Oct 21
Kristen Comments: Sorry about the poor quality of the shot…in any case, it looks like the designer decided to throw something from EVERY short story in this collection onto the cover. At least I hope so, because if there were also armed dinosaurs, fighter jets, and authors working on home computers on board the Titanic, history books have been holding out on us.
Published 1988
Wow!
Many thanks to Kristen!
October 21st, 2010 at 10:03 am
Bloody hell finally, a disastrous masterpiece that this site is known for!
October 21st, 2010 at 10:05 am
Somebody should make a Titanic-movie out of that cover.
I’d go see it!
October 21st, 2010 at 10:12 am
Elderly Burt Reynolds in the foreground: I salute you!
October 21st, 2010 at 12:22 pm
Everything about this cover screams…. genius!
Please let the dinosaur be remote controlled! I want one!
October 21st, 2010 at 1:31 pm
@Weirdmage: agreed, if James Cameron had made THIS movie it would have been head and shoulders over that Leo DiCaprio disaster!
Key Quote: “I’m king of the AAAAAUUUUUGH!” *gets eaten by a t-rex*
October 21st, 2010 at 5:34 pm
No, that’s Papa Hemmingway and his trusty computer “Bessie”!
October 21st, 2010 at 7:16 pm
And the band played “Nearer My Allosaurus To Thee”…
October 21st, 2010 at 10:08 pm
‘And the band played “Nearer My Allosaurus To Theeâ€â€¦‘
Wins the thread!
October 28th, 2010 at 4:17 pm
You had me at “Dance Band on the Titanic”!
March 17th, 2014 at 1:51 am
A quick look at a better copy of the cover http://www.risingshadow.net/library/book/8302-dance-band-on-the-titanic reveals fresh wonders: a miniature Mississippi riverboat (bottom left) and Papa Hemingway’s keyboard is giving off more light than the screen. It’s also too big to be a conventional type-pad so maybe he’s writing in Pinyin. And pressing trousers with it.
And, let’s face it, in the event of gun-totin’ dinosaurs, Bret Maverick, a bent FI-II, Mitterand having a go at the trumpet and a sky that looks like a volcano’s going off out of shot, my trousers would need laundering.
November 15th, 2022 at 1:27 am
May we admire this cover again? Both the title and the art are classic GSS. Someone wasn’t taking themselves too seriously when they assembled this beauty, and I applaud their effort.
August 7th, 2023 at 8:20 pm
Are they trying to tell us that Harry Turtledove is actually the reincarnation of Ernest Hemingway?
August 7th, 2023 at 9:12 pm
@JJYoyo: I know Harry a bit, and… no. Not even close. Near-opposite personalities, and Harry’s beard is way bigger than Hemingway’s. Also he couldn’t be a reincarnation as they overlapped by several years in space-time.
However, the book is by Jack Chalker, so it might be him at the computer, which makes this “author on the cover”. Although Jack’s hairline had receded by the time his beard was gray.
So we must presume that in one of the stories, Hemingway did get a computer, which he probably broke in a drunken rage, or took a gun to when it blue-screened one time too many. Scared the cats, I’m sure.
August 8th, 2023 at 2:07 am
Speaking of Turtledove, do you think he saw the space dinosaurs on the cover (they don’t appear in this book, which I have) and thought “hey, I have a great idea for a new series!”? [1])
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worldwar_series
August 8th, 2023 at 4:11 am
@GSSxN: Thanks for setting me straight. I just saw the dinosaurs, the hi-tech fighter, and someone vaguely looking like Hemingway, and thought the cover was an alt history of Farewell To Arms. Not that I would read that.
As long as Papa took his frustrations out on the computer and not the poor IT guy, I guess it’s about as good as we can expect.