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Aug 06

Looks like I picked the wrong week to... get trapped in the past!!Click for full image

Jaouad Comments: This one is for everybody wondering what happens after the MARCH TO THE SEA.
Published 2002

Actually, that cover IS a classical work of art!I would touch it without protective gloves.I've seen worse. Far, far, worse.Interesting, but I would still read it in public.Middlng: Neither awful nor awfully goodWould not like to be seen reading that!Awful... just awful...That belongs in a gold-lame picture frame!Gah... my eyes are burning! Feels so good!Good Show Sir! (Average: 7.27 out of 10)
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25 Responses to “Odyssey”

  1. THX 1138 Says:

    Zippin’ up my boots, goin’ back to my – AAARGH!!!

  2. The Tag Wizard Says:

    The real story of Yoshi’s Island.

  3. Phil Says:

    Odyssey = Odyssey
    Keith Laumer = Homer

    Instant classic!

    And Gordon R. Dickson, what are you trying to say? It’s unrivalled by anything else in the class it is in, on account of being the only thing in that class? So it’s the best Odyssey by Keith Laumer because it’s the ONLY Odyssey by Keith Laumer? Hmm.

  4. Dead Stuff With Big Teeth Says:

    ‘Unrivaled…but in a class by itself’…oh, my cup runneth over.

    Did Rex stub his toe on the portal to the future?

  5. Adam Roberts Says:

    I hate to be a pedant, but that blurb makes no sense. The book cannot logically be ‘in its class [with other books]’ AND ‘in a class by itself’. If it is the latter, as the blurb implies, then OF COURSE it is unrivalled. Gordon R Dickson’s grasp of logical categories disappoints me.

  6. Bibliomancer Says:

    BEHIND YOU!

    Note to Gordon R. Dickson: If you are in a class by yourself you are by definition unrivaled in your class.

  7. Tom Hering Says:

    Judging by the look on the man’s face, he’s not running in fear from the T Rex – he’s the big guy’s personal trainer. “Hey! Trainer! You listening? When do we head back to ‘The Gym On The Rock’? Me hungry!”

  8. The Tag Wizard Says:

    (Apologies for the delay in manual approval of comments today. Our server technology is in a class of its own, sitting at the back of the class, and quite possibly at the sides and front also.)

  9. Tom Noir Says:

    I rather like the spatial distortion effect of the portal that has brought him to the past. Too bad the distortion appears to be permanently applied to his trousers! I mean seriously, dude, you need to stop by the Dino Mall and pick up a pair a couple sizes smaller.

    “Well this way, no one will know if a T-Rex jumps out and makes me wet myself.”

    “Fair point.”

  10. Bibliomancer Says:

    “Not only has Gordon R. Dickson written the stupidest cover blurb, but there are none which are more stupid.”

    — J.R.R. “Doc” Asimov, editor of The Anthology of Hugo-Award Winning Novel Cover Blurbs

  11. Rags Says:

    Hmmm….I agree with the others, that is the worst blurb i have seen on any book. Oh its in a class by itself all right, its called “the reduced bin!”.

    1. Why is Alec Baldwin casually jogging from the dino?
    2. Why is Luis Figo leaving massive gouges in the sand and the dino leaving nothing? Is he a ninja T-Rex? Now THERE is a story, Ninja T-Rex the Time Stalker!!
    3. OH its green Yoshi, he is my favourite. 🙂
    4. Where is Yoshi other arm?
    5. Somewhere glowy and fuzzy Homer is facepalming himself….

  12. Jon Says:

    I posit that the cover blurb is Gordon R. DIckson’s sly way of telling the reader that this book is absolutely terrible. He was probably under some contractual obligation to provide a blurb, and all the others he sent over (such as “To call this book terrible is to insult terrible books everywhere!” and “READER: STAY AWAY”) were rejected by the publisher. So he had to get a bit more clever.

    “Oh yes, it’s unrivaled. And, coincidentally, it’s in a class of it’s own! There, that should satisfy them; the intelligent reader will catch on immediately. No fear of the publisher catching on, either…”

  13. JaunPaul Says:

    So did the futuristic structure in the back ground trott through the time portal as well?

  14. Tat Wood Says:

    It’s not a real dinosaur, it’s Bernie Clifton – this is a charity marathon and Bernie’s just about to overtake someone who’s come as Maguyver

  15. David Cowie Says:

    “Edited and compiled by Eric Flint”
    Scattered remarks on the internets lead me to believe that “Edited by Eric Flint” really means “Substantially re-written by Eric Flint, and not necessarily to the benefit of the original author.”

  16. Tom Hering Says:

    The blurb originally appeared on the front cover of the DAW edition of Dinosaur Beach, but without the comma after “unrivalled.” Not that it made any more sense that way. I suspect Dickson originally wrote, “Not only unrivalled in its class, but in a class by itself.” But the DAW editor moved “unrivalled” to the start of the sentence for immediate impact, and the Baen editor added the comma to give it even more impact. Still odd, though, that Minnesotan Dickson used the British double-L spelling.

  17. fred Says:

    Will Ferrell in the “Land of the Lost” remake?

  18. Tom Hering Says:

    @ David Cowie, from my research, most of Flint’s editing has involved minor corrections – misspellings, punctuation mistakes, etc. But yes, it seems he has also committed a few instances of mutilation. Like changing the characters’ names in a stand-alone story to make it fit into a cycle of Schmitz stories. Plus, he was under orders from Baen to “update the language” in their reissues – getting rid of outdated slang, censoring references to smoking, etc. Or so it’s been claimed.

  19. B. Chiclitz Says:

    I’d have learned more in creative writing if I hadn’t only sat in class by myself.

    ~Gordon “The Gord” R. Dickson

  20. A.R.Yngve Says:

    Oh, they mean the “special” class… the one where the pupils learn spelling with fingerpaint…

  21. Dead Stuff With Big Teeth Says:

    ODYTTEY.

  22. Tom Noir Says:

    Ah yes, the part of The Odyssey where Odysseus has to escape a t-rex.

    The classics are eternal!

  23. Dead Stuff With Big Teeth Says:

    Wait a mo. That beast has three fingers on his forelimbs, his teeth are narrow and needle-like, and his post-orbital region is significantly reduced.That looks more like an Acrocanthosaurus than a tyrannosaur.

  24. GSS ex-noob Says:

    @DS: The love child of Alec Baldwin and Stephen Colbert isn’t sticking around to make the species determination. He knows it’s in the unrivaled class of “dinosaurs what will eat you”.

  25. RachelJ Says:

    @DSWBT & GSS ex-noob. The book, IIRC, does not establish the species beyond the class of “dinosaurs what will eat you” either.

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