Good Show Sir

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Tom Noir Comments: Frog people, monkey people, fish people and lizard people? It’s like it’s Tag Wizard’s birthday!
Published 1995

(Average: 7.67 out of 10)

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Frank Comments: Remember that blue girl from The Ballad of Beta 2? She really gets around!
Published 1973

(Average: 7.48 out of 10)

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Yes another year has passed and we have been through a lot. There’s been a overall disappointing 1000th Good Show Sir post, and a few cat people… oh and some real world stuff but who cares about that! I am of course kidding about our special 1000th post, it was excellent, well thought through and certainly wasn’t rushed. I do want to say a special thanks to the Tag Wizard, he’s been a real help over the past year! His skills are excellent and highly sought after so please continue to suggest your own tags to give him more work!

Once again no one has topped the ever strong I Sing the Body Electric, even with Chinese Good Show Sir making web imps to screw around with our delicate voting system.

2014 brings our 5 year anniversary and hopefully we’ll have something fun and actually well thought through! No promises though!

So here are some excellent covers to sum up the year! We’ll be back on Monday 6th Jan 2014 posting as normal, so that’s whenever we can be bothered!

This years top rated cover:

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The second top rated cover:

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The Tag Wizard’s pick of the year:

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And the cover that of spawned the infamous, “The Comments that Came to Sarnath,” incident!

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(Average: 8.27 out of 10)

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Frank Comments: It’s hard to tell which ones are the Martians in this picture. They all look like some of that forgotten science was pharmacological and hallucinogenic. And if you get too close to that guy in front, he’ll help you understand what a bad trip is like.
Published 1967

(Average: 8.09 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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Tom Noir Comments: With a sinking heart, Brad realized their skin-tight glam-rock outfits would not be an effective disguise in the forest.
Published 2007

(Average: 7.63 out of 10)

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Good Show Sir’s Art Direction: Jumpsuits… my friend… they are the future. Running, walking, swimming, investigating giant alien blob space ships with your laser ray gun… what can’t you do in one? Practical, unless you need the toilet…
Published 1979

Many thanks to Sarah B!!

(Average: 5.39 out of 10)

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Sarah B Comments: I’m actually quite fond of the James H. Schmitz. I’m mildly obsessed and hope to find more out in the wild to tame for my collection.
Published 1979

(Average: 4.71 out of 10)

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Good Show Sir Comments: Don’t look Janet… you’ll just encourage that creepy alien to stare at our fantastically toned space butts.
Published 1963

Thanks to Robert Van D N for sending this in!

(Average: 6.77 out of 10)

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Lauren F Comments: Two covers for the price of one! But you’ll spend all your time trying to figure out the front cover so they may as well have left the back cover blank.
Published 1978

(Average: 5.80 out of 10)

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