Good Show Sir

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Good Show Sir’s Art Direction: Look, just get Jeff the door man, take a picture of his bald head and slap eyes on it. I have to think of everything round here… what did you even go to art school for?
Published 2008

Many thanks to Joachim!

(Average: 8.73 out of 10)

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Tom Noir Comments: Time to see who has the biggest TING!
Published 1990

(Average: 7.40 out of 10)

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Rachel and Thomas Comment: Fun fact! Megalatemeskephalesigakertomesephobia is the actual Greek for the fear that a large decapitated head is silently sneering at you.
Published 2012

(Average: 7.82 out of 10)

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Tom Noir’s Art Direction: I brought in my favourite 90’s computer game. Just grab some stills from it and we’re good to go!
Published 2002

(Average: 8.37 out of 10)

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Good Show Sir Comments: Nothing says, “classic” like a good ol’ shiny cover! Baen, you never fail to impress! I hope you never change.
Published 2001

Many thanks to Rachel and Thomas!

(Average: 8.35 out of 10)

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Tom Noir Comments: Oh, I wouldn’t be so sure about THAT.
Published 1990

(Average: 6.93 out of 10)

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Good Show Sir Comments: Look out Jeff, we’ve got a T-Rex… and he doesn’t look impressed with my one-piece body suit.
Published 1975

Many thanks to Erin for sending this in!

(Average: 6.61 out of 10)

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MisterBOB Comments: I imagine if this art was released as a poster, thousands of ten year girls would buy it, because they know that real magic glows, all the time, day or night.
Published 1998

(Average: 7.88 out of 10)

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Yes another year has passed and we have been through a lot. There’s been a overall disappointing 1000th Good Show Sir post, and a few cat people… oh and some real world stuff but who cares about that! I am of course kidding about our special 1000th post, it was excellent, well thought through and certainly wasn’t rushed. I do want to say a special thanks to the Tag Wizard, he’s been a real help over the past year! His skills are excellent and highly sought after so please continue to suggest your own tags to give him more work!

Once again no one has topped the ever strong I Sing the Body Electric, even with Chinese Good Show Sir making web imps to screw around with our delicate voting system.

2014 brings our 5 year anniversary and hopefully we’ll have something fun and actually well thought through! No promises though!

So here are some excellent covers to sum up the year! We’ll be back on Monday 6th Jan 2014 posting as normal, so that’s whenever we can be bothered!

This years top rated cover:

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The second top rated cover:

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The Tag Wizard’s pick of the year:

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And the cover that of spawned the infamous, “The Comments that Came to Sarnath,” incident!

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(Average: 8.42 out of 10)

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Have you ever picked up a book and thought, “WOW… who gave that cover the green light?” or “I would LOVE to be seen reading this on a bus!” That’s what lay behind the formation of this site. 1,000 posts later and here we are with three of your top covers, and one that we’ve never published before…

Yes, it’s finally here – and I know at least seven of you have been eagerly awaiting it! Thanks for all your input on The Pre-1000 post. Perhaps, together, we can create something truly beautiful (or at least slightly less shambolic) for Good Show Sir’s 5 year anniversary in March.

The Best of Jim Baen’s Universe I
Eric Flint, David Mattingly
Many of this site’s covers have an amazing quality – one that’ll make you burst out laughing in both admiration and confusion. This example can make grown adults stagger around respectable bookshop interiors, giddy with laughter and half blind with tears. The art is spectacular, the font is special, and there is so, so much happening it could make your mind explode. Would you catch me reading it in public? Well, maybe… but I might have to pretend it belongs to my flatmate.

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Hunters of the Red Moon
Marion Zimmer Bradley, unknown artist
There are so many books that could be mentioned here, so many loved for what’s on the front and contained within. But staying away from the more obvious top rated covers, this one is a particular favourite of a good few (including myself). Having taken the photo and purchased the book immediately, I discovered this: to my joy, it did indeed include a naked man wrestling a lion-man within the very first chapter. No snake or mountain of fire though, but still, a perfect symbiosis of cover and content. Genius.. simply genius!

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Time Spike
Eric Flint, Marilyn Kosmatka, David Mattingly
The following cover, another Baen/Flint/Mattingly classic (GSS editorial impartiality hooo!), has been sent in multiple times as well, even though it was one of the first to be featured. I wonder why? Let me settle into this comfortable armchair I like to call “psychology”. *Ahem* Well, sometimes a significant book cover experience just has to be shared. Through sharing we can gain understanding. Acceptance. An appreciation of an event’s true personal impact. And the knowledge that you can’t really surprise attack a T-Rex by time-travelling into its open jaw.

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Attack of the Rockoids
Steinberg & Steinberg, Michael Cox
<cue epic baritone voiceover> But there has been one special cover, one sent in more than any other! One… that I have yet to post. Mainly because no one has ever sent me a genuine photograph of the book itself, but the same scanned image every time. It’s also self-published, which we tend to avoid — given how hard it’s been to find a publisher for Dr J. R. Asimov’s Good Show Sir quadrilogy, I know the pain.

Please enjoy Terrible Book Cover N 1,000, Attack of the Rockoids.

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Good Show Sir’s Art Direction: You do what I ask, boy? You make that CGI busty women with plenty of sparkles with yer Windows Millenium Edtion?!? Yep… that’ll sell… that’ll sell a lot… now bring me more of that whiskey!
Published 2002

Thanks again for your comments, suggestions, corrections, company and banter. Long may the irritable server ferret Sauron gaze kindly upon us.

And to our top commenter, favourite self-published Swedish indie author, and generally jovial site veteran A.R.Yngve, sitting on 1,469 comments: Well done, Sir… well done!

(Average: 8.57 out of 10)

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