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Feb 10

No... I'm sure it's spelt Jospeph... right? Click for slightly larger image

Rachel and Thomas Comment: There are fourteen of these now. Apparently, the reading public cannot get enough of these magnificent hissing catmen and their high-cut thonged armoured leotards festooned with Rob Liefeld pouches. And who can blame us?
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: 7.53 out of 10)
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40 Responses to “Man-Kzin Wars XIV”

  1. rev Says:

    Good Show Sir! Good Show.

  2. Tag Wizard Says:

    With my CatTech CyberEye Super Squinter, I squish your army like grapes between my fingers. Squish! SQUISH!

  3. Dead Stuff With Big Teeth Says:

    PROTIP: Always secure your firearm’s strap before engaging in the rigors of combat.

  4. Bibliomancer Says:

    Fourteen refers to the number of writer-bots it takes to churn out this book product at the Man-Kzin novel factory, a.k.a. Larry Niven’s basement.

    Or perhaps the roman numeral numbering indicates that the Man-Kzin Wars are the Super Bowls of the future. Eks – Vee – Aye – Yai – Yai!

  5. THX 1138 Says:

    Trying to work out what word “Man-kzin” actually is when presumably pronounced through seething catperson fangs… If it was a dog person it would be “Sausages Wars”.

  6. Bibliomancer Says:

    That author’s name is misspelled. It’s actually Mahttew Jospeph Harrrington

  7. Nephilim Says:

    Confused by the the incorrect vanishing point caused by Google Glass XIV.0, the warships z-plane re-stacking made the warships closer to Kzin seem smaller and thus farther away, Man-Kzin, son of the progressive Mr. Man and Ms. Kzin, fatally trips while forgetting rule #3 of his IBA (inter-galactic Blaster Association) training. Keep finger off the trigger.

  8. Rags Says:

    YES YES!! All hail the cat people. Personally I cant wait for “first contact” with an alien culture and i will boo furiously if we are not greeted by cat people.

    I believe the “art-eest” was going for the Scottish Fold breed of cat-people? From the planet Haggistron. There is also something odd going on with the long arms and small torso.

    Why is the cat wearing groin armour and nothing to protect his head? Is this a very macho race where the “cajones” are protected above all else??

  9. RachelJ Says:

    @Bibliomancer. At least they spelt his middle name correctly. He changed it by deed poll from the rather more conventional “Joseph”, to suggest the spitting of an angry feline. SPEPH!!!

  10. Tag Wizard Says:

    The Man-Kzini Wars.

  11. Bibliomancer Says:

    @Rachel J — You’re absolutely correct. He also added that third r-r-r to give his last name a nice purring sound.

  12. SI Says:

    You know this cover is great… nearly perfect… but I feel a little sad at the lack of the “It’s howling time!” tag line.

    http://www.goodshowsir.co.uk/2009/08/man-kzin-wars-ix/

  13. fred Says:

    The Kzinti ALWAYS attacked before they were ready and ALWAYS eventually lost if I remember right. Seems like a boring concept for a 14 book series.

  14. Dead Stuff With Big Teeth Says:

    ‘Hello, sailor-cat! I wonder, how big is the contents of your codpiece?…oh.’

  15. Bibliomancer Says:

    @SI — at first glance I thought that read “It’s bowling time!” Which would be a much cooler tag line, in my opinion.

  16. Tat Wood Says:

    @Fred: The Kzinti would be victorious if they could only counter humanity’s cowardly ploy of distracting them with a ball of string or dangling car-keys off to one side of their field of vision.

  17. A.R.Yngve Says:

    I know I shouldn’t be asking this, but I never saw a can of worms I could leave alone…

    If there are Man-Kzin fans, do they dress up as Kzin Furries and write Man-Kzin fanfic?

    (You may stone me now…)

  18. Tom Noir Says:

    It appears that that cat-person has a tiny waist. Why is he so kzinny?

  19. B. Chiclitz Says:

    “Missed it by . . . that . . . much, spephsssssssss . . . .

  20. thebiggfrogg Says:

    C’mon humankind, surely we can beat these pussies!

  21. Tat Wood Says:

    If the claws on his right, er, paw are as gnarly as the ones we can see, he can’t pull that trigger withour impaling himself.
    (I’m assuming it’s a ‘he’ mainly because the monocle makes me think of Ian Carmichael playing Bertie Wooster, which makes the gesture with the left hand more like an indication to Jeeves of how much vermouth to put in the snifter).

  22. HappyBookwyrm Says:

    Do my eyes deceive me, or are there TWO copies of this magnificent cover in the photo, one on top of the other? Will someone send a copy my way? Of the book, not just the cover, as I simply must find out what is going on here that takes fourteen books to describe.

  23. Dead Stuff With Big Teeth Says:

    @TW, HB: I think you’ve hit on it. You’ll recall how P. G. Wodehouse took an entire chapter to describe how someone fell down a staircase and smashed into a sideboard of occasional china? Niven’s just going into great comic detail.

    ‘I don’t know if you’ve ever fought an interplanetary war with a hyper-aggressive felinomorph alien species, but it’s quite a rummy thing…’

  24. RachelJ Says:

    I wonder if RX ever gives concerts for the Kzin troops?

  25. SI Says:

    ΩRachelJ – What type of music with RX play? I see him as a SAXON or MANOWAR type of musician.

    I apologise for any google image related searches you might do on those names.

  26. Dead Stuff With Big Teeth Says:

    @SI: definitely W.A.S.P….you know which cut I mean! 😉

  27. HappyBookwyrm Says:

    @DSWBT – Your post citing P. G. Wodehouse made my evening. If anything is better than a picture of a macho catman, it’s imagining a macho catman being outdone by Jeeves.

  28. Rrrowr Says:

    Well, somebody who has read this stuff should post…

    Basically the Kzin were used as background for some of Niven’s Known Space stories. Niven doesn’t write the M/K War stories (to paraphrase something he said) because he doesn’t know enough about war.

    Most of his early work is quite fun & upbeat, as time has gone on… Not so much.

    Most of the m/k war stories are pretty bad, even the ones written by “name” authors, but a few are pretty decent. If I find them for $1 or less I pick them up.  They really don’t ffit very well with the Niven works.

    To answer all the codpiece questions: Male kzin do not have external genitalia… It’s mentioned in Ringworld, I swear! I didn’t find a Kzin prrrn site.

    The main problem with this cover, from an “in universe” pov is that the kzin were supposed to have bare rat like tails. And Mr Fuzzy seems to have a cat tail.

  29. Tat Wood Says:

    In other news, the new vice-president of the SFWA has been named.
    https://www.sfwa.org/about/current-officers/ No kidding.

  30. RachelJ Says:

    No! It’s really happening! The feline apocalypse is upon us!

  31. anon Says:

    Good thing the Kzin weren’t called Boobs.
    “Puny human, your joke amuses me this much.”

  32. Dead Stuff With Big Teeth Says:

    @Tat, RachelJ: I, for one, welcome our new feline overlords!

  33. L.B. Says:

    I can’t believe I missed this one! Someone pass me that scope that cat’s rocking so I can keep up to date on the Man-Kzin shenanigans!

  34. GSS ex-noob Says:

    @RachelJ (30): Oh, it’s worse than that now. Cat Rambo is now the president, and her VP has written stories featuring… cat people.

    Neither of them write for BAEN!, though, and they’re both quite nice women.

  35. JJYoyo Says:

    The main cat needs to chomp a big cigar coming out of the side of his mouth, like George Peppard did in the A-Team. Then this cover would be purrrfect. I may not want to read the book but I totally want to see the movie.

  36. GSS ex-noob Says:

    @JJYoyo: You are so right about the cigar! I would also accept it being held between his visible claws.

  37. JJYoyo Says:

    @GSSxN: maybe this should be the new box design of Frosted Flakes. “They’rrrre grrrreat! Pew pew pew ….”

  38. Bruce A Munro Says:

    “like George Peppard did in the A-Team”

    That brings up the notion of a Kzin Mr. T., which makes my head hurt.

  39. JJYoyo Says:

    @BruceAM: well, it is easy to imagine one of those mega-tabbies growling out “I pity tha fool!”

  40. GSS ex-noob Says:

    @JJYoyo: Mr. T (for tabby) Kzin would, of course, style his head fur into a Mohawk, the better to pity fools.

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