Aug 31
Click for full imageStevie Comments: Jack L Chalker’s Songs of the Dancing Gods cover is bizarre! Crazy wizards, super sultry fairy-women in red and green and a huge mack truck running thru everything. What’s all that crazy action supposed to tell the prospective reader?
Published 1991
(Average: 8.40 out of 10)
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August 31st, 2010 at 9:10 am
I’m trying to see which bits of sparkle are lens glare off the shiny cover and which are part of the pattern. It’s not easy.
Also: kudos for laying this book against a wedding dress before taking its picture. That adds a certain je ne sais quoi.
August 31st, 2010 at 9:20 am
The mack truck is pure win.
By my favorite part is actually the awful type and the “Volume Four in the Dancing Gods Series” under the title.
Based on this cover alone, what would be your guesses for the titles of the other three no-doubt action packed titles?
August 31st, 2010 at 9:27 am
I love this a lot. Especially the evil punk wizard. So much going on it hurts my brain.
Anyone know who the publisher is for that one? I don’t recognise the symbol at the bottom, unless that’s part of the magic!
August 31st, 2010 at 10:49 am
“… damn electrostatics …wait, is that the Coke Christmas Truck? … ”
– actually, the bottom part makes me wish I went to Burning Man this year …
August 31st, 2010 at 11:30 am
Wow, it’s like Guy Fawkes night, with sparklers and an aeroplane made out of fireworks. It’s a shame that only 4 people and a unicorn turned up really, I so would have gone!
August 31st, 2010 at 11:38 am
Lovely start to a Monday morning that….
Wait a minute… Bah, foiled again! TEN STARS
August 31st, 2010 at 12:26 pm
If I had seen that cover when I was three, I would have said:
“Beardy man has electric ow-ow in his hands!”
August 31st, 2010 at 1:00 pm
I’m glad that Optimus Prime is finally recognised as a God, albiet a dancing one.
I bet he riverdances all over the evil wizard.
August 31st, 2010 at 3:02 pm
mmmmm…..nothin’ says fantasy like an 18-wheeler.
August 31st, 2010 at 4:28 pm
Nice to see the Jolly Green Giant’s girlfriend getting work.
August 31st, 2010 at 8:32 pm
I wonder how the insurance claim will work out when the truck runs over teh unicorn-pegasus
August 31st, 2010 at 9:32 pm
The symbol at the bottom is the logo of Orbit books.
September 1st, 2010 at 3:03 am
I rather think that the dancing gods are a happy lot. I’d be at their concert.
“Ridin’ on my Mack truck, it’s a lovely machine,
“Ridin’ with the ladies in the red and in the green,
“Ridin’ with the silly string on my hands and in between,
“Ridin’ to the songs of the dancin’ gods!” Hot-cha!
@ Chike: “AM Radio Band of the Dancing Gods”, “Juke Box with Nothing But Rush for the Dancing Gods”, and “Gastrointestinal Rumblings of the Dancing Gods”.
September 1st, 2010 at 8:48 am
I’d like to see other working-class characters represented as characters in fantasy lit:
– Plumbers
– Construction workers
– Firemen
– Nurses
– Garbage collectors
– Carpenters
– Gardeners
– Migrant farm workers
…but not TV repairmen, because everybody knows they really ARE wizards and don’t need the extra exposure in literature.
September 1st, 2010 at 9:08 am
@David Cowie – Thanks! Didn’t recognise their old logo.
It is kinda like these guys are having a wizard rave when the truck turns up. “Hey, where’s all that techno music coming from?”
September 1st, 2010 at 9:12 am
This looks like a really darn cool Rick Cook novel.
September 1st, 2010 at 10:01 am
Actually having read the Dancing Gods series the cover makes sense. The green fairy was a truck driver at the beginning of the series.
September 1st, 2010 at 11:57 am
@ A.R.Yngve
I agree with you that TV repairmen are already wizards, but I would also include computer IT tech support guys. Whoa…now THAT would be an epic modern fantasy! Gus the TV repairman vs. Neil the IT tech support guru, each representing their respective secret orders of techowizardy!
September 1st, 2010 at 6:39 pm
@Tommi That’s coke truck all right. Although, possibly not the drink.
September 2nd, 2010 at 8:00 pm
I have every Chalker book published… in one printing or another… but I’ve never seen THAT one before. Now I want it. 😀
The cover acturately depicts the contents, I *will* say that. 🙂
January 14th, 2016 at 2:35 am
Big Trouble 2: The return of Lo-pan. Jack Burton never drives faster than he can see and always brakes for unicorns and lady-faeries.
February 17th, 2017 at 2:02 pm
Most gratuitous use of fibre optic cable EVER.
February 17th, 2017 at 4:47 pm
Today’s Dilemma:
That pink object just below the arch, is that a spaceship or a space walrus?
Moving up slowly, we find the most badass Unicorns! horn I’ve ever seen about to impale itself in the side window opening of the Mack truck, and across from that a green reptilian thing regurgitating a yellow reptilian thing. Above that there are two hot faeries deliberately designed to confuse anybody with red-green color blindness—which one will put out, which one says STOP? Then there’s the squat, blunt typeface totally at odds with the linear wispiness of the imagery.
I try hard to hold all of this in one coherent place in my head, and fail, just fail.
February 17th, 2017 at 4:51 pm
A cover so unhinged it needs a gyroscope in each corner to keep it from flying apart.
February 17th, 2017 at 6:12 pm
The fish eye lens bulge makes it look like golden frame can barely contain the awesomeness of the cover.
February 17th, 2017 at 10:07 pm
Does the Transitive Axiom of Equality apply? Viz., a red fairy means Stop and a green fairy means Go, does a Unicorns! mean stop as well? Does that salamandery-looking thing mean go? What is that strange creature, anywho?
February 18th, 2017 at 1:47 am
Orbit published the first four of the Dancing Gods series with this cover style. The truck, red and green fairies, unicorn and lizard are on all four covers, the image below varies from book to book. The covers accurately summarise events and characters from the series.
When the books were published in Polish the top half of the image was kept, but the bottom half was the mirror image of these Orbit covers.
February 18th, 2017 at 6:29 am
Why does red fairy get Unicorns! and green one only gets… erm… unidentifiable lizardy things? Red + Unicorns! = no sexing, Green + lizards = go for it? Still seems backwards. And does Ms. Red’s Unicorns! have wings attached at the neck? WTF? Probably be a mercy when the oncoming Mack truck (also, still, and forever WTF) kills it.
Just where are the fireworks and jet-shaped firework coming from? Both the beardy wizaaaaards are holding crackling lightning stuff, not launching fireworks. Maybe the people in the structure in the background were just having a nice 4th of July celebration when suddenly, wizaaaaards.
I looked at the TVTropes page (so you wouldn’t have to) and the books seem to be as bad as this cover. Note: also part of the Mermaid Conspiracy.
Hopefully, the gods are dancing away from this mess.
February 18th, 2017 at 1:00 pm
The only one doing any dancing on this cover is that dude with the lightning. Or all these guys Village People but only he’s doing Y.M.C.A.?
February 18th, 2017 at 1:19 pm
@LB: it’s not clear if Stop fairy is a goddess or not, but I think she’s Vogue-ing.
February 18th, 2017 at 3:35 pm
“He was a dancing god
Cruel and bearded
Like General Zod
Dancing god,
Wow, his cover
Is really odd.”
(Apologies to ABBA.)
February 19th, 2017 at 3:26 am
“He can glow
He can drive
A Mack truck about Mach Five
ooo-ooo-oo”
May 17th, 2023 at 12:45 pm
Soundtrack by Uriah Heep.
May 17th, 2023 at 5:27 pm
Seems less “epic magical battle” and more “Las Vegas opening act.”
May 17th, 2023 at 10:57 pm
Somehow, I don’t think Gary Glitter’s comeback tour will be that big a hit.
May 18th, 2023 at 2:20 am
The red chick seems to have the Unicorn! pulling her chariot? Either that or it’s suffered an MVA before and now has one of those wheelchairs like they make for paralyzed dogs. Let’s see how that horn holds up against some of ‘Merica’s finest steel.
Nobody seems to be dancing, so they’re not the gods?
Did beardy man with the electric ow-ow (thanks @ARY) just cut a hole in the middle of a flag and throw it over him as a poncho?
@Bruce: We would also accept “That time Andrew Lloyd Webber dropped acid when someone said ‘Bet you can’t out-daft Starlight Express’.”
Definitely “Big Trouble in Little China” vibes and post-dates the movie. Hmmm.
May 18th, 2023 at 3:05 am
This cover is confusing, is assaulting my senses, and will probably cause nerdy “backflashes”. You’re off to a good start, Percy the Intern. As long as you don’t alter this site to discuss sports or home renos, we’re good.
May 18th, 2023 at 3:27 am
I read those, long time ago. As I recall, it was comic fantasy with the “comic” part getting to be a bit too much for me by the last volume. Not sure if it actually got worse and more painful or I was just noticing it more.
@GSS ex-noob: if the Battle Santa looking guy is the wizard I think he’s supposed to be, he’d never be caught dead in such an outfit. (Daryl Sweet gives a more accurate idea, if I’m remembering correctly: https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1328406776i/1416797.jpg )
May 18th, 2023 at 4:56 am
I can’t make sense of this cover. Nothing appears to have any connection to any other thing. When I zoom in i see a pretty cool background, behind the wizards. There is one wizard in the midground, who kind of fits with the background. The wizard in the fore ground looks like an afterthought.