Oct 23
Click for larger imageWendy Comments: Her Chatty Cathy pull-string is showing.
Published 1987
(Average: 6.84 out of 10)
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Wendy Comments: Her Chatty Cathy pull-string is showing.
Published 1987
(Average: 6.84 out of 10)Loading...
(9.25 out of 10) (9.18 out of 10) (9.01 out of 10) (8.97 out of 10) (8.92 out of 10) (8.92 out of 10) (8.92 out of 10) (8.91 out of 10) (8.89 out of 10) (8.88 out of 10)
Lastest Tweet
October 23rd, 2017 at 11:12 am
At risk of sounding personal, this is why a pseudonym is called for.
October 23rd, 2017 at 11:13 am
That’s not a title, that’s got to be a sound effect.
October 23rd, 2017 at 11:42 am
In 1987 blood was the new ting.
Actually I’m glad that that didn’t happen. I’m not exactly haemophobic, but those crime/horror covers with their artfully arranged bloodstains have always creeped me out.
October 23rd, 2017 at 12:31 pm
OK, who replaced that E with a G and messed up the title?
October 23rd, 2017 at 12:32 pm
You can’t spell heroing without heroin.
October 23rd, 2017 at 12:42 pm
Leavened he says. Is this covered by the crotch armor tag?
October 23rd, 2017 at 1:08 pm
Beth sydd gyda’r teitl hwnnw? And the blurb couldn’t be any more bland.
October 23rd, 2017 at 1:19 pm
@THX – Maybe they should have gone for a more feminist title like “Heroine-ing”
(sounds like Her-a-winning!)
October 23rd, 2017 at 1:25 pm
@Raoul: Heroine-alisation? Heroine-ification?
October 23rd, 2017 at 2:00 pm
The tone of that blurb feels like a babbling wine taster—
“An enjoyable fantasy leavened with an almost sugary plot, displays bramble, dust and bloodstained sword, a modicum of seductive bouquet that evokes the nose of semi-weak Baen-berries or overripe marmalade, complicated by an unpronounceable aftertaste. Drink now through 11 am.”
October 23rd, 2017 at 2:59 pm
It looks like she’s killed someone off-panel and scrawled the word “Elmore” as a warning to everyone else.
October 23rd, 2017 at 3:12 pm
WHEN JIANA OF THE CITY OF BAY BAY TALKS … nobody listens. As far as Prince Alanai is concerned, she has three strikes against her: she’s foreign, she employs outlandish fighting techniques from the Flower Empire, and worst of all, she’s a woman!
If this weren’t by the author of the official Doom novelization Knee Deep in the Dead I might take it more seriously. Also if the she weren’t from “Baby” in the Flower Empire.
October 23rd, 2017 at 3:28 pm
@DSWBT – Perhaps it was cover artist Larry Elmore she offed for painting her with that hairdo.
October 23rd, 2017 at 3:40 pm
@B’mancer, I think HEROING! is the sound her perm makes as it erupts through her scalp.
I think her right arm is in proportion to the rest of her body, but her greaves make it difficult to say.
October 23rd, 2017 at 3:47 pm
@DSWBT – Oh that’s a perm? I thought this was some kind of Chia Pet action figure..
October 23rd, 2017 at 3:56 pm
“Fussy” is the word that comes to mind looking at her expression. She looks ever so intensely irritated about the fact that her handbag’s strap is caught under her cape.
October 23rd, 2017 at 4:22 pm
“Come home to a real fire, Myddwrffychyr!”
Love the way Idris is perched on the Baen logo, throwing up.
October 23rd, 2017 at 5:29 pm
B. Chiclitz: An enjoyable comment. I’m looking forward to his next.
October 23rd, 2017 at 5:32 pm
This novel was rebooted to fit current times, with the title Oxyconting.
October 23rd, 2017 at 6:51 pm
I hesitate to ask, but, where is her scabbard?
October 23rd, 2017 at 7:14 pm
Just when we thought the All I Wanna Do Is Make Love To You video couldn’t get any weirder…
October 23rd, 2017 at 8:10 pm
@B.Chiclitz: it’s probably behind the bar in the pub in Neath where she works.
October 23rd, 2017 at 8:59 pm
“Your cape seems a bit long there, Dearie. Can I help you fix it up before you trip?”
“Leave me alone! I’m HEROING!!!!”
“Then can I at least get you a helmet?”
“A helmet! That would be great for when I fight dragons.”
“……Riiiiiiight. The helmet would be… for when you fight dragons.”
October 23rd, 2017 at 9:51 pm
FIRSTLY: I have emailed the two re-creations I was in to Tag Wizard. They are far dorkier than the originals, but are supposed to be amusing.
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@DSWBT (1): That IS his pseudonym! He’s actually a Jewish guy named David (and IIRC, pseud is a good word for him, also prat). Why you’d go from a name everyone can spell and pronounce to something the opposite (of an ethnicity you aren’t) remains a mystery.
I felt assaulted by the title in two ways: first, in its sheer awfulness, then by the word. Or “word”.
“Heroing” is the sound her perm makes, the sound her sword makes as it whacks into things since she doesn’t have a scabbard, and — minus the g — is what you wish you had after you looked at this cover too closely. I believe LSD was involved with the cover though. Possibly with 1987’s finest cocaine to do all the fiddly bits.
The string coming out where it does makes me think of something entirely un-Chatty Cathy like, particularly juxtaposed with the blood.
This shows that BAEN!heroiiiiing got that formula down early. Nowadays I guess she wouldn’t have a perm, and the title would be in a brighter color to stand out from the tree.
October 23rd, 2017 at 10:17 pm
She bari?
October 23rd, 2017 at 10:19 pm
Is there such a thing as “hisoring”? I’m wondering if this is an attempt to be the feminist equivalent (analogous to “herstory”)
@GSS ex-heroing: I honestly thought the name was Welsh.
October 23rd, 2017 at 10:35 pm
@DSWBT: It is Welsh. Nobody knows why an American Jew decided to go by it, other than, as I said before, the man was reportedly Backpfeifengesicht. I had an actually-from-Wales Welsh pal at the time who was quite incensed.
The city of Bae Bae? Did she have a murderous falling out with her Bae?
October 24th, 2017 at 1:42 am
Backpfeifengesicht n
(colloquial) a face in need of a slap
LMFAO I had to look it up.
October 24th, 2017 at 2:04 am
@Raoul: or a face in need of a punch.
I learned this fabulous word when Ted Cruz was running for prez. Because that’s a face that needs punching.
It’s harder to spell than “schadenfreude” so I don’t know if it’ll catch on as well.
October 24th, 2017 at 5:03 am
I’ve been waiting all day for someone to say it—Adrienne Barbeau lives!
October 24th, 2017 at 8:21 am
I kinda like the artwork.
But when you hold the book in public — do NOT cover the “G” in the title with your hand.
October 24th, 2017 at 8:44 am
@BC — Good Show, Sir! Wonder if that was the photo Elmore worked from?
Y’know, the dragon appears to be perched on the end of one of those springy door stoppers, which would go HEROIIIIIING if you tweaked it (and might account for the barfing).
October 24th, 2017 at 12:16 pm
“Em…I forget my name at the moment, but I am a merchant banker.”
October 24th, 2017 at 4:27 pm
Well, I see you’ve met Miss August of the 2018 Sexy Swordswomen Calendar.
As you may have guessed, the makers of these calendars don’t particularly care about “realism in armour”.
October 24th, 2017 at 6:46 pm
@AnnaT: so it’s not just me? I kept trying to put my thumb over parts of the armour to make it look more capable and, er, I ran out of thumbs.
October 26th, 2017 at 10:04 am
Back the day many jewish SF authors had to/were urged to change their names to more christian sounding ones to get published (Barry Malzberg wrote a novel about such an author – Herovit’s World*). It’s possible (and I may be being too generous here) that the author, writing a celtic fantasy, satirically chose a celtic name to be published under**?
Isaac Asimov says he was initially pressured to use a different name, but – as he explained – he was too egotistical to agree to it.
*in the novel the author is asked by his agent to use a more “european” name, he agrees and is published as “Keith Poland”.
**it migh just possibly be – though I would hope this still wasn’t a thing in 1987 – he was urged to use a different name?
October 26th, 2017 at 3:41 pm
@StevenLP: there’s a world of difference between ‘Anson MacDonald’ and this sort of thing. An American affecting – even under duress – to be called ‘Dafydd apHugh’ if his dad’s name wasn’t ‘Hugh ‘is like doing a follow-up to ‘A History of Seven Killings’ without ever leaving Des Moines and calling yourself ‘Winston Dread’. It’s not as bad as ‘Taffy ap Cymru’ in John C Wright’s naff Potter-by-numbers books but it’s up there with ‘John Twelve Hawks’.
I’ve noticed when I’ve been in America that most people muddle up Wales, Ireland and Scotland anyway.
October 26th, 2017 at 4:38 pm
@Tat: or Thorarinn Gunnarsson?
I seem to recall that Fred Clarke has a discussion of this sort of nomenclature over at his Slacktivist blog, but I can’t find it at the moment.
October 26th, 2017 at 11:51 pm
@StevenLP, Tat Wood: by the time he had a career, having a Jewish name was no impediment. We’d had Asimov, Ellison, Silverberg, Malzberg, Greenberg — “David Friedman” would have been a perfectly acceptable name to put on a book. He might have changed the last name to have a little more pizzazz, something less ordinary and dull than Friedman, which would have been fine.
But no, he decided to take on a cod-Welsh name that’s unpronounceable by most Americans. It looks like “daffodil” to your average person. It doesn’t stick in their brain, and it’s probably tough for booksellers to say and spell. I could wander into my local Barnes and Noble in 1987 and ask “Do you have the latest by David Friedman?” and the clerk could look it up. But Daffodil A. Hugh? Noooope.
He was, as I mentioned before, widely regarded as an a-hole by those who knew him; I only saw him once, very briefly, and my 30 seconds of exposure did nothing to counteract that idea. He was “Oh, THAT guy.”
Very few Americans pick Welsh pseudonyms anyway, because of all those damn consonants. They’re more likely to go Scottish or Irish. The Welsh-Americans use surnames like Jones, Evans, Williams, etc. that Americans think of as English. But lots of Americans are still running around with surnames beginning with Mac and O’ even if the spelling’s been modified. I’ve a raft of Irish-descended in-laws called “McDonald” instead of “MacDhòmhnaill”, but that was their name when they emigrated. 11% of Americans are already of Irish descent, so that’s the go-to fake ethnicity.
I doubt Mr. Friedman’s papa was yclept Hugh, either — and shouldn’t it have been spelled “Huw”?
At any rate: not prejudice, just ego.
@Tat: everything by John C. Wright is horrible, from his writing to his personality. He’s the one who says that manly men should beat gay men with tire irons, and he himself wanted to personally smite Sir Terry Pratchett (!) for talking about assisted suicide for the terminally ill.
October 27th, 2017 at 12:04 am
@GSS yx-nyyb: no, it should be spelled “Duck”. 😛
I’m here all week, folks! Be sure and tip the wait staff. Try the fish.
October 27th, 2017 at 6:56 am
But it’s rabbit season!
I think, rather, “Uck”. Daffyd Uck.
October 28th, 2017 at 4:13 am
@Tag Wizard: how’s about the “bracers” tag?
December 11th, 2017 at 12:33 pm
Schwingggg!!!