Strange Land review and Heinlein+exciting in a Friday review. They should have just let David Weber yell “Blew me away!” from the other side of the office and slapped that on the cover. Would have been more honest.
October 26th, 2015 at 7:07 pm
@Bibliomancer—Holy Cow! You mean, Baen lied? Just made stuff up? Prevaricated? Deceived? Defrauded? Fibbed?
Shall I say—starked—us?
October 27th, 2015 at 5:01 pm
“Literate, informed and exciting!”
Ahem — informed about WHAT? Four-armed mutants? That’s an odd thing to call someone “informed” about… I mean, I’m informed about the Xobots of Bylon IV, but it’s only in my mind…
October 27th, 2015 at 11:59 pm
I get it – the quote is an ad for the New York Times, not about this book at all.
October 30th, 2015 at 9:21 am
@everyone. Well, Heinlein was probably literate, let’s give them that.
October 31st, 2015 at 6:48 pm
@RachelJ: He may have also been ex-citing and in-formed (whatever that means).
November 4th, 2015 at 12:55 pm
Vin Diesel is much shorter than I imagined.
October 3rd, 2018 at 3:00 am
I was ‘aving a larf over the cover posted in 2018, which was from some decades earlier, but it at least seems to depict the characters better, and has no Space Pimp Bondage Nightclub overtones. And the blurb is informative and correct, plus no font problems. Even the clothing’s better — ISTM that they’d more likely be down to giant undies instead of space leather.
Apparently a red couch is important in both.