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Apr 17

A great day... everywhere... for men without nipples. Click for full image

DPN Comments: Finding a bad Baen cover is like shooting fish in a barrel, while standing on a pile of corpses as the city explodes behind you, illuminating your massive pecs.
Published 2013

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: 7.52 out of 10)
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59 Responses to “A Few Good Men”

  1. THX 1138 Says:

    AAAMURRICAAA! YEAH! HURGH! Um… are there any places left to get a capuccino?

  2. SeriesFive Says:

    ‘Men without Nipples’
    ‘The Nippelless Brigade’

    and don’t forget the last part of the trilogy:

    ‘Return of the Nipples’

  3. Jaouad Says:

    “… the reader will reach escape velocity.” Sadly, though, not fast enough to escape from the gravitational pull of his pecs.

  4. L.B. Says:

    His pecs can’t handle the truth!

  5. Bibliomancer Says:

    The font placement explains all. That is a (transgen) Sarah A. Hoyt standing on top of dead pile of A Few Good Men.

    “Yippee-ki-yay …!”

  6. Tom Noir Says:

    Watch out pec-man, I don’t think that dude with the gun at the bottom right is quite dead yet…

  7. JuanPaul Says:

    I’m starting to think that there needs to be a “RAAAARRRRR!!!” tag or something like that.

  8. Rags Says:

    @ Tom Noir – guy at the bottom is in some sort of sexually charged trance, due to the glory that is pec man and his abundant groin region. Somebody stuffed a canoe down there!!

  9. A.R.Yngve Says:

    “Damn you, giant author logo! I’m still alive, y’hear?”

  10. Tat Wood Says:

    The gripping story of how one Action Man figure broke free. Pull the ring on his back to hear him perform power-ballads from the 90s.

  11. Jon Says:

    Before I clicked on the image to make it larger, I could not un-see a paper airplane in pec-man’s right hand.

  12. B. Chiclitz Says:

    It’s another case of the missing nipple syndrome we first encountered in ADDRESS:CENTAURI. Officials are desperately working on a vaccine.

    Also, does reaching *escape velocity* here mean being able to break free of the book?

  13. FearöfMusic Says:

    Oh my. That is so Baen it makes all other Baen look girly. I mean, could a cover gwt any Baenier than this? Death, fire, explosions, destruction, homo-eroticism. Go Baen! Go Baen! Go Baen! Hell, the U.S. Marines look like poofsters next to this.

  14. David Cowie Says:

    1: Does anyone else think that
    SARAH
    A. HOYT
    would have looked better than
    SARAH A.
    HOYT
    ?
    2: Blue and orange contrast failure: you’re supposed to have orange-tanned people against a blue background, not orange-tanned people in blue jumpsuits against an orange background.
    3: It took me a while to work out that he was carrrying a tattered US flag in his right hand – at first I thought he had one angel wing, and where’s the other one gone?

  15. fred Says:

    Cover should have been embossed. The flag is seriously out of proportion, stars/bars wise. Person who won the uniform contract made a killing by using sub-standard material. Top Gun would be a better title.

  16. Tom Hering Says:

    Long hair and muscular body. Check. Background of phallic towers aflame. Check. But where’s the virgin with heaving bosom from whom he ripped that flag-print dress? More practice before you’re ready to launch a line of Romance novels, Baen.

  17. A.R.Yngve Says:

    Alone on a ravaged Earth, he must replace his lost nipples by transplanting them from the corpses of…
    A FEW GOOD MEN

  18. A.R.Yngve Says:

    Earth lies in ruins, membership is dwindling, and Tom Cruise is searching desperately to recruit…
    A FEW GOOD MEN

  19. A.R.Yngve Says:

    They were lying dead at the feet of a gun-crazed Baen fan, who took offense when they laughed at his book cover. They had been…
    A FEW GOOD MEN

  20. Jaouad Says:

    Wow, looks like I found another version of the same cover: in close-up, it serves as a good demonstration of what can go wrong when Poser and Photoshop end up in bed together.
    http://sarahahoyt.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/9781451638882.jpg

    (Also: Return Of The Nipples!)

  21. FearöfMusic Says:

    Just now noticed his left forearm. Something seriously wrong there. Unlike everything else which, oh never mind, it’s just Baen.

  22. David Cowie Says:

    The banner across the top of the author’s web site reads
    arah A Hoy
    on my tablet. How does it look on a proper computer?

  23. Dead Stuff With Big Teeth Says:

    I’m willing to cut Baen some slack. Apparently, the lead character is a repressed homosexual, and there are multiple armed revolutions going on.

    Doesn’t really need so many phallic buildings.

  24. Adam Roberts Says:

    I saw the movie version of this one. Is that supposed to be Jack Nicholson, on the cover there?

  25. RachelJ Says:

    @Jaouad. I’m not sure why that version’s up on the author’s site, since it’s obviously just the rough draft of this one. Seems the artist’s made multiple attempts without being able to get the left arm to look more than remotely arm-like, which is sort of sad.

  26. Rags Says:

    “He has been in jail for 14 years with the worst case of blue balls you can imagine. Josh Holloway (Sawyer from Lost) is looking for A FEW GOOD MEN!!”

  27. Herm Says:

    Veni, veni, venias,
    Ne me mori facias (Gloriosa, Generosa)
    Sephiroth!

    (I’m still not sure if that’s supposed to be a wing or a cape none-too-subtly reminiscent of a wing…)

    (edit: Oh! It’s an American flag.)

  28. Stevie T Says:

    “Why is he dressed like that?”
    “He’s a Baenist.”
    “Ohhhhh…”

  29. A.R.Yngve Says:

    Note to artist: The COLLARBONE! When you raise your arm above your head, the COLLARBONE moves also!

  30. RachelJ Says:

    Same artist, apparently, as “Freehold” http://www.goodshowsir.co.uk/2012/05/freehold/

    I think it’s safe to say drawing arms isn’t his strong point.

  31. Dead Stuff With Big Teeth Says:

    @RachelJ, admin: I’d been thinking the same thing. Maybe Freehold merits the Metropolitan Apocalypse tag too?

  32. RachelJ Says:

    Another thing both have in common: clothing ripped to bits, skin completely uninjured. Pre-shredded outfits? Or are our heroes simply too tough to bleed?

  33. Tom Noir Says:

    I have to disagree, this man has not escaped unscathed. Poor fellow’s nipples have been completely blown off.

  34. HappyBookwyrm Says:

    I believed the fabric in his hand was some sort of tattered Jester cloak until I read the comments. I thought there was something incongruous about that outfit choice… to go with everything else incongruous.

  35. Anti-Sceptic Says:

    The guy on the ground seems to be in agony. Perhaps because our hero looks like he’s stomping on his groin.

    “Take that you Commie!”

  36. Stevie T Says:

    @Tom Noir: “Poor fellow’s nipples have been completely blown off”

    Must be why he’s screaming.

  37. RachelJ Says:

    I think this might be the very first cover to use BLOODCHISEL for the title.

    When just writing in blood isn’t enough, try BLOODCHISEL, the only font CARVED out of SOLID BLOOD!

  38. JuanPaul Says:

    I hope I never meet the person who picks up this book and says, “F— YEAH, That’s what I’m talkin’ about!!!”

  39. quilly mammoth Says:

    Two points. The first is proverbial adage about a book and it’s cover. The second is that it will probably sell quite well, and children that is the only really scalable measure of success in writing. Oh, I’m sure many of you have shared your deathless prose with a handful of your closest friends…you know tbe one’s that won’t obviously laugh behind your back…and we’re just on -pins and needles- waiting for your seamless and magnificent prose to be published.

    Oh, wait, it won’t. Its not marketable. And making money is what the whole publishing game is all about. Because if it doesn’t make money then the entire enterprise falls apart.

  40. quilly mammoth Says:

    Btw. Picked up my copy and it seems, at least here in the States he has nipples.

  41. Rachel J Says:

    Oh no! Now I am truly ashamed to have dared to make fun of a ludicr– er, I mean, utterly brilliant book cover on an obscure blog. The horror, the horror, etc.

  42. Jaouad Says:

    @Quilly Mammoth #39: your second point negates your first.

  43. B. Chiclitz Says:

    @quilly mammoth—not sure of your frame of reference. Many things “sell quite well” that are nonetheless ludicrous and worthy of deflation—veg-a-matics for example, or certain politicians. And it’s probably not a good idea to mock the writing here until you figure out some basic rules of punctuation (“book and it’s cover”; “its not marketable”). I know the rules are looser in a forum such as this, but, well, there’s still the irony and all . . . .

  44. Stevie T Says:

    @quilly mammoth: Evidently you are unaware of the fact that several of the people who post here are published authors. So much for your blanket assumptions.

  45. FearofMusic Says:

    To join in on the “quilly mammoth” dogpile. Oh ye who are oblivious to the point of this entire little bit of joy. You might, or not, wish to click the link to A.R. Yngwe, the Eddie Izzerd of GSS and frequent commenter.

    Also, following your model of reasoning, 98% of art critics, 100% of film and television critics, and the majority of sports commentators should be silenced and have no right to an opinion which is not appropriately awe struck and reverent.
    Oh my, I am forgetting myself. I have no right to an opinion or individual thought. Hope you like the next Uwe Boll flick. He ‘makes’ movies, so he belongs right up there with Fellini, Kurosawa, Scorsese.

  46. FearofMuÅŸic Says:

    Ah, and also, if you could please be so kind, quilly mammoth, might you contact universities worldwide and tell them they can remove Emily Dickinson from their literature courses. Since she was never published, not a word, in her lifetime, her works are invalid. Posthumous publishing? What rubbish! She shold be excised, removed, eradicated. Burn her collected…do you get the point yet Sara?

  47. Tom Noir Says:

    You know, Van Gogh only sold one painting in his lifetime. Although if he’d painted more nipple-less men, perhaps it would have gone better for him??

  48. Dead Stuff With Big Teeth Says:

    @Tom: Marvelous. Now I’ll never look at Starry Night the same.

    If you’re not Star King Tom Noir anymore, can we call you ‘A Few Good Tom Noirs’ instead?

  49. A Few Good Tom Noirs Says:

    Absolutely not.

  50. Ray P Says:

    It needs to be a musical cover (like a musical birthday card) playing Europa’s THE FINAL COUNTDOWN and Jefferson Starship’s WE BUILT THIS CITY (ON ROCK AND ROLL) in succession:

    We’re leaving together,
    But still it’s farewell
    And maybe we’ll come back,
    To earth, who can tell ?
    I guess there is no one to blame
    We’re leaving ground
    Will things ever be the same again?

    It’s the final countdown…

    We’re heading for Venus and still we stand tall
    Cause maybe they’ve seen us and welcome us all
    With so many light years to go and things to be found
    I’m sure that we’ll all miss her so.

    (Light years to Venus? You are going the wrong way boys.)

  51. A.R.Yngve Says:

    “Sequel to DARKSHIP THIEVES and DARKSHIP RENEGADES”…
    I think there’s a Goth-metal band in Seattle called Darkship Renegades.

  52. Dead Stuff With Big Teeth Says:

    @AR: And here’s their lead singer.

  53. anon Says:

    I don’t remember this scene being in the movie..

  54. anon Says:

    …No, wait. This is the “You can’t handle the truth!” bit, isn’t it?

  55. A.R.Yngve Says:

    “DAMN YOU, ALIENS!! YOU RUINED MY STRIPED CLOWN PANTS!! DAMN YOU TO HELL!!!”

  56. Dead Stuff With Big Teeth Says:

    WAAAUGH! INDEPENDENCE! STARS AND STRIPES! AAAAAAH! I HAVE NIPS!

  57. GSS noob Says:

    I do hope that one second later, guy at lower right swiveled his gun and blasted Mr. No-Nips right in the franks and beans.

    And if he’s so MURICA, what’s he doing with two sonic screwdrivers? Whacked a coupla Time Lords while he was at it?

    And all the red and orange… an eyesore along with the rest of it. And why use this title (suggesting Tom Cruise and that pinko hippie Aaron Sorkin) instead of following the “DARKSHIP” pattern? That’s bad marketing.

    Apparently the Baen logo is what’s achieving escape velocity — this cover is too much even for it.

    Is there a “man boobs” tag? Because, seriously, he’s got more boobs than a large percentage of the female population of this planet.

    And that failure Homer! Never made a drachma off his Iliad and Odyssey!

  58. JJYoyo Says:

    This looks like the most awesome sequel possible to “Team America:World Police”

  59. fred Says:

    After reading #23 DSWBT I cannot examine the glowy metal title closely and not help but notice some possible artist inserted ‘junk’. The power of suggestion.

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