Feb 18
Click for larger imageZoom in to further enjoy Fire Dancer, Dancer’s Luck, and Dancer’s Illusion!
Good Show Sir Comments: One of our little birds sent us a link to the Smart Bitches Trashy Books blog from a few years past, wallowing in the glory of terrible Ann Maxwell book covers. We’ve skewered a few in the past such as this one, and this one. This Signet series of “Dancer Series” covers has us doffing out hat and saying Good Show Sir! Good show, indeed.
Sadly, all three covers are by a graduate of the Unknown Artist Institute, as per isfdb.org.
Published 1982, 1983
(Average: 2.95 out of 10)
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(9.25 out of 10)
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February 18th, 2020 at 9:37 am
1: She’s doing that thing where you reflect the sunlight off the face of your watch into some hapless victim’s eyes.
2: Most people just take a rubber ball to throw.
3: Ecstasy? That explains it.
February 18th, 2020 at 11:16 am
This pair do everything naked, including dog-walking. Heinlein approves. Did their clothes burn off in the fiery destruction?
February 18th, 2020 at 11:27 am
The lengths some people will go to not to have to draw hands.
February 18th, 2020 at 3:45 pm
From his point of view he is probably assuming he is on Vallejo covers.
February 18th, 2020 at 6:54 pm
@Francis: Or feet.
February 18th, 2020 at 7:12 pm
I’m usually annoyed by books with ‘a novel’ on, as they are rarely likely to be mistaken for a Haines Manual or a street-map of Leeds, but the rather needy ‘a science fiction novel’ under each of these Rainbow Brite paintings is endearing.
But it’s necessary because she put out so much in so many categories. Lots and lots of romances (paranormal and other), bonkbusters and thrillers, as well as this series and other mechanically-recovered SF product. https://www.fantasticfiction.com/m/ann-maxwell/ https://www.fictiondb.com/author/ann-maxwell~5003.htm. Maybe these covrs were a warning for anyone who saw the author name and was expecting something more like Barbara Taylor-Bradford.
February 18th, 2020 at 7:51 pm
And be sure to read the Rev. Spooner’s trilogy: Dire Fancer, Lancer’s Duck and Answer’s Delusion.
February 18th, 2020 at 8:50 pm
They messed up the blurb on cover # 3. It should read, On a world where nothing is what it seems, can ecstasy be the deadliest trap of all? in keeping with the pattern of mind-crushing rhetorical questions we see on covers 1 and 2.
February 18th, 2020 at 10:43 pm
GSS, @Tor Mented.
“Were they the last survivors of their planet’s blazing doom?”
Well, it depends: were the other inhabitants also able to stand around striking poses in the middle of an actual fire?
So she’s wearing cling wrap in the first two covers? Or is it just the world’s worst case of varicose veins?
Dancing, shooting lasers or blinding lights out of her hands, ecstacy (a common dance party drug): she’s actually Dazzler from Marvel and I want my $20.
Apparently the Planet of Illusion has a dress code: she’s wearing an opaque wrap over the cling wrap and Naked Backup Dancer Guy has obtained a shoulder pad.
February 18th, 2020 at 11:42 pm
@Bruce: GSS to it all.
She might also be Jem sans The Holograms, or perhaps more appropriately, a Sky Dancer after losing most of her clothes and all of her child-injuring wings. With a Ken doll who’s also lost his clothes. And some random dogs.
@BC: True. In addition, the font colors are reversed, which makes it look further non-matching. Must have had a turnover in the layout department.
February 19th, 2020 at 5:13 am
@GSS ex-noob: thanks!
“Had they escaped their planet’s destruction only to seal another world’s fate?”
So, Dancer’s Luck – really, really bad?
Lady, a tip on accessories: having a pack of savage-looking dogs with spike-covered armor conveys a message, and it’s not “we’re the good guys!”
February 19th, 2020 at 8:35 am
@Tat Wood mentioned “bonkbusters” (a hilarious word :-)) – what’s that?
February 19th, 2020 at 8:37 am
Speaking of dancers, why isn’t there a hip hop-based series of skiffy books?
BREAKDANCER’S QUEST
BREAKDANCERS AT THE EDGE OF TIME
A DEAD GOD BREAKDANCING
February 19th, 2020 at 9:20 am
@ARY: Bonkbusters are what British readers call the hugely popular sex and gossip-filled books typically written by the likes of Jackie Collins or Jilly Cooper, among many others. “Bonk” being an 80s tabloid slang word for the sexual act, which they couldn’t get away with mentioning in their pages in franker terms.
February 20th, 2020 at 1:32 am
@Tat: I figured that out all by myself once I realized it was a portmanteau of “bonk” and “blockbusters”. I suspect Ann’s didn’t sell nearly as many as Jackie’s and Jilly’s, though. Or Jacqueline Susann. She should have picked a name beginning with J, I guess.
(I was looking up Jilly’s oeuvre and comparing it to Jackie’s — somehow horse riding in the Cotswolds doesn’t seem as glamorous and bonk-provoking as Hollywood or Vegas.)
February 21st, 2020 at 4:34 am
@THX I was going to mention feet but at this point ground-hugging space fog is so commonplace I imagine it sort of gets an automatic pass at the UAI. Indeed they probably have a module – “Fog, Tentacles and Other Emanations: 101 ways to hide things you can’t, or aren’t allowed to, draw.