Jun 27
Click for full imageGood Show Sir’s Art Direction: KITTY! KITTY! Get off my keyboard! If you don’t get off this instant you are going on that cover in hell we’re getting done. Cause that’s where you belong… RIGHT! You’re going on… you are going on there… with Genghis Khan… in hell! That will teach you.
Published 1989
Many thanks to A. Waltz for tweeting this in!
(Average: 7.93 out of 10)
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June 27th, 2013 at 9:54 am
I thought Heaven was the one with clouds, and Hell was the one with flames. Looks like I was wrong.
The cherubim look a little confused by it all, too.
June 27th, 2013 at 11:33 am
This is the worst fancy dress party I’ve ever been to!
June 27th, 2013 at 11:40 am
Your Comments: A Novel
June 27th, 2013 at 11:52 am
Limbo of the Lost: A Novel
June 27th, 2013 at 11:55 am
@Phil: well, this is why we need explorers, innit. So we know.
Is Fu ManStereotype providing a perching place for that cherub? What’s going on with that body language?
June 27th, 2013 at 12:27 pm
Lower right corner. Two zombie heads and a pussy cat. OMG LOL WTF?!
I smelled Baen Books at first glance. But it is very early Baen, check out the old logo.
Also, is Mr. Khan holding a statue bust? Or the severed head of one of his wives?
June 27th, 2013 at 12:32 pm
ME: “I had a horrible dream last night that Hell is a place where fantasy outsells science fiction 3 to 1, and every fantasy and science fiction book is a part of one series or another.”
RED GUY WITH HORNS: “Good morning, Mr. Hering.”
ME: “Oh damn.”
June 27th, 2013 at 12:41 pm
Well, you know that cats are jerks. Honestly, I thought Hell was going to look gloomier than what’s on that cover.
June 27th, 2013 at 12:50 pm
Oh look, it’s Orson again. In Hell.
June 27th, 2013 at 12:54 pm
But why is everyone in Hell doing strange hand-gestures? And is it really necessary to point out that a book like this is “a novel�
June 27th, 2013 at 1:00 pm
@Rachel J: It’s to distinguish it from a Choose Your Own Adventure book.
June 27th, 2013 at 1:15 pm
ROFL!! Thank you Goodshowsir, I have been giggling all morning. That puddy-cat with the 2 zombies is epic.
Kitty: “Help! Over here you jerks!! Some magician put me into his hat and “POOF” I end up here!”
What is with the overweight demons and the contorted bodies on the Vietnam Army guy, the dancing Chinese complete with fan-fan power and why is Genghis Khan wearing hockey shin pads and NO other armour???
10/10!! LOL
June 27th, 2013 at 1:37 pm
“The hordes of the damned could not quite believe the words on banner, but somehow they could not speak against them — for in their undead hearts they knew it was the truth, that they were trapped inside a place worse than hell… a Baen pocketbook.”
June 27th, 2013 at 1:37 pm
LOLCAT sez: “I can haz eternal damnation!”
June 27th, 2013 at 1:39 pm
Hmm… a cover which boldly claims “We all know we are characters in a fiction”…
Perhaps I’ve misjudged Baen all the time. It’s a “postmodern” publisher and all its covers are in fact ironic.
June 27th, 2013 at 1:44 pm
@ Rachel J, most of the books in this series are short story anthologies.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heroes_in_Hell
June 27th, 2013 at 2:21 pm
If this is a David Mattingly cover then that’s not just any cat, that’s Orson! Can anyone confirm?
June 27th, 2013 at 2:25 pm
ISFDB verifies Mattingly. http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?16119
June 27th, 2013 at 2:51 pm
A wonderful thread. Thank you all for brightening up this day!
1. @ B’mancer # 6— I am very impressed by how Baen classed up its logo, from this early version of a Gryphon dry-humping the Baen shield to a tiny phallic rocket usually pointed at some damsel’s private parts. Good Show, Baen!
2. FACE TREE ALERT: check carefully along the tattered edge of the flag, right in the middle—is that a face in profile, some sort of grinning gargoyle type thing?
June 27th, 2013 at 4:03 pm
It’s not the best stage show… but at least you can’t see the wires that keep them floating!
June 27th, 2013 at 4:12 pm
@Tom Hering. Well! All that from the premise, “various people die and go to Hell�
As a curiosity: the “genre†of “Bangsian fantasy†to which the article assigns the series seems very much to be a figment of Wikipedia’s collective imagination. Weird.
June 27th, 2013 at 4:38 pm
So are the two soldiers in the lower right corner admiring the billboard carrying the authors’ names? Or are they trying to peek up Khan’s skirt?
June 27th, 2013 at 5:13 pm
Cover is pretty much par for the course with others in the series, ‘identify the historical character’. The ‘Hell’s Gate’ story was my favorite, a spoof of the ‘Heaven’s Gate’ movie. Every dead movie director from DW Griffith to Peckinpah has a crack at directing this turkey, and all are chewed up and spit out by the endless production, many multiple times.
June 27th, 2013 at 5:31 pm
ME: “I had a horrible dream last night that Hell is a place where fantasy outsells science fiction 3 to 1, and every fantasy and science fiction book is a part of one series or another.â€
RED GUY WITH HORNS: “Good morning, Mr. Hering.â€
ME: “Wrong bedroom, Mr. Major.”
WIFEY: “AAH! Get out of here at once!”
June 27th, 2013 at 6:52 pm
Someone needs to add the ‘Orson’ tag to a couple more books: Crown of Slaves and The Long Twilight for sure, and possibly At All Costs.
June 27th, 2013 at 9:02 pm
Thanks Messers Noir and Chiclitz.
re: flag tag, ‘Pareidolic Faces’ might be too obscure, shall we stick with the less accurate but no more impenetrable ‘Face Tree’ for now?
re: At All Costs’ Orsonage merits, a fact finding mission is called for!
June 27th, 2013 at 9:40 pm
I’ve politely waited 26 comments, but can resist no longer. Why oh why does Fu Manchu have a jet of steam erupting from his right wrist?
Or is it just that the cover is slightly torn?
June 28th, 2013 at 12:41 am
@TH: I shan’t pick up any until this series has either FAT BALDING INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY PROFESSIONALS IN HELL or PUBLISHING WORLD GRAPHIC DESIGNERS IN HELL. Then I’m buying at least two.
June 28th, 2013 at 5:09 am
If only Baen had the guts to release POLITICIANS IN HELL… not a single volume, of course, but an ongoing series…
June 29th, 2013 at 4:18 am
@Tag Wizard 26—re: your Face Tree comment. Very well put. You are not just a Wizard and a Righteous Dude (or Dudette—can a dudette be a wizard?), but a scholar as well! Thanks.
June 29th, 2013 at 4:22 am
Why doesn’t somebody just publish a novel titled “Devils in Hell, Already” and be done with this tired trope once and for all?
July 2nd, 2013 at 6:17 pm
If a book has to tell you its “A Novel”, its usually a warning along the lines of “Don’t touch with a 10-foot pole”.
July 3rd, 2013 at 6:34 am
I must say, after struggling with Flame Halfbaked and dunmagic and Menod Straggler Awaremen, it’s nice to see that articles on That Other Wiki can be not only clear and informative, but also masterpieces of integrity. Though I think the piece on “Heroes in Hell†could do with a bit of paraphrasing and so forth, to bring out its salient features:
“Heroes in Hell” is a shared world fantasy (completely different from a franchise, honest), created by literary genius Janet Morris, and written by Her, Her very talented husband Chris, and various hired scribblers. One of the 9,000,000,000 stories in the series won an award! Score!
Background
––––––––––––––––
The startlingly original premise is that various dead people do stuff in the afterlife. “The Encyclopedia of Fantasy†stated, “Yes. That is the premise. Yes.â€
Critical Reception
––––––––––––––––
Orson Scott Card described “Heroes in Hell” as “almost as brilliant as the ‘Ender’ novelsâ€, while VeryObscureSFBlog.com said it was “an example†of something. Also a librarian made a really nice remark about it.
Strangely, there has been absolutely no negative comment of any kind about the “Heroes in Hell†series. Ever. It’s just that good.
June 2nd, 2023 at 12:30 pm
Isn’t everyone who posts on this website an Explorer in Hell? I think we can all relate. I now need a monkey’s head on my desk.