Comments on: Bad horse

Bad horse

Artw — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 00:05:19 -0800

Good Show Sir - a blog of the worst science fiction and fantasy book covers from the deepest depths of second hand bookstores around the world.

By: hattifattener

hattifattener — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 00:09:29 -0800

Oh man. I think I probably read most of the ones there that came out before 1990.

By: Sova

Sova — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 00:23:09 -0800

We have a winner!

By: longsleeves

longsleeves — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 00:36:01 -0800

Outsourced customer service.

By: Sova

Sova — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 00:50:21 -0800

The pictures have mouse-over text, btw.

By: Artw

Artw — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 01:21:26 -0800

I'm quite fond of this one. Rainbows! Mermaids! Hippogryphs! The horse part of the hippogryph isn't as weirdly drawn as some though.

By: Sova

Sova — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 01:31:36 -0800

You know, I'm still reading this blog an hour later... ...and when I'm finished, I'm going to hug the nearest Penguin paperback.

By: victors

victors — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 01:48:23 -0800

I love the wtf tag, as if the others are, you know, perfectly reasonable.

By: stammer

stammer — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 02:25:34 -0800

When Wordpress is nationalised, I'm going to issue a party directive relating to captions and photoblogs. Essentially, photoblog authors will have to apply for a license if they want to write captions. If they are funny, they will be issued with a "Basic" license and can write captions of up to 25 words per image. If they have a professional background in the subject matter of their blog and can write insightfully about it on this basis, they get the "Pro" license and can write captions of up to 90 words. If they are demonstrated to have exceptional critical abilities and the capacity to write in an insightful and/or funny way about a broad range of subjects regardless of their background they are eligible for the "Cadre" license and can publish captions of up to 200 words per image. Anyone found writing captions in violation of the terms of their Wordpress Photoblog license will be imprisoned.

By: two or three cars parked under the stars

two or three cars parked under the stars — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 02:50:39 -0800

a blog of ~~the worst~~ science fiction and fantasy book covers The concept is noble, but undermines itself really.

By: delmoi

delmoi — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 02:52:35 -0800

VAMPIRE ROCK STARS. Something for the twilight fans to read when they're finished reading the books, I guess.

By: delmoi

delmoi — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 03:07:05 -0800

I think this the author of this blog is using the word "Cleavage" incorrectly. For example. He's just using it as a synonym for "breast"

By: Sparx

Sparx — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 03:37:38 -0800

EVIL CHILDREN! With red eyes! And lasers coming from an evil red orb or possibly some sort of moon, lighting up the evil child with even more red! And People! This is pretty cool, considering the book is about psychic Christian hippies from space showing the meaning of love to wayward humans through their awesome power of twee.

By: memebake

memebake — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 03:48:41 -0800

Would have been better without the captions. These images need no further explanation.

By: the_royal_we

the_royal_we — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 04:01:15 -0800

If by "worst" you mean, MOST AWESOME. I'm sorry. Really.

By: BitterOldPunk

BitterOldPunk — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 04:15:07 -0800

This is liking shooting space fish in a barrel. Of space.

By: fearfulsymmetry

fearfulsymmetry — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 04:21:03 -0800

Well this does answer a question I never thought to ask.... Q: How do mermaids ride hippocampi? A: Side saddle, obviously.

By: HuronBob

HuronBob — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 04:22:43 -0800

Yep, the covers are fun...the blogger should have his keyboard taken away...

By: Secret Life of Gravy

Secret Life of Gravy — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 04:59:12 -0800

The mouseovers are particularly lame-- it is as if he forced himself to come up with a witty one-liner every time but rarely had anything remotely clever to say. Great covers, bad snark. Still, it leads me to reflect on how much minutia is being collected on the internet. I imagine there is a blog for any interest-- soup can labels, children's shoes, furniture knobs. If you can photograph it, you can collect it and preserve it for future generations. Amazing times we live in.

By: Forktine

Forktine — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 05:15:48 -0800

Still, it leads me to reflect on how much minutia is being collected on the internet. And matching that endless supply of minutia is an equally endless interest in consuming it. Every furniture knob blog will have its devoted readers.

By: steef

steef — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 05:16:30 -0800

There were Thieves' World novels?

By: Forktine

Forktine — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 05:35:22 -0800

There were Thieves' World novels? Yup, and I can remember reading them, too. This blog was funny to me not so much because of the bad cover art -- a lot of the examples weren't even all that terrible, really, just cheap products of particular moments in pulp book design history -- but because I have read a substantial proportion of them. These are the crappy sf/fantasy books of my childhood, mostly, and they were crappy then and are kitsch now (and with a few gems mixed in). A much more genuinely painful blog would be matching photos of bad sf cover art with historical photos of the people who were buying those books. Surely the Smithsonian is ready for a 50-year retrospective on nerds and their art?

By: digsrus

digsrus — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 05:47:43 -0800

I hate to disagree, but I think the covers of these books are great. The blogger's snide comments are very shallow. These covers were painted by professional artists under tight deadlines for little money. They didn't have the crutch of photoshop to tweak their fonts to make them just right. Once a style was chosen, it was pretty much written in stone. I went to an painting demonstration by an illustrator of children's books who had a table full of oil paintings on canvas he had done for various books over the course of his career. Although I was unfamiliar with his work, I would have given anything to have any of these originals as my own. You would have too.

By: localroger

localroger — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 05:52:30 -0800

It takes one of the guest commentaries to point out what is wrong with the main blogger's obwervations:

Thanks to Nix who says: _Patterns of Chaos_ is a slightly famous book with a lot of amazing setpiece scenes which could have been used for the cover, starting with the destruction of entire planets, meticulously described, and ending with a transgalactic trip to a memorably unpleasant destination. If any book counts as overblown space opera, this one does. So what did they use for the cover? A scowling cowled bloke, a weird plant, a badly-designed castle and a random number generator.

Now see, this is a legitimate criticism of a cover that just plain does a poor job of selling the book. But most of the blogger's criticisms are just random and display no understanding of either the individual books or why the genre as a whole is sold that way. "Hey look! Nudity! Nipples! Pink! Poor art! Bad fonts!" This reminds me of the really stupid boarding pass criticism, which displayed zero understanding of what the item being criticized was for, who its audience was, or why it might look that way. So in defence of the bad covers, let me just point out a few things:

Lots of these stories did feature nudity and adventurous sexuality, or were being sold as if they did. The 1970's were a lot less uptight than modern times; I mean John Norman's Gor novels were shelved right along side Asimov and Clarke, and readily sold to kids. So yeah, nipples.
The purpose of a book cover is to get it noticed so you will buy it, not to go into the Louvre. In a genre dominated by loud garish motifs it is going to be hard to sell the idea of a quiet subdued cover.
The racial stuff was a big deal back then. Really.
If you are trying to appeal to people who are looking for an escapist fantasy to contrast with what they see as an inferior RL experience, then you want it to look different from what people expect. This means you will deliberately violate just about every accepted element of design, and doing that is often going to be the right thing to do.

By: Sova

Sova — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 05:55:46 -0800

By: Guy_Inamonkeysuit

Guy_Inamonkeysuit — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 06:00:49 -0800

Ouch - leading off with Steele Savage. Ouch. An acquired taste, sure... that I never managed to acquire.

By: Omon Ra

Omon Ra — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 06:24:16 -0800

I nominate the LOTR covers from the late 80s as particularly horrible. Also, did you know that "Evil Is Live Spelled Backwards"

By: The Card Cheat

The Card Cheat — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 06:51:10 -0800

You had me at "Black In Time."

By: The Card Cheat

The Card Cheat — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 06:57:12 -0800

And I accepted your proposal of marriage at "Habeas Corpses."

By: GenjiandProust

GenjiandProust — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 07:09:28 -0800

The cover for Bradley's Hunters of the Red Moon is pretty true to the themes of the novel, as I recall. It's kind of a mark of shame that I can recall that novel, I suppose, but it was the late 70s, and reading material was in short supply.

By: XQUZYPHYR

XQUZYPHYR — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 07:13:24 -0800

I like how "font problems" slightly beats "muscles" in tag popularity.

By: MrBobaFett

MrBobaFett — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 07:29:31 -0800

I've read a couple of these books and it's pretty obvious the blogger has not read these books and is not even familiar with the books or their content. The covers fit the content on them. Really these are SF/Fantasy books not books on graphic design from the editors of WIRED or something. Some are amusing tho, less so his commentary.

By: Alexandra Kitty

Alexandra Kitty — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 08:00:10 -0800

So soulless -- zombies drew those covers, methinks...

By: Artw

Artw — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 08:07:57 -0800

And I accepted your proposal of marriage at "Habeas Corpses." Heh. "She must be super tough... she's not even wearing shoulder pads."

By: victors

victors — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 08:13:04 -0800

> I would have given anything to have any of these originals as my own. You would have too. Well, perhaps the artist you refer to, but when it comes these fantasy hacks, then, er, not really. Forget photoshop, I knew plenty of artists that were squeezed out by just photos - there used to be professions like fashion illustrator and album artist and if you couldn't do those, then you did cheap hippie, trippy sci-fi covers with massive over-use of the hand held air-brush to really punch it up.

By: immlass

immlass — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 08:20:05 -0800

This would definitely be a lot better if the author seemed to understand what he was mocking. The covers suck, but a lot of book covers did and still do. I recently saw a blog post comparing US and UK covers of books up for some particular literary prize (a friend had shared it in Google reader) and some of the covers were just plain bad to my admittedly uneducated eye. But the author explained what was good and bad about each cover, which was interesting stuff. So: good idea, execution a bit lacking.

By: Artw

Artw — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 08:22:20 -0800

Interestingly when SF Signal asked a bunch of people to pick their most memorable SF book covers some of them were also pretty awful, though there were some great ones in there too.

By: Artw

Artw — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 08:23:06 -0800

The Real Scifi Book Covers Of Gentlemen Broncos

By: fearfulsymmetry

fearfulsymmetry — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 09:14:56 -0800

Blimey I used to own this one! The time spent in the second hand bookshops* of my youth have obviously fried my critical facilities as I never thought anything odd about at the time**... *The internet has given us many good things, like MeFi and Good Show Sir but I do regret that it destroyed the musty browsing of second hand bookshops **Actually I think I got from a remaindered stock bookshop, now the best place to spot hideous book covers

By: fearfulsymmetry

fearfulsymmetry — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 09:16:58 -0800

Oh and this seems to be one of the those few blogs where the comments are as good as the post, if not better. I think I'm going to be spending a long time here...

By: trip and a half

trip and a half — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 09:29:31 -0800

Yes, thanks for the link. I enjoyed looking at the covers, but agree that the blogger needs to work on his critical skills -- and his writing ones: there is a singular form of the word 'women'.

By: AsYouKnow Bob

AsYouKnow Bob — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 09:31:14 -0800

This post needs a "wtf" tag.

By: mygothlaundry

mygothlaundry — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 09:36:08 -0800

I'm either ashamed or proud that I've read so many of these and they're still on my bookshelves.

By: brundlefly

brundlefly — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 09:44:12 -0800

I think this is one of the best/worst science fiction covers I've ever come across. Green laser grid like the background of an 80s school picture? Check. Big haired/boobed woman wearing black rubber? Check. Unfortunately, this cover doesn't date the book as much as the fact that the characters use futuristic "fax" technology for most of their communication.

By: brundlefly

brundlefly — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 09:44:28 -0800

Oops. Link.

By: Artw

Artw — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 09:47:08 -0800

Oh man. I totally knew which book that was going to be. I have it in a box somewhere...

By: kittens for breakfast

kittens for breakfast — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 10:00:33 -0800

Heh! I totally knew what that was gonna be, too. I remember seeing it in a supermarket when I was a teenager; a friend of the family (who was both an sf fan and a feminist) saw it just as I was starting to reach for it and said, "Oh God." Never did get around to it after that. Sorry, Mr. Sterling.

By: gamera

gamera — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 10:57:09 -0800

I actually love this cover. It just screams early 70's junior high school library. I always loathed this cover for Jack Vance's Showboat World, which features Space Satan, Lex Luthor attacking Lancelot Link, Space Chimp with a mace, and an space iguana sticking out of the moon. Which actually sounds kind of awesome now that I write it down.

By: Justinian

Justinian — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 11:03:30 -0800

Yes, there are a lot of bad covers there. But the blogger is an idiot. One of his criticisms of Haldeman and Greenberg's Future Weapons of War is:

Might I add something of my own? Why don't we only put the editors and none of the authors?

It's an anthology, dumbass. Edited by Haldeman and Greenberg. Yeah, sometimes people trumpet the ONE BIG NAME AUTHOR who contributed to their anthology, but that's also stupid. Publishing an anthology edited by Haldeman and Greenberg? Put the names Haldeman and Greenberg on the cover! Duh.

By: Justinian

Justinian — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 11:08:24 -0800

Also: Not enough Baen or Darrel K. Sweet, although there are a few. I suppose that's just shooting fish in a barrel. Might as well simply link to the Baen website and be done with it. Typical Baen Cover only with less shiny silver foil than usual.

By: marxchivist

marxchivist — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 11:55:28 -0800

Cool post, thanks Artw. I almost missed this if not for the "contact activity" sidebar.

By: AugieAugustus

AugieAugustus — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 12:22:57 -0800

Relevant, but a bit better: Photoshopped genre book covers by blogger Mighty God King

By: PhoBWanKenobi

PhoBWanKenobi — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 13:22:47 -0800

I hate to disagree, but I think the covers of these books are great. The blogger's snide comments are very shallow. These covers were painted by professional artists under tight deadlines for little money. Aw, c'mon, I mean, I love Michael Whelan and, like, my dad smorked pot with the Hildebrant brothers in the sixties (no joke! My mother is convinced he posed as Luke Skywalker for the original Star Wars poster, but I don't think that's the case--I do know he was a hobbit in the first LOTR calendar) but some of these are really pretty goofy and terrible and poorly done. Of course, as a big ol' geek, looking at these just makes me fondly remember how much I coveted the books I loved as a kid, in spite of (or because of?) the cheesy art--not that modern SF covers are necessarily that much better.

By: Solon and Thanks

Solon and Thanks — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 13:25:19 -0800

Wow, this is the Wheel of Time cover he had a problem with? Not one of these three? And his commentary is awful: Horses. Three horses to be exact! Well, lets put a generic ranger on one of them, but I was thinking of something different for the others.... Oh! A female sorcerer and a huge black samurai! Man, this is going to be a bestseller! I mean... it's kind of what the book is about. It's not like the artist is responsible for the content. I think this would be a much better blog if its writers were familiar with the content of the books. A lot of the covers are funniest when compared to what they're trying to depict (like my three links above, where characters are blatantly bizarrely wrong in things like size.)

By: PhoBWanKenobi

PhoBWanKenobi — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 13:28:29 -0800

Relevant, but a bit better: Photoshopped genre book covers by blogger Mighty God King Best description of Mercedes Lackey ever.

By: Justinian

Justinian — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 13:40:52 -0800

Some of the covers in AugieAugustus' links are so true it's painful. So, so true.

By: louche mustachio

louche mustachio — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 17:10:36 -0800

I nominate the LOTR covers from the late 80s as particularly horrible. They only look bad because the Balantine covers were so damn badass. We had this poster in our room when we were kids, but we had to take it down because the dragon gave my sister nightmares. Now those are some covers.

By: cjorgensen

cjorgensen — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 17:30:59 -0800

The mouse over snark one this was was just fine.

By: mwhybark

mwhybark — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 23:57:31 -0800

This has caused me to snort, loudly, defeating my wife's feeble attempts at sleep.

By: Kirth Gerson

Kirth Gerson — Sun, 28 Mar 2010 08:34:06 -0800

I always loathed this cover for Jack Vance's Showboat World, which features Space Satan, Lex Luthor attacking Lancelot Link, Space Chimp with a mace, and an space iguana sticking out of the moon. To be clear, the cover had all those things, but none of them were in the book. I was thinking earlier that Vance must either have not really cared or had no say in what went on the covers of his work, since so many of them seemed to belong on some other books.

By: Artw

Artw — Sun, 28 Mar 2010 08:39:10 -0800

Common misconceptions about publishing: Why did you pick such an awful cover for your new book?

By: biochemist

biochemist — Sun, 28 Mar 2010 11:12:25 -0800

This article is hilarious.

By: damn dirty ape

damn dirty ape — Sun, 28 Mar 2010 20:42:50 -0800

I nominate the LOTR covers from the late 80s as particularly horrible. The cover of The Hobbit gets me every time. I love picturing the artist sitting there going "What the hell is a hobbit," skimming the book, reading the parts about second breakfast, and deciding to just paint an obese guy with a little dagger. It just looks like bad cosplay.

By: Justinian

Justinian — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 08:36:59 -0800

It just looks like bad cosplay. So that would be cosplay, then.

By: The Fly

The Fly — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 11:42:30 -0800

Some of them even look like bad romance novel covers. Sheesh. Good for a laugh though.

By: Ber

Ber — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 12:22:58 -0800

That cover of The Two Towers from the 80s looks more like a slash fiction novelization.

By: ROU_Xenophobe

ROU_Xenophobe — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 12:43:23 -0800

That cover of The Two Towers from the 80s looks more like a slash fiction novelization. One wonders how much Gollum/Frodo is already out there. Oh, tricksy hobbit! Give it to us big and wriggly! Give it to us in... the precious!

By: fearfulsymmetry

fearfulsymmetry — Sat, 03 Apr 2010 15:10:39 -0800

Just noticed this one where the actual author of the book turns up in the comments... he wasn't too happy about the cover either. (Yes, I am reading them all from the beginning... why do you ask?)