Good Show Sir

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MisterBob Comments: Is that a dagger i see before me? No Melvyn its a fecking enormous sword – I love it!
Published 1979

(Average: 5.75 out of 10)

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Good Show Sir Comments: Hey little buddy. Didn’t mean to scare you. It’s your old friend Fred. Hiding inside this silly bug skull!
Published 1984

(Average: 8.13 out of 10)

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Good Show Sir Comments: Flashing for beads at the 25th century Mardi Gras.

Cover thanks to Perry Armstrong

Published 1991

(Average: 4.96 out of 10)

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Good Show Sir Comments: The first rule of Girl Fight Club is: You’ll never hear the end of what happened at Girl Fight Club.
Published 2014

(Average: 8.00 out of 10)

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Noel Comments: Aliens & Probes. Never a good combination.
Published 1965

(Average: 6.71 out of 10)

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Good Show Sir Comments: When Russians plan a race of supermen, good looks are a low priority.
Published 1963

(Average: 7.63 out of 10)

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The Bibliomancer Comments:  “I feel pretty … Oh so pretty … I feel pretty and witty and gay … And I pity … Any Infernal-Demon-From-The-Pit-Of-Hell who isn’t me today!”
Published 1992

(Average: 8.08 out of 10)

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Have you ever picked up a book and thought, “WOW… who gave that cover the green light?” or “I would LOVE to be seen reading this on a bus!” That’s what lay behind the formation of this site. 1,000 posts later and here we are with three of your top covers, and one that we’ve never published before…

Yes, it’s finally here – and I know at least seven of you have been eagerly awaiting it! Thanks for all your input on The Pre-1000 post. Perhaps, together, we can create something truly beautiful (or at least slightly less shambolic) for Good Show Sir’s 5 year anniversary in March.

The Best of Jim Baen’s Universe I
Eric Flint, David Mattingly
Many of this site’s covers have an amazing quality – one that’ll make you burst out laughing in both admiration and confusion. This example can make grown adults stagger around respectable bookshop interiors, giddy with laughter and half blind with tears. The art is spectacular, the font is special, and there is so, so much happening it could make your mind explode. Would you catch me reading it in public? Well, maybe… but I might have to pretend it belongs to my flatmate.

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Hunters of the Red Moon
Marion Zimmer Bradley, unknown artist
There are so many books that could be mentioned here, so many loved for what’s on the front and contained within. But staying away from the more obvious top rated covers, this one is a particular favourite of a good few (including myself). Having taken the photo and purchased the book immediately, I discovered this: to my joy, it did indeed include a naked man wrestling a lion-man within the very first chapter. No snake or mountain of fire though, but still, a perfect symbiosis of cover and content. Genius.. simply genius!

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Time Spike
Eric Flint, Marilyn Kosmatka, David Mattingly
The following cover, another Baen/Flint/Mattingly classic (GSS editorial impartiality hooo!), has been sent in multiple times as well, even though it was one of the first to be featured. I wonder why? Let me settle into this comfortable armchair I like to call “psychology”. *Ahem* Well, sometimes a significant book cover experience just has to be shared. Through sharing we can gain understanding. Acceptance. An appreciation of an event’s true personal impact. And the knowledge that you can’t really surprise attack a T-Rex by time-travelling into its open jaw.

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Attack of the Rockoids
Steinberg & Steinberg, Michael Cox
<cue epic baritone voiceover> But there has been one special cover, one sent in more than any other! One… that I have yet to post. Mainly because no one has ever sent me a genuine photograph of the book itself, but the same scanned image every time. It’s also self-published, which we tend to avoid — given how hard it’s been to find a publisher for Dr J. R. Asimov’s Good Show Sir quadrilogy, I know the pain.

Please enjoy Terrible Book Cover Number 1,000, Attack of the Rockoids.

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Good Show Sir’s Art Direction: You do what I ask, boy? You make that CGI busty women with plenty of sparkles with yer Windows Millenium Edtion?!? Yep… that’ll sell… that’ll sell a lot… now bring me more of that whiskey!
Published 2002

Thanks again for your comments, suggestions, corrections, company and banter. Long may the irritable server ferret Sauron gaze kindly upon us.

And to our top commenter, favourite self-published Swedish indie author, and generally jovial site veteran A.R.Yngve, sitting on 1,469 comments: Well done, Sir… well done!

(Average: 8.63 out of 10)

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Here we are again! It’s been a while for the old honourable mentions but it’s come to that time of year when a can of irn-bru and chocolate is considered an acceptable breakfast!

So if you are having a weekend off I hope you enjoy it and if not… well enjoy these covers that don’t quite make our high standards but we think deserve a special mention.

Have fun!

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Good Show Sir Comments: I love Mark Hamill’s pose on this one. It’s got that, “Why are you drawing me?” Look.

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Good Show Sir’s Art Direction: Well I like these three drawings you’ve done. I know! Lets just put them all together on the cover.

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Matthew’s Art Direction: I want the scariest-looking monster that you can think of on the front!

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Stripey Baz Comments: I’m no purveyor of romance novels or indeed Norwegian literature, but I’m pretty sure that it’s not a good thing to have a mutton-chopped blaggard slap a fair maiden across her face. Given the angle that he’s standing at, his body must have twisted like one of those plastic toy action figures…

(Average: 7.92 out of 10)

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Let’s have a man in a male skirt, or, say, a leather armour of sorts, stretching into the sky. We’ll have his companion lancing out with his hand just towards his crotch… Wait! This is Sci Fi? Lucky you told me. Uh, have them fighting aliens but keep the rest the same.

(Average: 7.04 out of 10)

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