Feb 01
Click for full imageAmy Comments: I will admit, I have not read these stories, so the cover may make a lot of sense if one has, but I haven’t so what the hell, anyway? We’ve got a mouse/rabbit/robocop creature of blue blood, who is apparently either surrendering to the beplumed armored dude stabbing him/her in the gut. That, or they’re about to kiss, I can’t tell. And is that supposed to be a maple leaf on his shield, because if it is, I think that tree is growing too close to Chernobyl.
Published 1964
Many thanks to Amy!
(Average: 6.93 out of 10)
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February 1st, 2011 at 9:03 am
What I learned from this cover:
Canadian knights thought nothing of stabbing surrendering rats.
-Although I must assume by the mustache and the blue and white on the shield, that the knight is from Quebec, and probably French-Canadian…
February 1st, 2011 at 9:12 am
I have decided it IS a mouse (or rat; damn, that means I HAVEN’T decided at all). He happens to be wearing a helmet which has rabbit ears. For some reason.
If only mouse-rat-rabbit had not put his hand in the air, he could have grabbed the gun from his pink holster and pre-emptively shot the Canadian knight before he got to his sword.
February 1st, 2011 at 10:37 am
“Lancer Science-Fiction Library — For All You Rat-Lancing Needs.”
February 1st, 2011 at 10:58 am
So “logically wacky” is like “illogically sane”?
February 1st, 2011 at 11:14 am
“Whew! just in the nick of time,” thought Sir Rule, as his right wrist was bent at a right angle and the rodent Divide’s last gasp came from a hare’s breath (ha!) of his face.
I suppose Divide is the fellow on the left who is being rent asunder, and Rule is the gent on the right who’s taken the moral imperative to do the rending.
Or maybe one’s Topsy and one’s Turvy?
February 1st, 2011 at 11:27 am
“Well, I may have stabbed you but on closer inspection you are in fact NOT the rat that stole my cheese.”
February 1st, 2011 at 12:00 pm
Sing along, everybody:
O Canada, our home and native land
Give’em the works
Stab every rat you can!…
February 1st, 2011 at 12:53 pm
Love the motto
February 1st, 2011 at 8:27 pm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divide_and_Rule_(collection)
Looks like the Canadian knight is from the story “Divide and Rule” and the rodent is from “The Stolen Dormouse”.
February 1st, 2011 at 8:29 pm
Oh, and http://www.amazon.com/Divide-Rule-L-Sprague-Camp/dp/B000V87S7Y has plot summaries. The dormouse is not a literal uplifted critter, it’s just a human in suspended animation.
February 1st, 2011 at 9:45 pm
What the cover really needs is to be Perma-Bound!
February 2nd, 2011 at 12:03 am
The knight says,” Here are the works rat, eh?” Thanks for the Perma-Bound reference.
February 2nd, 2011 at 7:08 pm
I love this cover. Excellent use of unusual font to actually match the theme and tone of the of the cover. Who knew French Canadiens had a history as medieval knights? plus “logically wacky” is a delicious blurb. I am going to use it all day.
February 7th, 2011 at 3:51 pm
“Take THAT, Surrender Mouse!”
“I SURRENDER!”
“I knew you’d say that!”
February 8th, 2011 at 8:49 pm
Ouch! 😉
July 5th, 2012 at 1:24 am
This looks like an early storyboard for Pixar’s “Our Friend the Rat”. Y’know, the part where the rats are run out of Alberta….
January 11th, 2016 at 11:10 pm
Ratty brought a gun to a sword-fight.
March 14th, 2016 at 11:25 pm
Ah, yes. The knight on the cover is Sir Howard Van Slyck, younger son of the Duke of Poughkeepsie; the Duke’s motto is indeed “Give ’em the works”, and Howard has his “seal” including the motto and a maple leaf painted on his plastron.
Interstellar invaders have imposed a Medieval-Europe-style feudalism on the population to keep them from banding together to overthrow the invaders; Sir Howard’s knight-errant quests lead him to a plot to overthrow the invaders.
Nice details in the novella – the NYRR still exists, but the train cars are pulled by elephants, as I recall – been years since I read the thing.
Wacky cover, though….