It has been a while since we’ve had an Honourable Mention post, so following are some of the recent doozies that didn’t meet our strict, fiercely-enforced rules for cover submissions. Enjoy!
Click for larger imageLeah Comments: I know it’s a tie-in, but this is definitely worthy of an Honorable Mention. That lettering is not actually black, it is bright orange metallic foil. I think it says a great deal that the picture is an accurate depiction of the featured aliens.
Click for larger imageLeah Comments: Another Honorable-Mention-worthy tie-in. Working title: ‘Attack of the Fifty-Foot Fop’.
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Joachim Comments: A French cat woman? There’s so much wrong with this cover.
Click for larger imageBibliomancer Comments: I don’t think it’s technically science fiction. But Lordy, is this a bad cover.
(Average: 5.96 out of 10)
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(9.27 out of 10)
June 15th, 2017 at 11:35 am
2 Who should do an anti-smoking arc with 1 and 3, 4 as the companion who didn’t listen and smoked the alien tobacco,
June 15th, 2017 at 11:43 am
1: Poodle rockin’.
2: Looks more like a circus act.
3: Drastically rethinking my opinion of French sophistication.
4: Love Missile F-11?
June 15th, 2017 at 12:04 pm
1. 100th Doctor Who novel? And that’s how you celebrate?
2. The pterodactyl isn’t wrong, just a bit silly looking. So, points for that, I suppose.
3. Perhaps it says more about me than about the cover, but before I twigged to what I was looking at, I thought she was part caterpillar.
4. This is where they got the idea for Strike Witches.
June 15th, 2017 at 12:15 pm
La poussie
June 15th, 2017 at 2:18 pm
First of all, let me describe the cover, for those of you who haven’t seen it (and are there many of you?).
The prosecution rests, m’lud.
June 15th, 2017 at 2:38 pm
1. What part of ‘Paul Magrs’ don’t you get?
2. They only had eight reference photos of Paul McGann to use. It’s not like he’s a proper Doctor. Keeping the comic-strip going for nine years was a nightmare (so they gave up and got Dalek voice-actor Nick Briggs to stand in as yet another ninth Doctor for a year).
3. The US cover http://www.ebay.com/itm/Galaxy-Magazine-November-1975-/302341055820 shows a woman with a tail as well. The featured story is ‘Love Conquers All’ by Fred Saberhagen. The covers are massively better than the book.
4. It counts as SF is the Nebula Awards 1973 are any guide. Fans of this tried to block Heinelin’s ‘Time Enough for Love’ and vice versa: result – so Rendezvous with Rama won.
June 15th, 2017 at 3:05 pm
I agree with Tat @6. Thomas Pynchon, Kurt Vonnegut and Walter M. Miller filled a niche in mid- to late-20th Century circles for books that were science fiction but respectable enough to be considered ‘literature’, i.e., suitable for discussion at social events, could be assigned to the lads and lassies in school without anyone turning up their nose, etc. IMNSHO, the fallout from the Tolkien renaissance has been that fantasy is receiving more respect as a literary genre.But I’m not so sure about why science fiction seems to be more acceptable these days. Riding LotR’s coattails? Modern technology catching up with futurism? Anyone else have thoughts?
June 15th, 2017 at 4:09 pm
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/18/09/5c/18095c11618548e361d3449b80f5cb29.jpg
June 15th, 2017 at 5:35 pm
1. A bright pink poodle with human hands, smoking and holding a revolver. And it’s FROM SPACE! no less.
2. Is the Doctor attempting to imitate the Little Prince there? Although he has a zoo and pyramids, as well.
3. Madame Chat should perhaps lay off on the hookah smoking and get herself some clothes, yes?
4. If that’s supposed to be a rocket, it’s failing. Where are the tailfins? (without tailfins, it’s gonna crash horribly)
June 15th, 2017 at 6:00 pm
Dog with man hands sniffs another dog’s bottom and then types out an online review.
Dog with man hands gives you a welcome home kiss and then pats you on the back.
Dog with man hands brings you your slippers, but not in his mouth.
Dog with man hands COLD CLOCKS the neighbours’ cat.
Dog with man hands learns how to sign ‘walkies’.
June 15th, 2017 at 8:54 pm
Seriously? No one’s mentioned my bedspread yet? (Visible in photo 2)
June 15th, 2017 at 9:39 pm
@Leah: That’s your bedspread? You’re much shorter than I assumed!
June 15th, 2017 at 10:36 pm
Yeah. Short stuff, that’s me. But seriously, I saw a sheet set and comforter with bright orange flowers on a blue background in a store and just HAD to have it.
June 15th, 2017 at 11:08 pm
Goodness, that’s perfectly normal behaviour. That’s almost verbatim how my wife came into her favourite jumper.
June 16th, 2017 at 1:08 am
Here’s the pattern, without the book in the way, in case anyone wanted to see it in its full, eye-watering glory: http://s438.photobucket.com/user/firestarchild/media/New/HPIM0687.jpg.html?sort=3&o=0
June 16th, 2017 at 2:24 am
1. I wish the orange foil had photographed so we could truly appreciate the contrast with the murderous pink poodle. From DSWBT’s link, I would actually read it but only if it was free.
2. Would have been better without the pterodactyl, which is the opposite of usual. Almost everything’s better with. Not this. The Little Galleyfrean Prince.
3. I clicked through, and regretted it. Le Mouton d’Espace is covering many sins there, not just the usual. This reminds me that France thinks Jerry Lewis is sophisticated.
4. This is SF, of the sort that won’t admit it so it can pretend to be lit’rary. Still got a Nebula nomination. I would have ruled it suitable for a regular post. Also, being as it’s about V-2 rockets… Nazi porn?
June 16th, 2017 at 2:58 am
Fun fact: The Eighth Doctor (the fop on cover #2) once forgot that underwear goes beneath trousers. He wore question-mark boxers.
June 16th, 2017 at 3:55 am
@GSSxN: I hate to be always correcting you but that stuff about the French liking Jerry Lewis is complete nonsense, put about by Americans. I lived in France long enough to ask people about this and most of them hadn’t heard of him, the rest thought he was all right when redubbed but annoying in VO..
June 16th, 2017 at 7:40 am
@Tat: Apparently the younger French have much better taste. Their parents and grandparents didn’t — Cahiers du Cinema raved over him. Maybe they should have been fans of whoever did the dubbing. But they did love him from the late 50’s — mid 70’s, and some of them still do. Sorry to correct you!
Nothing explains why Germans loved David Hasselhoff’s singing.
June 16th, 2017 at 8:09 am
I actually thought the title of the first book was “Dr. Poo.”
June 16th, 2017 at 11:27 am
@GSS, Tat: On a related note…about a decade ago now, my parents were in Paris, and my father asked to go to the record shop to buy Edith Piaf on compact disc. His hosts gave him a look like he had lobsters crawling out his ears. ‘Oui, je regrette tout’ indeed.
June 16th, 2017 at 6:34 pm
(tried to post this last night but got moderated, then apparently obliterated)
RE: Gravity’s Rainbow—I don’t usually like to talk about the books themselves, but GR transcends genre categories. It is as much a cartoon, a philosophical argument, an epic, an allegorical quest narrative as science fiction. Stylistically it’s also magical realism, satire, mystical, noir, realistic, etc etc etc. It split the National Book Award panel so deeply in 1973 that they gave no prize that year. It’s categorically different from the books we play with here.
The cover of the original Viking edition is quite quite beautiful.
As for this cover, suffice it to say that Picador is, via Macmillan, a holding of “Holtzbrinck Publishing Group, a privately-held Stuttgart-based company which owns publishing companies worldwide.” (Wikipedia) So who else would want to slime this novel with such a cover, you might well ask . . . .
W.A.S.T.E.
June 16th, 2017 at 6:38 pm
@GSS Admin—Why is my GR comment getting moderated? Does it offend in some way? Just curious.
June 16th, 2017 at 9:08 pm
@BC – Your one comment went to moderation because you added another word to your user name. The other comment went to moderation because your email address was misspelled. The comments seemed the same so I just cleared one and deleted the other.
June 17th, 2017 at 1:45 am
@Tag Wiz—thank you, good sir, for the reply. My bad all around, apparently.