Dec 04
World gets destroyed by large alien disco balls firing lasers. Lasers that create nuclear explosions. Then we’ll have some women in a tight shirt, unbuttoned just enough to tease our readers. And like every other cover out there, she’ll be completely ignoring the fact that there is a mammoth nuclear explosion going off in the background. Women, eh?
December 4th, 2009 at 4:58 am
The perspective is a little confusing, they really do look like disco balls. The beams coming from the one on the left are going to either side of the explosion, so either the disco ball is mega big or the explosion is mega small. It could just be because everything is in full focus, but it also somehow looks like the ball on the left is like right beside the chick getting a radiation tan.
It looks pretty cheesy in general, but it is a Baen cover.
And i know Weber is a very popular scifi/fantasy author (moreso in the states than UK i imagine), but does having a blurb “Marvelous” from him not really lose its meaning after you see it on 100+ books.
December 4th, 2009 at 7:06 am
I’d say When The Devil Dances is marginally better than Ringo’s first-choice title, Oh Dear, My Action-Heroine Has Rickets!
December 4th, 2009 at 9:01 am
Well I think the Ringo and the Webber are possibly friends. They do plenty of books together.
It isn’t quite as overpowering as over covers they/he has done. But it certainly has plenty of stuff going on there.
December 4th, 2009 at 12:19 pm
It’s a Baen book – nuff said.
If ever proof were needed of the UK and the US being two cultures divided by a common cover aesthetic (as I believe Churchill would almost certainly have said if he’d been in publishing rather than politics) you would only need to look at a Bean book.
The type! It burns! It burns!
The particular brand of hyper ‘realistic’ (yet hyper coloured and oddly peopled) artwork. It burns as well! It burns as well!
December 4th, 2009 at 7:37 pm
She’s obviously an evil genius; the disco balls are under her command, and they’re doing this so we can *get a good photo*.
Baen normally put Good Guys on their covers. I think this is misdirection. I mean, look how, ahem, *healthy* she looks: look how well coiffed she is and how clean her clothes are and how gleamy and high-tech her weapons. Then look at the surroundings. This is not an insurgent who’s been living in *that* postapocalyptic hell. No, no, this is an invader!
The title is a clue, too, in hindsight: Hell hath no fury…
December 6th, 2009 at 11:27 am
Excellent insight Nix. You’re right she does have the look of the devil around her. Who would go into a batttle wearing that top. As usual, not much support.
October 22nd, 2013 at 12:22 pm
There’s an H-bomb exploding BEHIND YOU!
October 22nd, 2013 at 1:29 pm
Cheers B! New category: casually walking away from an explosion
December 9th, 2013 at 12:55 pm
That was a pretty epic fart.
December 9th, 2013 at 2:08 pm
She’s four feet of midget mayhem — on a pilgrimage to DEATHLEHEM!
WHEN THE DEVIL DANCES
January 7th, 2014 at 12:17 pm
What breaks my heart is that this was the original cover for The Handmaid’s Tale.
January 7th, 2014 at 3:54 pm
Which phrase best completes this sentence:
When the Devil dances . . .
a. the buttons on me shirt spontaneously pop.
b. death-ray spouting disco balls come to life.
c. marvelous David Weber joins him.
d. all of the above
e. none of the above
April 9th, 2015 at 1:40 am
John Ringo covers are like shooting fish in a barrel, only the barrel is a NUCLEAR barrel and the fish are EXPLODING SPACE FISH and the gun is a pull quote about “THRILLING MILITARY SF!”
October 23rd, 2015 at 12:51 am
“What, just stand here? And hold the rifle? And then what?”
October 23rd, 2015 at 10:52 am
THE TERROR OF TINY TOWN
October 26th, 2015 at 2:09 pm
@Tom Noir 9—it certainly impressed David Weber.
October 29th, 2015 at 5:40 pm
Imagine all the “tough-talking” tag lines they brainstormed when this cover was made:
“When the Devil dances, tiny women do the RA-TA-TA-tango!”
“What does not kill us, makes us SHORTER!”
“She’s taking the Devil out to a disco INFERNO!”
February 22nd, 2016 at 11:47 am
WIDE HAND, ELVEN CHEST
John Paul
“Weird love drama!” — V. Ebus
March 27th, 2016 at 6:04 pm
Hm. I bet someone watched the “Live at the Royal Albert Hall” bit from “The Return of Spinal Tap.”
I mean, really – who wouldn’t be inspired by David St. Hubbins’ recital “When the demon dances/When the Kraken wakes….”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uvV1XkiGoU
edit: OOps, didn’t see that the video I linked is the full version of “The Return of Spinal Tap”….