Dec 23
It’s that time of year again, meaning turkey, festive ham, chocolate, hot chocolate, chocolate ice cream, chocolate in some sort of pastry, more ham and stuffing!
So for all you people, like me, still having to brave the Christmas shops and regretting not ordering everything online, here is the Christmas mega post! A mix of things here, a couple of honourable mentions too!
Have a great holiday and we’ll be back in the new year with an Old Year SumUP!
December 23rd, 2016 at 12:20 pm
Ah, an embarrassment of Christmas riches! A true embarrassment.
1: “No, you can’t sit on top of the tree. Either of you.”
2: “I didn’t recognise you with the beard.”
3: Makes a change from turkey.
4: Santa ready to empty his sack.
5: Sentimentalist.
6: Have too many sprouts and you start turning into one.
Compliments of the season to one and all…
December 23rd, 2016 at 2:34 pm
2: Shouldn’t this four armed Santa be in #6 with John Carter?
December 23rd, 2016 at 2:52 pm
I’m dying, this so great.
1. What makes it Modernia? The Eames chair, of course
2. “ho-ho-HOLY CRAP! A robot took my job! Damn you, Trump!”
3. I just love this cover 🙂
4. Santa’s rocket full of joy is headed strait for your chimney!
5. Someone always ends up dead after a Yankee swap.
6. “Mars needs Santa, and fresh beers for our beer hats”
December 23rd, 2016 at 3:01 pm
Ho-Ho-Ho! GSS Admin left me six presents for Xmas but didn’t put any tags on them. 🙁
I’m supposed to be on vacation, so help me out and tag them. I’ll add them when I get back!
December 23rd, 2016 at 4:18 pm
1. I want to grow up and be just like mommy.
Tags: robots, damsel, tasteful smoke.
December 23rd, 2016 at 4:23 pm
On the twelfth day of Christmas, the admins gave to me…
…twelve dudes BEHIND YOU!
…eleven hunks a-butting
…ten fonts a-problem
…nine devil’s dumplings
…eight catty damsels
…seven CS Lewis
…six, once you see it
…five golden TINGS!
…four UNICORNS!
…three robots
…Harry Turtledove
…and a Jim Baen with a Space Sheep!
December 23rd, 2016 at 5:17 pm
@ Dead Stuff: Good Show all round but NINE? An even number is more traditional.
Perhaps you were trying to avoid ‘Eight Maids a-Milking’.
December 23rd, 2016 at 5:53 pm
1. Remember ‘Logan’s Run’? Remember ‘Muppet Babies’? This is what a crossover episode would have been like. With six year old Jenny Agutter starting her career as she means to go on.
December 23rd, 2016 at 6:12 pm
@Tat: Congratulations, good sir! You have discovered The Joke™. Guard it carefully, everyone wants to find one. 😉
December 23rd, 2016 at 6:16 pm
3. ‘You know how to carol, don’t you, Steve? You just jingle your bells, and fa la la la la.’
December 24th, 2016 at 8:46 am
2. An unreleased Futurama episode dealing with the origin of Robot Santa I presume?
3. I suppose if you’re a strict vegan then the Christmas Turkey is “A corpse for Christmas”. Yeah, I’ve heard worse comments across the dinner table when all the family gets together.
6. This is a comic book based on the 1964 movie of the same name (using a screenshot for the cover art). Given what they had to work with, I’ll give this one a pass with only one point deducted for existing at all..
December 24th, 2016 at 12:24 pm
2. At least Santa was forewarned
3. Keep smoking at that rate and you will be
4. Those eyes of Santa’s helper suggest drugs
5. What about after Christmas?
December 24th, 2016 at 5:55 pm
I’m fairly sure that the cadaver in 5 is Santa’s helper in 4. Mysterious…
December 25th, 2016 at 5:37 am
(1) So in Modernia, all the women are naked (Honestly, that girl’s old enough to need pants, esp. in winter). But the men are fully clothed. No surprise there, eh?
(2) Mutant Santa isn’t allowed to give presents to robots/computers? Discrimination!
(3) Probably got her negligee soaked in cheap hooch and set it on fire with the cig when she passed out.
(4) Guess the reindeer can’t handle space, so Santa and his… “friend” have to use the, erm… can I just say my thoughts were of Spinrad’s “The Great Space F”?
(5) Later, the author became famous for his pet food — it paid much better.
(6) And speaking of girls who’d be nekkid in the future, co-starring Pia Zadora.
@DSWBT: Bravo! A delightful GSS carol! Last 2 lines esp. good. Also, now the city editor in 5 has a prime suspect.
@Dave M: I’d be interested if that was it in 2.
Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah or whatnot to all. I’m digesting some truly amazing prime rib but must remain vertical long enough to bake a red velvet cake for tomorrow’s continuation of festivities. And recover from that in time for New year’s.
Thanks for the welcome into the group. Luckily I have plenty of archives to go through till new covers appear.
@TW: no pants dance, robots, computer, damsel, Behind you (robot and corpse both).
December 26th, 2016 at 6:06 pm
For “A Trip to Outer Space with Santa,” I like trying to imagine the state of mind of the person who inscribed the title letters inside the cover title with a ballpoint pen, then scribbled over the insert box, and then, in a final touching gesture, seems to have jabbed Santa in the eye.
December 26th, 2016 at 6:15 pm
Also, according to the technical manual for Santa’s rocket, that model has only three joysticks on the control panel. So what’s Santa holding in his right hand? Oh, wait, never mind . . . just check out the Elf’s expression.
Thanks for the Xmas feast, Admin. Health and cheer to all!
December 27th, 2016 at 1:43 am
@2: Four armed Space-Santa was a Thing with Galaxy magazine for some years.
https://www.google.com/search?q=galaxy+magazine+space+santa&biw=1280&bih=653&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjIh9SjnpPRAhXBw1QKHXDnDvEQ_AUIBygC
1. Great-grandpa was a bit of an embarrassment to the rest of the family: besides insisting on wearing clothes all the time, he’d always bore visitors with long rambling tales on how he lost most of his original body parts over the years.
December 28th, 2016 at 2:21 pm
@DSTWBT
Nice spot. The green cap had me totally fooled. Damn this face-blindness.
@B. Chiclitz
Considering that this is in all probability four-armed Space Santa (he’s in space, duh) the questions just multiply.
December 29th, 2016 at 1:57 am
Admin, Tag Wizard, whoever:
I got kind of a lot of photos today (So shiny BAEN! Niven! A romantic trilogy with cat people!). Do you prefer them in separate emails, or in one stonking huge lump of horror?
December 29th, 2016 at 11:48 pm
(cont.)
I was browsing through Half Price Books (everything 20% off this week!), puttering down the sci-fi aisle when I saw a huge wodge of John Ringo. OH JOHN RINGO NO, I sez to myself, and then “Oooh, GSS fodder!” After that, it was off to David Weber, and then a few others and then I had to stop as people were looking at me funny. Sadly, several of the photos suffer from the common problem of looking black where the cover was Oh So Shiny BAEN silver. I have a very cheap cell phone.
(I ended up buying an Aliette de Bodard compilation, which had a cover painting that completely correctly illustrates the main character and his city, with no garish colors.)
Ooh, I took 9 photos and only 2 of them have been used here! 77% usable for submission!
December 30th, 2016 at 10:55 pm
Right, well, I’ve sent them all in, now to wait a couple years for them to appear.
January 1st, 2017 at 10:48 pm
@Admin: Just realized that the address I sent them from may cause them to show up in your spam mailbox. It’s me, honest. Just look for the Baenanity.
January 3rd, 2017 at 10:13 am
What strikes me with all these covers is that in the future, apparently all Xmas presents are disappointing.
“A doll and a ball?? But I wanted an XBox! Waaahh!!“
January 3rd, 2017 at 1:24 pm
@A.R.Yngve—funny, I got a doll and a ball on Xmas morning and I was, overall, quite happy with it.
Happy New Year, GSS!
January 3rd, 2017 at 6:22 pm
No wonder the little girl is disappointed. If ever a child wanted clothes instead of toys for Christmas, it was her.
January 3rd, 2017 at 6:25 pm
I, Dead Stuff With Big Teeth, do hereby resolve for 2017:
…to exercise more, especially taking breaks in the workday
…to eat less, especially snacks
…to call people dressed up in anime costumes ‘fancy dress ballers’ rather than ‘cosplayers’.
January 4th, 2017 at 9:05 am
– “Astro Games”: We put one crewmember in the airlock, hide the key somewhere in his clothes and give him one minute to find it before we let the air out. Great space-fun!
– “Space Tricks”: Err, don’t ask.
– “Planet Puzzles”: A puzzle with round holes where you fit the planet pieces. Not that much fun, really. (Saturn is DEAD EASY.)
January 5th, 2017 at 1:26 pm
A little late to the game but loving the comments as well as the covers. Especially DSWBT’s take on ‘Twelve Days of Xmas’. Beautiful!
January 5th, 2017 at 2:42 pm
@LB: you make me blush to my bones. 🙂
January 5th, 2017 at 10:27 pm
Day 19 of the GSS holiday. Still no new covers posted. Feral neighbors prowl this streets of my gated community, looking for bad covers to plunder. At night, gangs of vandals appear, armed and wearing tshirts with ugly fonts. I lock myself and my family in the basement for protection. I don’t sleep. I just wait, cradling my shotgun and stairing at the naked, flickering lightbulb above me, waiting for dawn to come.
January 6th, 2017 at 4:28 am
Ooo-err, Tom Noir’s writing noir apocalyptic fiction right here.
Be strong! I hope you took the canned goods into the basement with you! Burn the Baen for warmth.
January 6th, 2017 at 1:25 pm
@Tom: doesn’t bother me in the least, I’ve been at Mother’s for the holidays.
🙂
😐
🙁
If I show up at your place with tinned beans, will you let me in or will you shoot me twice?
January 6th, 2017 at 3:57 pm
A small story of a small town in a small country on a small world, a story of greed, fear, tinned beans and the dark heart of humanity, a dark heart usually kept well hidden, but sometimes revealed in all its horror, standing naked and trembling in the glaring light of . . . the GSS Zone.
January 6th, 2017 at 4:13 pm
It’s a tale of a dystopian world where good taste prevails and bad fantasy art never brightens the dreary paths of the internet. Where hack artists and nefarious art directors are an impossibility. A waking nightmare in which human anatomy is respected, the rules of 3 point perceptive are enforced, and cats never suffer the indignity of anthropomorphism. Don’t be careful, because there is nothing behind you!
January 7th, 2017 at 1:47 am
Day 43. A stranger approached the house today. How he got through the barbed wire and the IEDs I’m not sure. He had a funny accent and he was waving a tin of meat. I think he might have been British.
It was an obvious trap. He had heard about my juicy stockpile of covers and was coming for them. I set the dogs on him. He dropped the tin and fled.
We ate well that night.