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Aug 04

Good god, there's a small planet above that building!Click for full image

Deborah Comments: Actually I think this is quite good, apart from the woman being none of the central characters – Heris is black, Lady Cecilia’s a redhead, Bubbles is blonde. But the COLORS are a little unsubtle!
Published 1995

Click here for the previous Winning Colours cover.
Many thanks to Deborah!

Actually, that cover IS a classical work of art!I would touch it without protective gloves.I've seen worse. Far, far, worse.Interesting, but I would still read it in public.Middlng: Neither awful nor awfully goodWould not like to be seen reading that!Awful... just awful...That belongs in a gold-lame picture frame!Gah... my eyes are burning! Feels so good!Good Show Sir! (Average: 5.40 out of 10)
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17 Responses to “Winning Colours 2”

  1. cutmanmike Says:

    Far better than the original submission. Like, galaxies better. The horse could do with being a robot horse or something though.

  2. anon Says:

    The previous cover had a nice SAAB feel to it – even though the execution was crap. This one.. I don’t know. Which one is more accurate wrt the contents?

    What’s with all the low-tech stuff in scifi nowadays?
    I mean, in many books, the only thing that is “scifi” is the obligatory space ship or that it all happens on some other planet.

  3. SI Says:

    This cover has epic proportions. Is that planet hovering just above the city?

    You know what could have improved this though?

    A unicorn.

  4. SophaLoaf Says:

    SI> True, that would do just the job. But its still doesn’t tells us how a game of polo will save the day.

  5. Parker Says:

    “Quick! We’ll have to ride faster to catch up with that space ship. Think you can jump up into that hanger bay?”

  6. Phil Says:

    SI: a unicorn? Maybe. Better still: a pegasus! That way she could fly amongst those…strange flying pod things…on their way to the unfeasibly low-orbiting mothership.

  7. Jose @ Daemon's Says:

    Agree that a pegasus would be awesome, but this needs a rainbow or better yet a double rainbow in the background.

  8. SI Says:

    Jose> Double rainbow omg! But, what does it mean?

  9. Deborah Says:

    SI – yah, okay, the planet hovering in view is rawther disproportionately large, but I guess the artist was told to make it clear it’s not just a moon, it’s another habitable planet, i.e. we’re not in our solar system.

    anon – it’s not all low tech – this book includes bioengineering, cloning & the rights of clones, rejuvenation/anti-ageing processes & consequent social changes, standard SF communications technology, smart desks, diagnosis & treatment via medi-beds, cool things like sonic showers (gets you clean, saves you time!), some good space-opera battle scenes, on-ship environmental systems and super-advanced scan technology (not that the latter is explained in detail, but it sounds convincing in this context).

    SophaLoaf and Parker – the horses aren’t pivotal to the plot in this book, but they are in other books in this series, e.g. when the bad guys are hunting the good guys on-planet, and for physiotherapy for a severely disabled character.

    cutmanmike, the actual horse is true to the book – there are robot horses that Lady Cecilia uses for training/keeping in shape while on her spaceship, but flesh & blood horses are a focal point of the series – rich people breed them, ride them, buy & sell them, keep them on their planets (‘their’ in the sense of a family owning a planet).

    double rainbow all across the sky – no argument with that!

  10. Stevie Says:

    It’s so typical: this gender discrimination in sci-fi. On the other hand, the woman on the cover is fully dressed…

  11. A.R.Yngve Says:

    “But the COLORS are a little unsubtle!”

    For Baen Books, this IS subtle.

  12. A.R.Yngve Says:

    Cover recycled from BLACK BEAUTY AND THE HORSEMEN FROM ARCTURUS.

  13. Dead Stuff With Big Teeth Says:

    ‘I tried to draw a phallic space ship and…I can’t. I’m sorry.’

    ‘Give it another go, my boy. Why not position two little drop ships underneath the main craft? And one a little bit lower than the other.’

    ‘*whine*’

  14. Jaouad Says:

    My God. Trust Baen to make the obvious… more obvious.

    “This book’s title is Winning Colors. Let’s do the title in… wait for it… ALL DIFFERENT COLORS!”
    “Brilliant! I’ll get my two-year old’s box of crayons. There’s a lot of colors in there. Except for pink, because she really loves drawing pink unicorns.”

  15. Hammy Says:

    I feel sorry for the horse, smacking its head on that spaceship….

  16. Emster Says:

    Question 1 – What did @Hammy find in the GSS archives? Ohhhhh…. goldmine!
    Question 2 – Does Emster not have anything better to do this week? (Answer: define “anything better to do”)

    Equal credit to @Hammy and @Jauoad, apologies to Cindy Lauper:

    Back in ’09, GSS posted Cover number 1
    And we all had fun
    The font was real simple, nothing to make that much fun of
    But the images, kinda had us all stunned

    Chorus:
    And then came Winning Colours, Cover 2
    It is still Winning Colours, by Elizabeth Moon
    Why did they change the font, to all those hues?
    The font’s now ev’ry colour, a crayon box of colours
    Now we mock both covers – at Sir, Good Show

    So in 2010, Deb’rah discovered Cover number 2
    Images are still space-faring
    It’s got worlds and spaceships, and Liz writes about space ponies too
    Nice artistic detail, but then that darn font…

    Chorus…
    (hum chorus quietly to yourself or sing loudly to weird out family members)

  17. GSS ex-noob Says:

    Theoretically, we all have “better” things to do, but commenting on GSS is good fun and an escape from the increasingly-terrible world we got here, so…

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