Good Show Sir

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Hex Comments: The guy on the left is a sort of expert undercover first contact agent, whose job is to alter the course of developing cultures on newly-discovered worlds to suit the needs of Earth. How he manages to do it while being chafed by that jockstrap I will never understand. Sometimes I gaze at the Yeti in a jumper while I try to figure it out.

Incidentally, this book is spattered with grimly bad black and white illustrations that completely contradict the style of the cover. Nice work, Ace!

Excellent! Thanks Hex!

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Richard’s Art Direction: Ok, I want the devil playing chess on a life-size board with warriors from different periods of history.  Don’t forget to throw in a few other random characters, at least one man must clad in leather and a scarf and find a spot for a woman in a bathing suit with a parasol.  Then make it from the perspective of an opposing chess piece.  Yeah, those should all come together nicely.

Excellent! Thanks to Richard!

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Jeff’s Art Direction: First off, what do you think of when I say “Dreams of Steel?” Did you immediately think of a partially leather-clad dagger wielding S&M addict conjuring a pig-dog-reptile thing from out of a rainbow? You did!? Oh, and I guess we better stick something on the cover relating to the story… like a Black Company shield on the pillar. Perfect!

Amazing! Thanks Jeff!

Well it’s reached that time again were here in the UK we are blessed with bank holidays!  So for those like myself who will be relaxing with an extra long weekend, here are some honourable mentions.

These covers break our explicit and hard kept rules, which are enforced with an iron fist. These are part of a franchise (this time of adventure choice novels), but nonetheless each of them sports an excellent cover so I hope you enjoy them.

Also just to say thanks to everyone who has been sending me in covers! We’ll slowly get through them all so keep an eye out and I promise they will appear at some stage.

Have a great weekend for those benefiting from it!

To face the evil rabbit turn to page 8
To run away turn to page 57

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Eron Comments: While my girlfriend was like “Hey! I own that book!” it’s pretty hard to argue with a half-naked man fencing an immensely bored looking black unicorn. Also, while I am assured by said girlfriend that it has something to do with the story, the man’s blue hat is epic.

Leo Comments: If I were to sword fight with a unicorn, I would probably have my shirt off too.

Many thanks to Eron and Leo who both sent this in!

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Harry Comments: According to the author, this cover was commissioned for another book but somehow ended up on hers. It’s very loosely appropriate: there is a sword, and there is a hero, but he is quite explicitly gay.

Superb! Thanks Harry!

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Remember when you used to dress up in black clothes, paint red eyes on your hoodie, stand with a knife and pretend to sacrifice your little brother to an evil spirit just to gain some physical power that will, in the end, only destroy you? No? Well you haven’t lived man! Now, let’s put that on there.

These collections of books were submitted by Eron Rauch. Thanks to Eron for making my day full of Icelandic volcano ash that little bit easier! Check out Eron’s site www.eronrauch.com which shows off some of his great photography, some of it also brilliantly nerdy!

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Eron Comments: The first of three in this series. I mean, how else do I explain it more than the title “Camelot in Orbit”, except I don’t really understand logic of the title, since they seem to be on another planet. I guess technically that planets are in orbit, but that’s rather redundant. Also, King Arthur seems to be riding a beaked dinosaur that is so pathetic that He-Man would be caught near it. I mentioned that before right? A fecking armored dinosaur.

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Eron Comments: The second in the series, I think, I mean it’s hard for me to care really, but this cover is passably bad until you notice the creepy-as-sin inbred ewok/mogwai knock-off sitting just to the bottom left of the girl. Staring. Into your soul with hollow black eyes. Seriously the stuff of nightmares.

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Eron Comments: The third in this utterly original series. Which features “Magick” with the added “k” which must mean serious fantasy is about to be had! In addition, we get a phenomenal rendering of the back of some random knight and a severely constipated dragon trying desperately to crap himself in terror at the War of the Worlds spaceship blowing the hell our of it’s castle with a laser that comes from nowhere.

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Well I am thinking, man in miniskirt stands in the background with a very large sword. Then we’ll have a man standing in the foreground thrusting his sword from his pelvis as he furiously… well. Lets just say he looks furious, the destroyed viewers’ minds will do the rest.

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Women love their horses and I’m pretty sure everyone grows up wanting that pony all their life. So that’s what we’ll give ‘em. Except give the horse a certain quality, an almost surprised expression as he stares off into the vast distance. And give the L&D letters of the title a black fill. I can’t see that one back-firing.