Good Show Sir

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Alexandria and kinda John Comment: My friend and I love your site. So many fun times.
Published 2013

(Average: 9.03 out of 10)

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And we are back! Woo hoo! Enjoy all these great covers and pieces of art from Frank!

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I couldn’t help but wonder what this cover art was about: the Cosmic Striptease, or The Devil Downstairs. So I looked within, where I found….
Published 1957

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“Beautiful women were Satan’s main weapon. They made sin look so attractive.”

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“Millions of Earthlings gaped while the Martian show went on.” Apparently the Martians had a pretty good grasp of human anatomy.

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Further in, for another story titled, “Excitement For Sale!!”
“He was a mood-merchant, a happiness-huckster, peddling dreams from door to door.”

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Table of contents so you can see all the authors and cover art credit.

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I may have to go back and read this one to get the context for, “women were flung heartlessly into space”.

(Average: 8.86 out of 10)

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Tom Noir Comments: At last Jimmy Doohan gets a chance to have a story where HE’S the hero, instead of that bozo Bill Shatner!
Published 1997

(Average: 8.27 out of 10)

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Frank Comments: First we have The Star-Crowned Kings a Daw Books publication. I haven’t read it so don’t know what the lady-in-chain has to do with the story. But, I thought, she looks familiar, and I thought I knew where I’d seen her before: Up to the Sky in Ships, a NESFA Press collection of some of A. Bertram Chandler’s short stories. Chandler and Freas were Guests of Honor at that year’s Worldcon, which was the occasion for the book. I guess it was thought that this would be offered to a more adult audience and so the model got to stand up for this painting, so we could all see that the lady-in-chain really is a blonde.
Star Crowned Kings published 1975
Up to the Sky in Ships published 1982

It’s dos-a-dos like an Ace Double and if you flip it over you see the cover for the other collection of shorts in the book, this one from Lee Hoffman.

(Average: 7.13 out of 10)

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Vincent Comments: To be fair, the cover blurb says that it is “different” and judging by the illustration, which I cannot even comprehend, I think that’s very fair.
Published 1969

(Average: 8.30 out of 10)

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Hakan’s Art Direction: OK, we’re printing the translation of The Pebble in the Sky by Prof. Asimov. I’m open to suggestions for the cover… Come on people! The story happens in a planet, so let’s have the Earth in the background, did you see the last episode of the Galactica? Let’s put that in the title! And some women! NAKED women! And some squid! NO! MAKE THAT A SPACE SQUID! GOLDEN! So, the title we’re using is now “Sinister Planet Galactica,” it suits better, the book has no pebbles in it but has a planet so there you go. Now I want the whole lot on my desk by tomorrow or bad things will happen to you, Sir!
Published 1983

(Average: 8.64 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: 8.00 out of 10)

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Good Show Sir’s Art Direction: Well it’s a busy anthology so we should keep things busy on the cover. This is for Focus magazine… and we all know they only want one thing on their free book… mannequin cleavage! Just fill the rest with whatever you feel like.
Published 1995

(Average: 6.43 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: 8.57 out of 10)

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Tom Noir Comments: No seriously man, I just want to take a little bit off the top!
Published 1990

(Average: 7.24 out of 10)

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