Sep 03
Click for full imageBaen Books – Putting all other cover choices to shame since 1983.
Published 2008
(Average: 8.63 out of 10)
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Baen Books – Putting all other cover choices to shame since 1983.
Published 2008
(Average: 8.63 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)
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September 3rd, 2010 at 10:15 am
There’s seriously not enough tags for this cover!
September 3rd, 2010 at 11:22 am
Glorious… simply glorious…
September 3rd, 2010 at 1:23 pm
Imagine if you were an astronaut exploring the uncharted reaches of space in your capsule and you saw this.
You would freak the hell out.
September 3rd, 2010 at 2:27 pm
Excellent.
This is the champion of that class of covers which celebrates and revels in their own ridiculousness.
Too bad Jim isn’t winking at us.
September 3rd, 2010 at 4:03 pm
@Evad–look at his left eye. Either he’s trying to, or he’s wincing in pain at Eris’s departure from his underarm.
September 3rd, 2010 at 4:05 pm
Addendum–it’s possible to think of Jim Baen’s Universe #2 without humming Pérez Prado’s Mambo #5, but not easy. In fact, the latter is appropriate background music for the former, you’ll agree.
September 3rd, 2010 at 4:47 pm
It is the ur-baen cover. Someday archeologists will look at this and nod in understanding.
September 4th, 2010 at 1:43 pm
I’m afraid that while this would be incredible by the standards of any *other* publisher, it just doesn’t measure up. Compare this to the cluttered glory of the first _Jim Baen’s Universe_ cover. Ths one has no crap in the background at all!
September 4th, 2010 at 5:49 pm
@Nix, I couldn’t find it.
However, I did find volume 4, issue 6, where the universe goes down the drain..
September 4th, 2010 at 10:56 pm
Eyebane.
September 6th, 2010 at 3:17 pm
Actually, I think this’d look pretty reasonable and fun if it weren’t for the text at the top.
September 8th, 2010 at 8:04 am
Without the text at the top it would be a Moses pose..
September 14th, 2010 at 12:49 am
The professor guy has the tail of a skinny Jabba the Hutt. With a truly *~fabulous*~ colour scheme.
December 16th, 2010 at 12:37 pm
I can’t believe how modest he looks on this cover.
The question arises: Was the art slapped together, or made according to detailed editorial instructions?
December 16th, 2010 at 2:10 pm
With the way he’s popped out of a… galaxy? wormhole? erm… anyway, with that and the electric zaps that look like a spine …
Is anyone else thinking “KFC’s Colonel meets Borg Queen”? Maybe it’s just me.
December 17th, 2010 at 9:53 am
It’s not just you.
“BOW DOWN BEFORE MY CRISPY CHICKEN!! SUBMIT TO IT!!”
August 23rd, 2015 at 11:04 pm
Chthulu morphs into Roger Whittaker. Evils from the Dawn of Time.
August 25th, 2015 at 1:19 am
I presume the First Rule of Covers for these anthologies is, “Mr. Baen must look like an all powerful god or wizard, even if the end result is rather ridiculous.”
Also, we need a tag for Mr. Baen’s beard, STAT!
August 25th, 2015 at 2:31 am
@ Anna T. – “beard-wielding” it is.
September 6th, 2019 at 10:24 pm
So that’s what the mysterious “dark matter” looks like. Who knew?
August 28th, 2020 at 7:29 am
Giant Plastic Robot Doctor Scientist Baen emerges from the interdimensional wormhole to bring us the Good News of endless crappy cover illustrations.
August 28th, 2020 at 7:48 am
I suspect the best of Jim Baen’s universe is a result of old Jimbo spending a bit too much time exploring the best of Jim Beam’s™️ universe, judging by the bleary eyes and the look on his face.
August 28th, 2020 at 8:11 am
@BC: I think Jim was dead by then, so presumably the “art” department were the drunken ones.
August 28th, 2020 at 9:31 am
Needs more cardigan.
August 28th, 2020 at 10:42 am
Now that he has assembled the Infinity Title from the Infinity Letters I expect we’re going to be up to our ass in cat people.
August 28th, 2020 at 12:40 pm
Sorry, but the price tag crosses my wallet’s Prevent Horizon.
August 28th, 2020 at 8:05 pm
@GSSxn—That might better explain the look on his face.
@Adzel—”Prevent Horizon”—great pun! GSS!
August 28th, 2020 at 9:05 pm
I wonder what the pattern on his tie is. Little dolphins?
August 28th, 2020 at 11:25 pm
Is he being sucked up or spat out?
August 28th, 2020 at 11:59 pm
@THX: By golly, that’s a question that should have been asked (checks date) 10 years ago.
I think the “art” department intended that he should be springing into our universe from his, bringing stories of cat people with cleavage and big guns, but it really looks more like he’s being sucked into a singularity or wormhole.
So apparently he’s disappearing into his own universe?
It all looks like he’s one of those wacky arm-waving inflatables at a used-car dealer. White suit that screams “salesman”, brightly-colored giant letters…
I just feel that this cover is trying to sell me a used spaceship from “Big Jim’s Universe of Pre-Owned Stories”.
(Just down the street from Cal Worthington and his dog Spot.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOsLdT4slsk
August 29th, 2020 at 5:11 am
@GSSxn—Opposite the famous Ralph Spoilsport Motors
August 30th, 2020 at 9:00 am
All located just off the Antelope Freeway!
(one half-mile)
(I have never been able to drive in LA without quoting this bit)
(Also I own an Official Pickle)
August 30th, 2020 at 7:07 pm
@GSSxn—At the 1/128th mile point, take the off ramp to Shadow Valley Condoms (if you lived here you’d be home by now).
(I promise not to continue doing this, although I could cite them all day!) 🙂
August 31st, 2020 at 6:01 am
@BC: My hand to whatever: for quite a while in the 90s there was a sign proclaiming “if you… now” hanging at an apartment or condo complex just off the highway north of LA. Not far south from the turnoff for — you guessed it — the Antelope Freeway.
I suspected influences.
August 31st, 2020 at 8:33 am
GUYS!
On topic!
http://www.walterjonwilliams.net/2011/04/1983-the-writers-life/
Eye opening yet not surprising. Plus ca change.
Comments worth reading too, particularly the last one.
August 31st, 2020 at 10:14 am
@GSS x-n: So Jim Baen was a “ruthless sociopath”? A cowboy, in fact, a tiny, bearded, sickly, bigoted cowboy with a line in sexist jokes. The more I hear about this guy…
August 31st, 2020 at 11:14 pm
@THX: Explains a lot, doesn’t it? The cover “art” of gratuitous cleavage, the topics, the focus on big guns (usually associated with “little man syndrome”), the relentless favoring of straight white men, the lack of proofreading…
He may be dead, but apparently his ghost is still running the place.
That last comment, from Manly Man “High Tory” SM Stirling smacked my gob.
Steve is not at *all* PC (though very polite) and he’s referring to “Island in the Sea of Time”,* the first of a wildly successful trilogy. Featuring the aforesaid Black lesbian Coast Guard captain, who becomes basically The Mother of Her Country. The books (and his later ones) made Roc a ton of money.
*Of which our autographed copy is from the first printing — didn’t know there’d been so many reprints!