preload
Mar 05

Well, we fired the baby at them. Do we have any more? No? Time to surrender.Click for full image

Tom Noir Comments:
“Our toddlers will blot out the sun!”
“Then we will fight in the shade!”
Published 1998

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: 8.48 out of 10)
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34 Responses to “Fox and Empire”

  1. Tat Wood Says:

    Whatever’s on the underside of beardy-man’s shield most be truly horrifying to distract him from Mannekin Pis floating nearby.

    A mirror, perhaps?

  2. Jeff Vader Says:

    When the barbarian hordes started loading their catapults with chubby, baroque babies even the battle-hardened soldiers of the XII legion lost their resolve.

  3. Phil Says:

    How…long…do you think I can keep this… baby… up…in.. the air…by bouncing him up….with….my shield?

    And how…long…before he…vomits?

  4. Adam Roberts Says:

    Oh dear god.

  5. SI Says:

    Even the horse is horrified…

  6. Dead Stuff With Big Teeth Says:

    ‘…an Ah hit the bay-bee so hard wit mah shield, a Baen symbol went flyin’ outta his butt!’

  7. JC Superstar Says:

    Are those white marks by the baby’s butt just scratches in the cover, or is that chemical warfare?

  8. rev Says:

    Is this Chief Vitalstatistix as a boy?

  9. THX 1138 Says:

    This is the perfect embarrassing baby photo the kid’s mother can bring out to show all and sundry in twenty years’ time. In fact, it’s embarrassing now.

  10. L.B. Says:

    To the right there’s what appears to be an escaping soldier (dude in blue). I thought he threw the Baen logo behind him like a grenade or a bomb as he made his escape. Maybe it’s a weapon of mass execration.

  11. Bob Says:

    Following the baby bombardment, will be a fusillade of fairest young maidens.

  12. fred Says:

    “No. I am your father.”

  13. B. Chiclitz Says:

    “Hey, you no make pee-pee on my new shield!”

    Looks like something Caravaggio might have painted, had he been insane.

  14. Bibliomancer Says:

    Baen had the cherub painted onto the cover to appeal to Turtledove’s sizable teenage-unwed-mother reader demographic.

  15. A.R.Yngve Says:

    Asterix And The Floating Baby

  16. Stevie T Says:

    The charioteers look truly horrified at the idea that Flying Baby is about to take a leak in their general direction. I suppose I would be terrified too, if just prior he had pooped a Baen logo out. Or maybe the Baen logo is what they’re truly afraid of….

    I love how the archer (and the massing hordes behind him) doesn’t even look surprised, like he sees this sort of thing every day.

  17. Stevie T Says:

    And what sort of tagline is “The Empire: It’s Baaack….”?

    Because, of course, the Roman Empire was such a hoot the first time around, right?

  18. Tat Wood Says:

    @Stevie T: Maybe it’s the re-opening of the Hackney Empire they’re talking about it, and the cover depicts Griff Rhys Jones’ deep-rooted fears.

  19. A.R.Yngve Says:

    Was this the cruel Roman equivalent of the Chinese Juggler?

  20. Ian Says:

    Laughing so hard because the “hunkbutt” tag is used on this one. Good one GSS.

  21. Anna T. Says:

    @Tag Wizard: No “beard-wielding” tag. This shortcoming ought to be rectified.

    This is the kind of cover that inspires snickering whenever you even think about it because of how utterly fucking bizarre and nonsensical it is.

  22. Dead Stuff With Big Teeth Says:

    SPOILERS!

    The Empire: It’s Baaack…and it has a refreshing absence of lens flare. Thank you for your restraint, Mr. Abrams!

  23. Perry Armstrong Says:

    With inspiration failing and deadline looming, BAEN’s tagline writer rushed back from a night at the cinema…

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wQKKj_qeOBQ

  24. anon Says:

    I can’t believe no one has said this:
    The Empire: It’s Baaack…
    Sheep and Empire

  25. Dead Stuff With Big Teeth Says:

    Ah-ha! Now we know what the fox says!

  26. Technomad Says:

    That is, actually, a pretty accurate depiction of a scene in the book. The “baby” is a demigod, the son of the God of Wine and a mortal woman.

    But then, aren’t book covers that look like what’s inside the book one of the Biblical signs of Armageddon?

  27. Jon K. Says:

    This cover would be a perfect one for a certain Stanislaw Lem short story from “The Cyberiad”. The way-too-wordy but descriptive title of said story is “The Fourth Sally or How Trurl built a Femfatalatron to Save Prince Pantagoon from the Pangs of Love, and How Later He Resorted to a Cannonade of Babies”.

  28. Tom Noir Says:

    Of course we now realize that the name of this book refers to FoxNews controlling the free world because the grumpy old man who has wandered into the White House can’t stop watching it.

  29. GSS ex-noob Says:

    @Tom Noir: Wow, them blonde Fox Babes are getting younger every year, then.

  30. Emster Says:

    I thought maybe GSS was messing with us and stuck a nekkid bebe sticker on the cover instead of our favourite sheep mascot, but no, this is the undoctored cover? And did I read correctly, no one dared utter it? So I get to?

    “Look out! Here comes the infantry!”

    (Alas, I did not come up with that on my own. Childishly punny fantasy series, you know the one… ).

    @rev – awwwww… memories of a happily geeky childhood:
    https://www.deviantart.com/beatlesfangirl15/art/Asterix-and-Obelix-when-they-were-babies-875198117

  31. GSS ex-noob Says:

    @Emster: you’ve been here long enough (i.e. more than a week) to know that GSS doesn’t have to doctor the covers from this publisher.

    Much as we sometimes wish –nay, pray — they would.

  32. Emster Says:

    @GSS ex-noob: It’s true – I can review comments of the worst covers ever without dropping the laptop in a fit of giggles, but when a small child makes a nuisance of himself at a swordfight… I sheepishly put the noob hat back on for at least another week.

  33. fred Says:

    The closest ‘Mr Mom’ baby/chili scene there is on youtube.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t794eVHOIvo

  34. GSS ex-noob Says:

    The archer seems to be aiming at his own men, unless there’s something even scarier out of view near the ground than Mannekin Pis.

    He should be shooting either the levitating toddler, or at least the BAEN! etc etc logo.

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