Jul 05
Liz’s Art Direction: We’d like for you to use some cats on this cover. Not just any old cats no, we want one that is sized up enough to be able to carry a human. In furs. And randomly in the background, give us a horse drawn sled too. Oh, and to illuminate the picture, throw in a random lamp somewhere…and the biggest sickle moon in the world, ever.
Published 2000
Ah Cat travel, the only way to break the speed of light. Or so I have read.
Many thanks to Liz!
July 5th, 2010 at 9:54 am
I don’t know what they are doing to that cat but I am pretty sure that it’s Wrong (yes, with a capital W)!
July 5th, 2010 at 10:34 am
I wish my cat could carry me places
July 5th, 2010 at 10:35 am
Thats not how you mount a cat…. not that I know….
The fonts are also epic.
July 5th, 2010 at 10:59 am
And what a tiny horse it is. I mean, judging by the distance and the size of the tree … it must be pulling the sled for the kittens. Who have, by sheer chance, found a human in the woods … hmmm … humannnn …
July 5th, 2010 at 11:04 am
And that lamp is only shedding light in one direction. Perhaps it wants to give all its attention to the lovely cats.
July 5th, 2010 at 11:41 am
While it’s not unnatural to have big cats out in the wintery wilds (even if they look like reverse engineered housecats with bodies of Lynxes), what I do find weird is the use of the tree as the spot where the designer overlaid the book exposition.
It’s as if the designer didn’t know how to change the font colour and scruntched the paragraph over the tree.
July 5th, 2010 at 11:52 am
Poor horse feels neglected.
July 5th, 2010 at 12:21 pm
‘Gayle Greeno’ is short for ‘Gayle Greengrowtherushes-o’. Not a lot of people know that.
July 5th, 2010 at 6:47 pm
Where is her other foot? And what’s supporting her??? I am so confused!
July 5th, 2010 at 9:01 pm
Been staring at it for five minutes now. Still can’t figure out where the woman’s right leg is supposed to be.
July 5th, 2010 at 9:02 pm
Sorry, I meant right BOOT. [Note to self: use the preview button before submitting comments.]
July 6th, 2010 at 12:58 am
So much is confusing, What are the cats looking at that could be more distracting than the woman?
What are the brown lumpy things coming out her pants leg? Where IS the other boot? And what IS she sitting on?
Do I want answers to these questions? Nope.
July 6th, 2010 at 1:54 am
Perfect High Fantasy for the Crazy Cat Lady demographic.
July 6th, 2010 at 3:38 am
Is it just me or does the “riding” cat look like feline dachshund? Actually the more I look at it, the cat looks like two halves of two different pictures awkward fuzzed together to make the cat look like it has a longer torso. But I suppose we shouldn’t judge the poor woman; it must be hard to walk around in the woods with only foot.
Oh note to other readers: do NOT try to sit on your own cats at home like this; it makes them unhappy. An unhappy cat is NOT something a man wants between his legs.
July 6th, 2010 at 6:24 am
is this literary fiction or high fantasy? if only the font could give me a clue!
July 6th, 2010 at 9:37 am
Her bum is resting on nothing, save possibly the creature’s TAIL. Cruel.
Not to mention that that supposedly-foreshortened leg is somehow behind her arm, and the cat, while unnaturally big, is not large enough to bear her weight.
July 6th, 2010 at 10:19 am
Got it!
She’s riding the cat BECAUSE she only has one foot.
July 6th, 2010 at 10:29 am
@Phil Haha.its like a sailor with a wooden leg. She had her one replaced with a cat….
July 6th, 2010 at 10:59 am
The PETA is going to hear about this!
July 6th, 2010 at 2:06 pm
Her limb measurements are all over the place. Just check out the difference in the length of her arms.
July 6th, 2010 at 6:50 pm
Still, it’s nice that people with Assymetric Limb Syndrome (ALS) are represented in fantasy fiction.
June 25th, 2012 at 1:06 am
In the cover’s defense, the plot is actually centered around oversized cats. This, however, does not override the cover’s other obvious shortcomings…
June 26th, 2012 at 4:48 pm
That cat’s still not nearly big enough to ride, though.
June 26th, 2012 at 5:12 pm
@Rachel: She could tie a cat to each foot and have cat-o-skates.
June 26th, 2012 at 5:41 pm
@THX 1138. She could try …and actually it might even work, since these cats are clearly quite a *bit* more docile than Earth-type felines. (As a small child I myself once tried to ride a cat just the way she’s doing, and the damn thing nearly clawed my eye out.)
July 10th, 2014 at 12:31 am
Drawing our attention away from the pussy on the cover…the font seems to be growing mistletoe.
July 10th, 2014 at 1:43 pm
The Fartiest Sea King
May 15th, 2015 at 7:35 pm
Back when I was working on the television show…we tried to interview a lady whose eyes were covered up by her hair.
It didn’t work there, and it doesn’t work with the lady’s bangs here.
Looking about on the Internets, I see Gayle Greeno also wrote Sunderlies Seeking in Ghatten’s Gambit. Enough with the alliteration!
May 17th, 2015 at 8:13 am
@Little Mi: What worries me even further is how absent-mindedly she’s doing it.
May 17th, 2015 at 10:18 am
According to Amazon, customers who bought this item also bought our very own “Acorna’s Rebels”. Small world.
January 17th, 2017 at 9:16 pm
Five’ll get you ten that Gayle or Paul owned a light gray tabby and a calico.
That’s how you can tell this is fantasy (besides the font): real cats of any size wouldn’t put up with her in that position. Especially not a calico or tortoiseshell.
January 24th, 2017 at 3:48 am
I came across this while surfing “random terrible covers” and I can’t resist saying that riding the horse in the background, even if its a slow or miniature one, makes about 100 times more sense than riding a cat. Even if her sled with the inexplicable spindly runners isn’t working, the horse looks perfectly healthy to me…
May 26th, 2017 at 6:08 am
I actually own this book. Thanks Liz for beating me to the punch. Submitted another volume in the series instead.
May 6th, 2022 at 12:58 am
@Dead Stuff With Big Teeth: Santa is missing! It’s up to brave Susie Elf and the Christmas Cats to be – The Farthest Seeking – and save Christmas!
May 6th, 2022 at 4:10 pm
Big pussies.
https://cattitudedaily.com/super-sized-maine-coon-cats/
May 7th, 2022 at 12:58 am
@fred: I had one of those. Actually, half, so he only topped out at about 15-16 lbs.
If the cover woman is going to have cats in that climate (much less ride them), a fluffy one is much more suitable.
I do sometimes have the current beastie in almost that position, but only because I’m sitting on him to hold him down while I pry his jaws open to get a pill down his throat. It’s not fun for either of us.