Jan 22
Click for full imageDoctor: It’s alright Madame, your Son simply has a case of the TeenFlu.
Concerned Mother: Thank you doctor, is there anything I can do for him?
Doctor: Well, I prescribe some awesome red and yellow training warrior monks, a large dude in a kimono and a busty women in a gold bikini grasping her short sword. Here, take this book.
Concerned Mother: Uh… you’re a medical doctor right?
Doctor: My doctorate came in a toblerone box.
Concerned Mother: Ohhhhhhh K, well I’ll be going.
(Average: 8.28 out of 10)
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January 22nd, 2010 at 10:29 am
There is just so many good things about this cover. I hardly know where to start.
It must be depressing to have spent all that time being trained in monk-kung fu only to be killed by a girl in a gold bikini.
January 22nd, 2010 at 11:27 am
Well atleast you’ll see her coming. Its not like she blends in.
Now if she was trying to infiltrate an Ann Summers Kung-fu temple then the bikini would be acceptable.
January 22nd, 2010 at 11:46 am
Obviously she’s living life on the edge, she’s even oped out of taking shoulder armour!
January 22nd, 2010 at 12:11 pm
I say full marks to Thraxas, if that is he with the red dressing gown and sculpted, Jeremy-Beadle-style beard. Tubby middle-aged bloke but look at the totty he’s got with him! He must be very rich…
January 22nd, 2010 at 12:15 pm
Maybe she’s lost and the guy in the bathrobe is pointing her in the right direction.
Lady: ‘I’m terribly sorry I’m looking for the Ann Summers Kung-fu temple
Man: ‘This is the Red and Yellow Warrior Monks madam, the Anne Summers Warrior Monks and two temples down on the right’
Lady: ‘Why thank you, nice hair by the way…’
January 22nd, 2010 at 12:34 pm
Publishers tactics for making dull pictures appear more interesting, number 1:
The 45 degree tilt.
January 22nd, 2010 at 12:45 pm
Publishers’ tactics for making accident at the printers appear deliberate, number 1:
“Oh yeah, we meant for this to appear at a 45-degree angle. Looks so much more interesting that way.”
January 22nd, 2010 at 3:30 pm
*Looks back at James’ Gollancz books* ‘ We didn’t try that one on him did we?’
January 22nd, 2010 at 4:33 pm
Drowned World and stars are Gollancz. Not bad covers, but have the 45-degree tilt.
I so wanted to find one of James’ with a tilt, but alas, none to be found. good job.
January 22nd, 2010 at 5:13 pm
@csa
Ahhh but neither of these (and this is an important technical distinction which I wouldn’t begin to expect you to understand) NEITHER of these are at a 45 degree tilt. They’re both 30 degree tilts which is the industry standard for making genius works of art appear less daunting (indeed, less blindingly magnificent) to the unsuspecting public. It’s something to do with the way that rays of unutterable beauty strike the light receptor cones in the human eye.
And before anyone takes the protractor to Thraxas I’m fully aware that this is, in fact, a 40 degree tilt. Basically anything over 38 will do it when it comes to making dullness palatable.
January 22nd, 2010 at 5:22 pm
wow… i never knew so much thought went into the angle the art is tilted at.
I also just noticed that Thraxas is a clockwise tilt, while the superior Gollancz covers are anti-clockwise. Some critics may have called that an insane move on Gollancz’s part, but hell yeah, it worked. Can you imagine the horror if they had been clockwise?!
January 22nd, 2010 at 5:38 pm
Clockwise tilts/anti-clockwise tilts; well that WAS what Dan Brown’s next book was going to be about. Nice one CSA – he’ll have to think up something else now.
January 23rd, 2010 at 8:37 am
You’re all wrong. The image is not tilted. That kungfu/ninja temple is built on a hillside at an angle. The better to train the kungfu/ninjas.
January 23rd, 2010 at 2:31 pm
I’ve never read the Thraxas books, but from what I understand, they are supposed to be humorous. Aren’t humorous books exempt from this blog? (Still a pretty bad cover though.)
January 23rd, 2010 at 5:03 pm
@Rex I’ve not read them either, but i don’t think this book is a satire in the same sense that a Terry Pratchett book is. I think the stories aren’t specifically comedy or spoof, more that the main character/narrator of the story has a sense of humour. I could be being pedantic arguing the difference between a parody and general humour….
It could be argued either way. Ironically even if it is a complete spoof novel, at a rating at 7.5 stars it’s nowhere near as bad as some of the “proper” fantasy covers we’ve discussed!
@Adam they must have very skilled gardeners to get the trees to grow at an angle too. I definately prefer the developing theory that publishers are attempting to raise the antichrist by tilting their covers in 40 degree clockwise directions…. Strangely, I think Dan Brown, with his massive popularity could still sell that pitch to his publishers, and still get a number 1 seller
January 23rd, 2010 at 8:35 pm
“…they must be very skilled gardeners to get the trees to grow at an angle too…”
Oh, they are.
January 23rd, 2010 at 8:39 pm
Maybe that’s part of their ninja training… ‘Once your tree is grown at a 45 degree angle, you are ready to leave.’
@Rex – Yea, that is a good point. I never checked out where this one lay. But I think CSA is right in the sense that it is a humourous book. I’ll put a warning may be humour label on it later.
January 24th, 2010 at 4:55 am
I haven’t seen a genre trainwreck this awesome since MST 3K riffed on the movie “Laserblast.” Whose ready for some football?
April 29th, 2010 at 7:51 pm
Re: Karl’s post
Why, is Stephen Chow the referee…? (Sorry, but I could not resist sneaking a “Shaolin Soccer” reference in somewhere…)
As for the cover itself, does SPECTRE know that monks are now using their Training Academy, & if so, when is Robert Shaw’s character, armed with a combination wristwatch/garrotte, going to turn up …?
(The cover, I suspect, is based on a photo/still of the building used as the SPECTRE training academy in From Russia With Love, hence my remark about “Red Grant” turning up somewhere…).
April 30th, 2010 at 2:20 am
I now have formed an opinion that cover story should be judged in realation to the book content.
All of your comments about the absurdness of the situation are correct, but guess what? So is the book! And it reflects the book very well.
Thraxas is an easy-read-trash for teenagers, its like junk food, something fun that you do when you dont want anything complicated and you just want to shut off your brain after a hard days work. Instead of drinking vodka. Or watching “Two and a Half Men” (Brrrrr, it probably kills more brain cells than the alcohol).
And the cover reflects the content very well (Exept that Thraxas supposed to be fat and unatractive and Makri suppose to have metal not gold bikini, also she supposed to look elvishly).
September 17th, 2014 at 1:41 am
I fancy that the THRAXAS is garish green because it’s topiary, and the winner of the kung fu fight is exempt from having to go up to the sky and trim it.
@d-fap: much to my surprise, ‘elvishly’ is to be found in the Wiktionary. And here I’ve been thinking all along you made it up, my humblest apologies. Pray tell, when she looks ‘elvishly’, is that staring at things from an elf’s social and political perspective, or did she rip an elf’s eyes from out of their sockets and use them for her own?
September 22nd, 2014 at 8:01 am
I just couldn’t put my finger on what’s this cover is “really about” — but then it hit me.
Thraxas’ stomach. Come on. Admit it. There’s the target demographic. I don’t think I need to elaborate on the subject. (For fear of my physical safety…)
September 25th, 2014 at 12:28 pm
Looks like the Hot Chick with Sword from the end of Level 4 has shacked up with the Fat Boss from Level 2. They must have met in the staff room.
February 1st, 2016 at 10:28 am
Editor: “Look, you can’t call the hero ‘Throw Axes’, even if he might throw axes.”
Author: “How about if I call him ‘Thraxas’?”
Editor: “Seriously?”
@Rev: You said ‘staff room’.
February 1st, 2016 at 5:54 pm
Enter the Dragon really needed a warrior-babe and Orson Welles in a red bathrobe.
February 2nd, 2016 at 1:11 pm
THRAXAS AND THE SHAO-LIN TEMPLE AND WEIGHT LOSS SPA
February 3rd, 2016 at 10:46 am
They meditate!
February 13th, 2016 at 9:36 pm
Love how the monks are all practising for a live action version of “Way of the exploding fist” 🙂
January 20th, 2017 at 5:19 am
Of course the book’s for teenagers. Adults can’t possibly read a whole book with their head tilted at that angle.
March 4th, 2017 at 12:28 am
The Thraxas books are really quite charming, not too be taken too seriously, and explain why the woman is dressed that way (she’s a part-time barmaid–and gets better tips). Thraxas himself is a tubby alcoholic who’s apparently a private investigator but allergic to hard work. It’s a fun series.
August 19th, 2021 at 1:25 am
To answer your question, of course Warren Clarke would make a great Shang Chi.