Nicoll Thread: Errors on the Cover
Reverend Sean O'Hara
"Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency," I noticed that the spangle
on the cover proclaiming "Best-selling Author of" etc. actually
read, "Best-selling Athor of" etc. I'd noticed this mistake before,
but looking at it got me thinking of all the errors I've seen on
covers (not necessarily typographical, but misleading cover synopses
on the back).
The "athor" mistake was obviously caused by the lack of a spell
checker, but one I noticed on Terry Pratchett's "Interesting
Times" was obviously caused by the use of a spell checker. The
back cover reads: "When a carrier albatross arrives with an
Urgent request for a 'Great Wizard,' Rincewind finds himself..."
The problem is that the message asked for a "Great Wizzard" [sic].
The two "z"s in the "Wizzard" are important because they tell
the wizards that the message refers to Rincewind, who has "Wizzard"
on his hat.
Then there's the cover synopsis of "The Stone Canal" which states
that Jonathan Wilde "was accused of losing World War III." While
there are interpretations of events that lend themselves to Wilde
losing the war, it might be more apt to've said "accused of loosing
World War III."
I'm sure people can think of five bazillion examples of cover
synopses giving away an important plot development that occurs
on page 800.
Of course, the worst mistake I've ever seen on a cover wasn't a
science fiction or fantasy novel, but a biography of Harry Truman.
The book was titled "Harry S. [sic] Truman." The problem: The period
after the "S" implies that it's an initial standing for a middle
name. In fact, the "S" *was* Truman's middle name (apparently there
was a vogue early in the century for giving children letters rather
than full middle names). So the title of the books should've been
"Harry S Truman." The difference is very subtle, but it's the
sort of thing you'd expect the author to catch.
Can anyone think of more egregious mistakes?
--
Reverend Sean O'Hara
You too can be an ordained minister: http://www.ulc.org/ulc
Staff Writer for EXPULSION: http://www.expulsion.org
"My side! Your side! My side! Your side!" - Stark, "Farscape"
David Eppstein
Reverend Sean O'Hara <oha...@rcn.com> wrote:
> Can anyone think of more egregious mistakes?
The classic example is _Rouge Moon_.
--
David Eppstein UC Irvine Dept. of Information & Computer Science
epps...@ics.uci.edu http://www.ics.uci.edu/~eppstein/
Eric Walker
[...]
> I'm sure people can think of five bazillion examples of cover
> synopses giving away an important plot development that occurs
> on page 800.
[...]
I wonder if any published authors reading this can tell us what
degree of control, if any, it is customary for an author to get
over the cover (and, where applicable, dust-jacket) and inside
blurb text.
Or if anyone knows why publishers seem to feel it so vital to
puff plot in those places. (I have this sense, but am too lazy
to go over to my bookshelves to verify it, that British publishers,
especially of paperbacks, do not do that sort of thing as regularly
as their American counterparts.)
--
Cordially,
Eric Walker, webmaster
Great Science-Fiction & Fantasy Works
http://owlcroft.com/sfandf
Dorothy J Heydt
Well, there was the Sprague de Camp opus that got reissued under
the title _Rouge Quueen._
We aren't getting into egregious mistakes in cover *art* here,
are we?
Dorothy J. Heydt
Albany, California
djh...@kithrup.com
http://www.kithrup.com/~djheydt
Dorothy J Heydt
Eric Walker <wal...@owlcroft.com> wrote:
>
>I wonder if any published authors reading this can tell us what
>degree of control, if any, it is customary for an author to get
>over the cover (and, where applicable, dust-jacket) and inside
>blurb text.
There's an easy one. NONE WHATEVER.
>Or if anyone knows why publishers seem to feel it so vital to
>puff plot in those places.....
Well, it's almost certainly NOT because they expect their
readership to be like me, who hate surprises and prefer to know
what's in the book before I read it. I have a distinct feeling
of being in the minority in that regard.
Henry Churchyard
Extra-Galactic Tale of Super-Science" as the front-cover blurb to
DAW's paperback of Andre Norton's "Spell of the Witch World" is still
one of my favorites...
--
Henry Churchyard chu...@usa.net http://www.crossmyt.com/hc/
Jerry Brown
<oha...@rcn.com> wrote:
>Can anyone think of more egregious mistakes?
Back cover blurb to 1979 Arrow edition of Marion Zimmer Bradley's 'The
World Wreckers'...
'- and she will mastermind the assault on the beautiful and vulnerable
plantet.'
Jerry Brown
--
It's More Fun in the Culture
Konrad Gaertner
>
>
juvenile non-fic with misspelled author's names, or even the wrong
author on the spine.
For non-textual errors, have you seen the paperback verions of the
_Legends_ anthology? Have you seen any with the cover correctly
aligned? Note to cover designers: do not put thin horizontal stripes
on the top and bottom of the spine unless you're _really_ confident
about the bindery's accuracy.
--KG
Bill Snyder
<oha...@rcn.com> wrote:
>Of course, the worst mistake I've ever seen on a cover wasn't a
>science fiction or fantasy novel, but a biography of Harry Truman.
>The book was titled "Harry S. [sic] Truman." The problem: The period
>after the "S" implies that it's an initial standing for a middle
>name. In fact, the "S" *was* Truman's middle name (apparently there
>was a vogue early in the century for giving children letters rather
>than full middle names). So the title of the books should've been
>"Harry S Truman." The difference is very subtle, but it's the
>sort of thing you'd expect the author to catch.
>
>Can anyone think of more egregious mistakes?
Not SF, but I have a Leslie Charteris PB here whose spine (the cover
proper is OK) says it's _The Saint and Mrs. Teal_. The detective is
always the last to know...
--
Bill Snyder [This space unintentionally left blank.]
Brenda W. Clough
Reverend Sean O'Hara wrote:
>
> Can anyone think of more egregious mistakes?
>
I have a ducky one, on a horror novel which was given away at a Worldcon
some years ago. I've never read it -- it was a standard
Satanic-possession story with black cover and a 'gerunding' title -- but
on the back cover there's a line in big type, "LAY DOWN ON THE ALTER OF
DEATH!!" It probably went through the spellcheck and everything...
Brenda
--
What do you do with a secret?
Whisper it in a desert at high noon.
Lock it up and bury the key.
Tell the nation on prime-time TV.
Choose a door . . .
Doors of Death and Life
by Brenda W. Clough
http://www.sff.net/people/Brenda
Tor Books
ISBN 0-312-87064-7
Brenda W. Clough
book contract. But this only happens if you're J.K. Rowling or at that
level. The only item on the cover of a book that the author had any
control over whatsoever is the title, which is why titling a work is
crucially important. And even this is sometimes changed.
It sometimes happens that the author can write her own blurb or back
cover copy. And smaller presses consult the writer more often. But
mostly, it is utterly beyond control.
Brenda
Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
--
Richard Horton
<epps...@ics.uci.edu> wrote:
>In article <3B097505...@rcn.com>,
> Reverend Sean O'Hara <oha...@rcn.com> wrote:
>
>> Can anyone think of more egregious mistakes?
>
>The classic example is _Rouge Moon_.
I think you mean _Rouge Queen_, the De Camp novel. I don't recall
hearing of any such misprint for the Budrys novel, and anyway it
wouldn't be quite as funny.
--
Rich Horton | Stable Email: mailto://richard...@sff.net
Home Page: http://www.sff.net/people/richard.horton
Also visit SF Site (http://www.sfsite.com) and Tangent Online (http://www.sfsite.com/tangent)
Joseph Nebus
>Of course, the worst mistake I've ever seen on a cover wasn't a
>science fiction or fantasy novel, but a biography of Harry Truman.
>The book was titled "Harry S. [sic] Truman." The problem: The period
>after the "S" implies that it's an initial standing for a middle
>name. In fact, the "S" *was* Truman's middle name (apparently there
>was a vogue early in the century for giving children letters rather
>than full middle names). So the title of the books should've been
>"Harry S Truman." The difference is very subtle, but it's the
>sort of thing you'd expect the author to catch.
I don't know if Iould get into this, but what the heck...
while the S in Harry S. Truman didn't stand for anything, Truman
himself would (usually) write his middle name/initial with a period
after it. The typical rule when there is orthographic ambiguity in
a name is to follow whatever preference the person who had the name
used, if it can be determined. The U.S. Government Printing Office
and the Truman Presidential Museum and Library favor the period after
the S. < http://www.trumanlibrary.org/speriod.htm > for more details
and a signature example.
Joseph Nebus
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
David Eppstein
Richard Horton <rrho...@prodigy.net> wrote:
> >The classic example is _Rouge Moon_.
>
> I think you mean _Rouge Queen_, the De Camp novel. I don't recall
> hearing of any such misprint for the Budrys novel, and anyway it
> wouldn't be quite as funny.
I did mean Rouge Queen. The one with the misprinted title in big letters
on the book cover (I forget if it was spine, front cover, or both).
But then I discovered a web article by David Langford claiming that Rouge
Moon is also misprinted:
http://www.ansible.demon.co.uk/writing/sfx/sfx041.html
David Goldfarb
David Eppstein <epps...@ics.uci.edu> wrote:
>I did mean Rouge Queen. The one with the misprinted title in big letters
>on the book cover (I forget if it was spine, front cover, or both).
If memory serves me right, it was correct on the front cover but
misprinted on the spine.
--
David Goldfarb <*>|"Bagels can be an enormous force for good or
gold...@ocf.berkeley.edu | for evil. It is up to us to decide how we
gold...@csua.berkeley.edu | will use them."
aste...@slip.net | -- Daniel M. Pinkwater
LAFF
O'Hara <oha...@rcn.com> wrote:
>
> The "athor" mistake was obviously caused by the lack of a spell
> checker, but one I noticed on Terry Pratchett's "Interesting
> Times" was obviously caused by the use of a spell checker. The
> back cover reads: "When a carrier albatross arrives with an
> Urgent request for a 'Great Wizard,' Rincewind finds himself..."
> The problem is that the message asked for a "Great Wizzard" [sic].
> The two "z"s in the "Wizzard" are important because they tell
> the wizards that the message refers to Rincewind, who has "Wizzard"
> on his hat.
May have been just a human proofreader who never actually read the
book (much as the artists who create many covers never read the
books).
> Of course, the worst mistake I've ever seen on a cover wasn't a
> science fiction or fantasy novel, but a biography of Harry Truman.
> The book was titled "Harry S. [sic] Truman." The problem: The period
> after the "S" implies that it's an initial standing for a middle
> name. In fact, the "S" *was* Truman's middle name (apparently there
> was a vogue early in the century for giving children letters rather
> than full middle names). So the title of the books should've been
> "Harry S Truman." The difference is very subtle, but it's the
> sort of thing you'd expect the author to catch.
Then again, President Truman spelled his middle "name" with the
period, so the cover was probably correct after all.
--
Lois Fundis lfu...@weir.net
http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Cockpit/9377/handy-dandy.html
"I wanted to be a writer-performer like the Pythons. In
fact I wanted to be John Cleese and it took me some time to
realise that the job was, in fact, taken."
-- Douglas Adams (1952-2001)
Niall McAuley
>The difference is very subtle, but it's the
>sort of thing you'd expect the author to catch.
Ken MacLeod's name is given as Macleod on the cover
of _Cosmonaut Keep_. I don't know if he minds.
--
Niall [real address ends in se, not es.invalid]
Timothy C. Eisele
> Can anyone think of more egregious mistakes?
One of my housemates in college had a doozy: a copy of Heinlein's
"Orphans of the Sky", with a back-cover blurb that was obviously
intended for "The Man Who Sold the Moon".
(I'm pretty sure that was the way it was, it might have been the
other way around. I'm reasonably certain that those were the two
books involved, though)
--
Tim Eisele
tcei...@mtu.edu
Bo Lindbergh
His Face, the Lamps of his Mouth and Other Stories_ where the publisher
a) dropped "and Other Stories" from the title and
b) generated cover text as if it were a novel and
c) generated a table of contents as if it were a novel
("Chapter I: The Doors of His Face, the Lamps of his Mouth
Chapter II: ..." and so on)
/Bo Lindbergh (see X-From header field)
Liz Broadwell
cover blurb: "A fantasy of Druidic England." Which of course means that
the book is really set in Carolingian France ...
Peace,
Liz
--
Elizabeth Broadwell | "Who will read 423 pages about an unfin-
(ebro...@english.upenn.edu) | ished journey undertaken by mythical crea-
Department of English | tures with confusing names? Probably no
University of Pennsylvania | one, but I still say it is wonderful."
Philadelphia, PA | -- Anne Barrett
Reverend Sean O'Hara
>
> In article <3B097B7C...@owlcroft.com>,
> Eric Walker <wal...@owlcroft.com> wrote:
> >
> >Or if anyone knows why publishers seem to feel it so vital to
> >puff plot in those places.....
>
> Well, it's almost certainly NOT because they expect their
> readership to be like me, who hate surprises and prefer to know
> what's in the book before I read it. I have a distinct feeling
> of being in the minority in that regard.
>
premise, and giving away the plot twist leading into the fifth
act. I've seen some books where the cover synopsis will say something
like, "But when the Evil Wizard kidnaps the Heroes beloved, he has
no choice but to go to the land of Death for one final showdown.
Can he win? Will he save his beloved?" Chances are, the kidnapping
won't take place until ~100 pages from the end, and in such a way
that it's obvious the author wanted the reader to be surprised by
the development.
--
Reverend Sean O'Hara
You too can be an ordained minister: http://www.ulc.org/ulc
Staff Writer for EXPULSION: http://www.expulsion.org
"Just last week, Rummy sent me an e-mail over the Internet -
something that didn't exist just five years ago." - Sen. Armey
Reverend Sean O'Hara
>
> It does happen that the author gets a 'cover approval' clause in her
> book contract. But this only happens if you're J.K. Rowling or at that
> level. The only item on the cover of a book that the author had any
> control over whatsoever is the title, which is why titling a work is
> crucially important. And even this is sometimes changed.
>
book Rowlings wrote, so she couldn't slap the guy who said,
"American kids won't know what a philosopher is -- I mean, how will
they know that 'ph' is 'f'? We have to change the title to 'Sorcerer's
Stone'."
Here's a related question: With most other genres, you can tell
how big an author is by the size of their name on the front cover.
People like Tom Clancy and Stephen King are at a point where all
they need on the cover is a title and their name -- and their name
usually dwarfs the title. With SF, though, there seems to be a rule
that the picture on the cover has to be the largest thing, followed
by the title, and the author's name is the smallest thing, squeezed
in whereever there's room. The paperback version of "A Deepness in
the Sky," and Martin's Song of Ice and Fire series are one of the
few exceptions. Even the great writers that everyone who reads SF
for any length of time hears about (Asimov, Clarke, McCafferty,
Anthony) don't get their names to take up half the cover.
Do the publishers not trust SF readers to buy books based upon
writers instead of snazzy covers?
> It sometimes happens that the author can write her own blurb or back
> cover copy. And smaller presses consult the writer more often. But
> mostly, it is utterly beyond control.
>
Writers don't even get to copy-edit the back-cover to make sure
the characters are spelled right?
--
Reverend Sean O'Hara
You too can be an ordained minister: http://www.ulc.org/ulc
Staff Writer for EXPULSION: http://www.expulsion.org
Reverend Sean O'Hara
> _
>
> We aren't getting into egregious mistakes in cover *art* here,
> are we?
>
Come to think of it, maybe it'd be easier to have a thread on
cover art that *doesn't* include mistakes.
--
Reverend Sean O'Hara
You too can be an ordained minister: http://www.ulc.org/ulc
Staff Writer for EXPULSION: http://www.expulsion.org
Liz Broadwell
: Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
: > We aren't getting into egregious mistakes in cover *art* here,
: > are we?
: >
: That should get an entire thread to itself.
: Come to think of it, maybe it'd be easier to have a thread on
: cover art that *doesn't* include mistakes.
Garth Nix's _Sabriel_ has a lovely and accurate cover, picturing the
heroine as she's described in the book. Then there are the covers that
win by being generic. The paperback of Richard Adams's _Watership Down_
that I've had since the '80s features a rabbit in a field -- safe enough.
Nathan Russell
>Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
>> _
>>
>> We aren't getting into egregious mistakes in cover *art* here,
>> are we?
>>
>That should get an entire thread to itself.
Good idea. I just spent about fifteen minutes looking through every
book in my bedroom, and I found a few...
On my paperback copy of McCaffrey's _DragonQuest_, the dragon in the
foreground has its forelimb coming out of the space under the middle
of its wing - about seven or eight feet back from the front of the
wind - despite numerous references throughout the books to
dragonriders using their partner's forearms as an aide to mounting and
dismounting, which would be impossible as the dragon is shown.
Steven Gould's _Jumper_ (also paperback) has the character appear on
the cover as being in his mid-twenties - he is a teenager. Also, the
way the teleporting is depicted on the cover is nothing like the way
it is described in the book (minor spoiler: Va gur obbx, ur cnffrf
guebhtu n tngr engure guna fvzcyl snqvat).
Any others?
Nathan
Dorothy J Heydt
>the characters are spelled right?
Of course not. The first time the writer *sees* the cover, back
or front, is (usually) when the book appears on the shelves, or
(occasionally) when the kindly editor sends a few copies of the
cover flat.
Either way, the covers have been *PRINTED* at (this is my
wild-eyed guess) a cost roughly equivalent to that of printing
the rest of the book, and it is way too late for the author to
provide any input.
Konrad Gaertner
>
> Reverend Sean O'Hara <oha...@rcn.com> wrote:
> >>
> >That should get an entire thread to itself.
>
The Ace paperback edition of Asprin's Myth Directions shows the opening
scene of Myth Conceptions. And of course the characters shown bear
almost no resemblance to thier descriptions in the text (this applies
to all the Ace covers for the series).
The Wheel of Time FAQ used to have a section titled "That Sweet Cover
Art".
--KG
Brenda W. Clough
Reverend Sean O'Hara wrote:
> >
> Writers don't even get to copy-edit the back-cover to make sure
> the characters are spelled right?
>
Of course not.
Brenda
Shane Stezelberger
<kgae...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>Reverend Sean O'Hara wrote:
>>
>> Can anyone think of more egregious mistakes?
(I'll doubtless get pigeonholed as one of those unwashed Titanic
freaks for this, but here goes):
Not sf, but an early edition of Charles Pellegrino's _Her Name,
Titanic_ misidentified the Titanic as a Cunard liner.
--
Shane "never confuse ocean liners with cruise ships" Stezelberger
sstezel at erols dot kom
Laurel, MD
Eric Walker
> In article <3B0A9AE7...@rcn.com>,
> Reverend Sean O'Hara <oha...@rcn.com> wrote:
>
> >Writers don't even get to copy-edit the back-cover to make sure
> >the characters are spelled right?
>
> Of course not. The first time the writer *sees* the cover, back
> or front, is (usually) when the book appears on the shelves, or
> (occasionally) when the kindly editor sends a few copies of the
> cover flat.
>
> Either way, the covers have been *PRINTED* at (this is my
> wild-eyed guess) a cost roughly equivalent to that of printing
> the rest of the book, and it is way too late for the author to
> provide any input.
Does it not seem logical that in sheer self-interest, which
publishers are reputed to stock in large quantities, the
author would be given at least an opportunity to participate
in the cover and other blurb text? Just *participate*, not
even necessarily have a veto. I have always wondered . . . .
--
Cordially,
Eric Walker, webmaster
Great Science-Fiction & Fantasy Works
http://owlcroft.com/sfandf
D. Gascoyne
> Reverend Sean O'Hara (oha...@rcn.com) wrote:
> : Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
> : > We aren't getting into egregious mistakes in cover *art* here,
> : > are we?
> : >
> : That should get an entire thread to itself.
>
> : Come to think of it, maybe it'd be easier to have a thread on
> : cover art that *doesn't* include mistakes.
>
> Garth Nix's _Sabriel_ has a lovely and accurate cover, picturing the
> heroine as she's described in the book. Then there are the covers that
> win by being generic. The paperback of Richard Adams's _Watership Down_
> that I've had since the '80s features a rabbit in a field -- safe enough.
>
>
Ah, but then those two examples represent some of the finest in children's
book illustrators, who might be more than usually depended upon to "get it
right." The covers of Sabriel (and I think Lirael) are by the Dhillons,
Carnegie Medal winners in their own right, and if you have the pb of
Watership Down that I think you have, the cover is by Pauline Baynes of C.S.
Lewis and Tolkien fame.
Debbie
Dorothy J Heydt
Eric Walker <wal...@owlcroft.com> wrote:
>Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
>
>> In article <3B0A9AE7...@rcn.com>,
>> Reverend Sean O'Hara <oha...@rcn.com> wrote:
>> >Writers don't even get to copy-edit the back-cover to make sure
>> >the characters are spelled right?
>>
>> Of course not. The first time the writer *sees* the cover, back
>> or front, is (usually) when the book appears on the shelves, or
>> (occasionally) when the kindly editor sends a few copies of the
>> cover flat.
>
>publishers are reputed to stock in large quantities, the
>author would be given at least an opportunity to participate
>in the cover and other blurb text?
No. Ability to write good fiction is not the same as ability to
write good marketing prose; and not only that, to run the cover
text by the author would be one more person in an already lengthy
process. Particularly if said author doesn't live in the same
city as the publisher.
D. Gascoyne
> Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
> > _
> >
> > We aren't getting into egregious mistakes in cover *art* here,
> > are we?
> >
> That should get an entire thread to itself.
>
> Come to think of it, maybe it'd be easier to have a thread on
> cover art that *doesn't* include mistakes.
>
My "comfort" reading at the moment (so hit me, I'm in the middle of
writing a conference paper) is Mercedes Lackey's _Fire Rose_. The
egregious cover error is showing the character who is
semi-transformed into a wolf with beautiful human hands, when it's
clearly stated and an important plot point that he only has paws.
But what can I say - the cover is by D.K. Sweet, he of probably the
greatest number of egregious errors not to say just plain ugly
covers.
Debbie
Nathan Russell
>The Wheel of Time FAQ used to have a section titled "That Sweet Cover
>Art".
There's still something up at
<http://hugin.imat.com/~pam/cover_art.html>.
There are some things that I've personally noticed, in my few weeks of
reading the series. I'll try to say these without giving spoilers or
requiring too much knowledge of the plot...
1. _The Eye of the World_ has Lan not only incorrectly attired, but
having two swords ready to be drawn by the same hand. He is a superb
swordsman.
2. _The Dragon Reborn_ has a character's hair in an incorrect color,
even though the color of that character's hair has important plot
significance.
3. In fact, a LOT of characters have incorrectly colored hair.
This may be wrong - I'm only starting Book 2 - but there are certain
things I'm sure the cover art is wrong on.
Nathan
John F. Eldredge
Hash: SHA1
On Tue, 22 May 2001 20:28:55 GMT, djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J
Heydt) wrote:
>In article <3B0A9AE7...@rcn.com>,
>Reverend Sean O'Hara <oha...@rcn.com> wrote:
>>>
>>Writers don't even get to copy-edit the back-cover to make sure
>>the characters are spelled right?
>
>Of course not. The first time the writer *sees* the cover, back
>or front, is (usually) when the book appears on the shelves, or
>(occasionally) when the kindly editor sends a few copies of the
>cover flat.
>
>Either way, the covers have been *PRINTED* at (this is my
>wild-eyed guess) a cost roughly equivalent to that of printing
>the rest of the book, and it is way too late for the author to
>provide any input.
The worst cases, in my opinion, are where the cover art implies that
the book is a different genre than it actually is. Fritz Leiber's
_The Green Millennium_ is the classic example.
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--
John F. Eldredge -- eldr...@earthlink.net, eldr...@poboxes.com
PGP key available from http://home.earthlink.net/~eldredge/
"There must be, not a balance of power, but a community of power;
not organized rivalries, but an organized common peace."
Woodrow Wilson
Mark Atwood
> Nathan Russell wrote:
> >
> > Reverend Sean O'Hara <oha...@rcn.com> wrote:
> > >>
> > >That should get an entire thread to itself.
> >
> > Any others?
>
> The Ace paperback edition of Asprin's Myth Directions shows the opening
> scene of Myth Conceptions. And of course the characters shown bear
> almost no resemblance to thier descriptions in the text (this applies
> to all the Ace covers for the series).
Phil Foglio's covers, OTOH, *defined* what the characters looked like...
--
Mark Atwood | I'm wearing black only until I find something darker.
m...@pobox.com | http://www.pobox.com/~mra
Steve Taylor
> The worst cases, in my opinion, are where the cover art implies that
> the book is a different genre than it actually is. Fritz Leiber's
> _The Green Millennium_ is the classic example.
What was on your cover? - remember there have been different editions.
Steve
Sea Wasp
>
> No. Ability to write good fiction is not the same as ability to
> write good marketing prose; and not only that, to run the cover
> text by the author would be one more person in an already lengthy
> process. Particularly if said author doesn't live in the same
> city as the publisher.
Emailing a copy of the cover takes a few seconds. The cover my wife
did recently went back and forth between the authors and her several
times, being incrementally changed, over a period of a week.
The times have a-changed. Publishers might want to consider that it
would be a trivial investment of their time to make sure that the
cover did not, at the least, contain any clear Wrong Things. I.e.,
wrong hair color on a character whose hair color is a plot point, etc.
--
Sea Wasp http://www.wizvax.net/seawasp/index.html
/^\
;;; _Morgantown: The Jason Wood Chronicles_, at
http://www.hyperbooks.com/catalog/20040.html
Joe Slater
> The times have a-changed. Publishers might want to consider that it
>would be a trivial investment of their time to make sure that the
>cover did not, at the least, contain any clear Wrong Things. I.e.,
>wrong hair color on a character whose hair color is a plot point, etc.
Suppose that having the wrong hair color on the cover would sell, say,
an extra 1%. Why would the publisher not do this, and instead use the
correct hair color? Once the reader notices the discrepancy he or she
will have bought the book; and it's not as if most people *would*
notice or care if they did.
jds
--
Joe Slater was but a low-grade paranoiac, whose fantastic notions must
have come from the crude hereditary folk-tales which circulated in even
the most decadent of communities.
_Beyond the Wall of Sleep_ by H P Lovecraft
Antti Tiainen
: Any others?
I have Dan Simmons' Hyperion books which all except _Rise of Endymion_
have a picture of Shrike with a wrong number of hands in the cover.
Dorothy J Heydt
>Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
>
>>
>> No. Ability to write good fiction is not the same as ability to
>> write good marketing prose; and not only that, to run the cover
>> text by the author would be one more person in an already lengthy
>> process. Particularly if said author doesn't live in the same
>> city as the publisher.
>
> Emailing a copy of the cover takes a few seconds. The cover my wife
>did recently went back and forth between the authors and her several
>times, being incrementally changed, over a period of a week.
I think you miss my point. The out-of-town person in the loop,
even in the days of faxen and things, can't stand around a table
with the rest of the participants and argue in real time.
Dorothy J Heydt
John F. Eldredge <eldr...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
>The worst cases, in my opinion, are where the cover art implies that
>the book is a different genre than it actually is. Fritz Leiber's
>_The Green Millennium_ is the classic example.
You must be talking about a different edition of _TGM_ from the
one I have, which is (all things considered) fairly
representative of the contents.
There's the one for one of Arnason's, I'm blanking on the title,
but it engendered the comment "Somewhere out there there's a
novel about a purple-clad lesbian vampire witch with a cover
showing a furry brown alien blacksmith."
I'll truncate my usual rant about how the cover for _The Interior
Life_ put my heroine in a fluffy white 1940s-style prom dress and
page-boy hairdo when she actually should've been hooded and
cloaked like a Nazgul. That's just clothes. The amusing part is
that the same cover was later resold for some kind of historical
romance which, unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately) I have not
seen.
And the cover to Adrienne Martine-Barnes's _The Fire Sword_ caused
her to point out that her heroine spends a fair amount of time
in a nightgown, or clothed for the 12th century, or wrapped in a
blue cloak, or even stark naked quite a bit, but *never* in a
muslin bikini.
Michael J. Lowrey
It is a truth universally acknowledged among publishers,
that sheer self-interest lies in leaving covers to the
marketing department, who will do whatever they believe will
make the book sell to the casual browser, with utter
disregard to truth or to the contents of the works
themselves.
--
Michael J. "Orange Mike" Lowrey
Sunrise Book Reviews
Brenda W. Clough
appears to be a single sheet of damp Kleenex. In the book she was
wearing something not unlike a graduation gown, full and long and with
long sleeves...
Brenda
Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
--
Dorothy J Heydt
Michael J. Lowrey <oran...@uwm.edu> wrote:
>
>It is a truth universally acknowledged among publishers,
>that sheer self-interest lies in leaving covers to the
>marketing department, who will do whatever they believe will
>make the book sell to the casual browser, with utter
>disregard to truth or to the contents of the works
>themselves.
Exactamente.
Lois McMaster Bujold
"Dorothy J Heydt" <djh...@kithrup.com> wrote in message
news:GDr7K...@kithrup.com...
> In article <3B0A9AE7...@rcn.com>,
> Reverend Sean O'Hara <oha...@rcn.com> wrote:
> >>
> >Writers don't even get to copy-edit the back-cover to make sure
> >the characters are spelled right?
>
> Of course not. The first time the writer *sees* the cover, back
> or front, is (usually) when the book appears on the shelves, or
> (occasionally) when the kindly editor sends a few copies of the
> cover flat.
>
> Either way, the covers have been *PRINTED* at (this is my
> wild-eyed guess) a cost roughly equivalent to that of printing
> the rest of the book, and it is way too late for the author to
> provide any input.
This is not always the case. The cover flats I get, two or three months
in advance of printing, are indeed proofs; there is still time, although it
isn't free, to get egregious errors corrected. If you spot them yourself,
that is. The eye does tend to see what the mind "knows" is there.
Baen will use cover blurbs supplied by the author, if suitable; saves
them work and makes the author happy, after all. I think of them as sort of
6-sentence prose haikus. They have a kind of a... genre, or rhythm, to
them. I haven't done all my blurbs for Baen in the past, but when I didn't,
I was usually sorry enough, I make the effort more consistently now.
Ta, Lois.
Michael S. Schiffer
<GDsJ1...@kithrup.com>:
>In article <3B0BA6...@wizvax.net>, Sea Wasp
><sea...@wizvax.net> wrote:
>>Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
>>> No. Ability to write good fiction is not the same as ability to
>>> write good marketing prose; and not only that, to run the cover
>>> text by the author would be one more person in an already lengthy
>>> process. Particularly if said author doesn't live in the same
>>> city as the publisher.
>> Emailing a copy of the cover takes a few seconds. The cover my
>> wife
>>did recently went back and forth between the authors and her
>>several times, being incrementally changed, over a period of a
>>week.
>I think you miss my point. The out-of-town person in the loop,
>even in the days of faxen and things, can't stand around a table
>with the rest of the participants and argue in real time.
Well, they _could_. At our place of business, hardly on the
technological cutting edge, we've conducted job interviews with
applicants by speakerphone, and cheap/free teleconferencing software
will run on any computer less than five years old. It may, of course,
still be too cumbersome for the perceived benefits, of which the
publisher may not see any.
But assuming that there's any time at all between the receipt of the
design and final approval, it would be possible to e-mail the author
with a scan and text saying "we're making our final decision on the
cover tomorrow. If you have any comments you think we should take into
account, please feel free to e-mail back before then." Without, of
course, any guarantee that the comments will sway anyone, but minor
errors that are actually errors and not marketing decisions could be
caught.
Moreover, assuming the cover is being commissioned for the work (rather
than being taken from a drawer of already-bought images) the artist
could also be given the author's e-mail address. For the GURPS
Alternate Earths books, correspondence with the illustrator was
extremely helpful in answering questions about the look of the worlds
that weren't available from the text. (For the most part, we trusted
the artist's judgment, since that was the artist's job, but we provided
examples of milieus with similar looks, described our impressions of
various technological devices, etc.) I think the artist found it
helpful, and I believe it improved the final product.
At that, the first GAE book's cover illustration was nonetheless an
example of eye-catching being more important than pure accuracy. The
scene, from the world we called Gernsback, was perhaps 30-50 years too
advanced for the technology we'd described. But it was IMHO beautiful
and striking, and it gave the correct general impression (of a world of
scientific adventure, complete with mad scientists and personal flying
craft), and we wouldn't have vetoed it if we could have. (For the
curious, it's viewable at
<http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/books/AltEarths/img/cover-lg.jpg>.)
Mike
--
Michael S. Schiffer, LHN, FCS
ms...@mediaone.net
msch...@condor.depaul.edu
Rachel Brown
> And the cover to Adrienne Martine-Barnes's _The Fire Sword_ caused
> her to point out that her heroine spends a fair amount of time
> in a nightgown, or clothed for the 12th century, or wrapped in a
> blue cloak, or even stark naked quite a bit, but *never* in a
> muslin bikini.
The only sf or fantasy novels I've ever read in which the heroine actually
wears a bikini of any variety were all written by Jack Chalker or Piers
Anthony. Nevertheless, an astonishing proportion of total sf and fantasy
novels feature women wearing bikinis on the cover. Even more astonishing,
these bikinis are often:
Made of metal (Ow! Double ow if the temperature is anything but perfectly
temperate)
Worn while riding a horse or other animal (Ow! Ow! Ow!)
Worn during battle (Character must be an invulnerable exhibitionist)
A particularly egregious example can be found on the cover of Patricia
Wrede's _Shadow Magic_, in which the bikini has tassles.
Rachel
She was a vixen when she went to school,
And though she be but little, she is fierce
William Shakespeare, "A Midsummer Night's Dream"
Reverend Sean O'Hara
>
> Eric Walker wrote:
> >
> > Does it not seem logical that in sheer self-interest, which
> > publishers are reputed to stock in large quantities, the
> > author would be given at least an opportunity to participate
> > in the cover and other blurb text? Just *participate*, not
> > even necessarily have a veto. I have always wondered . . . .
>
> It is a truth universally acknowledged among publishers,
> that sheer self-interest lies in leaving covers to the
> marketing department, who will do whatever they believe will
> make the book sell to the casual browser, with utter
> disregard to truth or to the contents of the works
> themselves.
>
lot of novels I wouldn't've looked at twice if someone hadn't
recommended them to me. ("A Fire Upon the Deep" for example, has a
rather generic space-opera cover; Robert Jordan books don't look
much different from the Mercedes Lackey books Darryl Sweet's
done covers for; the covers for the books of Ash don't even strike
me as well done.
That aside, in a lot of bookstores, I don't even see the covers
unless the book's on display, or if it's already interested me enough
to pull it off the shelf.
--
Reverend Sean O'Hara
You too can be an ordained minister: http://www.ulc.org/ulc
Staff Writer for EXPULSION: http://www.expulsion.org
"Just last week, Rummy sent me an e-mail over the Internet -
something that didn't exist just five years ago." - Sen. Armey
Reverend Sean O'Hara
>
> The only sf or fantasy novels I've ever read in which the heroine actually
> wears a bikini of any variety were all written by Jack Chalker or Piers
> Anthony. Nevertheless, an astonishing proportion of total sf and fantasy
> novels feature women wearing bikinis on the cover. Even more astonishing,
> these bikinis are often:
>
> Made of metal (Ow! Double ow if the temperature is anything but perfectly
> temperate)
>
> Worn while riding a horse or other animal (Ow! Ow! Ow!)
>
> Worn during battle (Character must be an invulnerable exhibitionist)
>
> A particularly egregious example can be found on the cover of Patricia
> Wrede's _Shadow Magic_, in which the bikini has tassles.
>
Stoker's "The Jewel of the Seven Stars" which shows a woman wearing,
not a bikini, but two strategically placed gold-foil leaves on her
breasts, and what appears to be a belt with a towel draped over it.
How bad is it? I swear that the artist included stubble. And not on
the legs. [1]
If I hadn't been curious about Bram Stoker novels other than Dracula,
I wouldn't've bought the book. As is, I had to find five books
with normal covers just so I wouldn't feel so dirty carrying a
book with something that trashy on the cover.
[1] That reminds me: You never see the bikini clad warrior princesses
with hairy legs or armpits.
Ian A. York
>lot of novels I wouldn't've looked at twice if someone hadn't
>recommended them to me. ("A Fire Upon the Deep" for example, has a
That's probably the marketeer's reasoning. For people like you, who buy
books based on recommendations, the cover doesn't gain, doesn't lose.
People who *don't* buy based on recommendations are likely to have
different criteria for books anyway, and they're more likely to go for
generic space-opera type covers. By putting on a particular cover, they
won't lose you as a customer, but they might gain some browser.
I don't know if it's a good argument (I buy both on recommendations *and*
on browsing, and there are covers that have turned me off enough that I
ignored recommendations--and Fire Upon the Deep was one of them, for
years). but for a marketing droid it's pretty fancy synapse work.
Ian
--
Ian York (iay...@panix.com) <http://www.panix.com/~iayork/>
"-but as he was a York, I am rather inclined to suppose him a
very respectable Man." -Jane Austen, The History of England
Reverend Sean O'Hara
>
> The Wheel of Time FAQ used to have a section titled "That Sweet Cover
> Art".
>
that, but compare his cover of Mercedes Lackey's "The Robin and
the Kestrel"
(http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0671876287.01.LZZZZZZZ.gif)
To his cover of "The Dragon Reborn"
(http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0812513711.01.LZZZZZZZ.gif)
The cover of the Lackey book's a bit dark at Amazon, but if you'll
notice the figure in the lower left corner, you'll find that he's
almost identical to the one in the lower left corner of "The Dragon
Reborn." The face and head-band are the exact same, the stance is
pretty much identical except for the hand. The only real difference
is the clothing.
Other misleading cover art.
I'd have to go with "A Fire Upon the Deep." Maybe I missed something,
but I don't remember any description of the OOB being shaped like
a manta ray with a giant tail. And why is space sort of a sky
color?
While I generally like the covers to George R. R. Martin's Song
of Ice and Fire books, I have to say that the first one is quite
wrong. I guess that the character on the cover is supposed to
be Jon, but he's far too old. The castle in the background must be
Winterfell or Castle Black -- although Castle Black isn't supposed
to a fortified castle. I can't think of any reason for their to be
that much smoke coming from a castle, though -- it's too much for
a chimney, but no place in the North got sacked in the book.
I have an old Poul Anderson book with a woman in a rather revealing
gown. The problem is, her body doesn't look right. Her legs join
the hips at the wrong angle, her waist is too thin, and, as my
girlfriend said, "If my boobs did that, I'd go to the doctor." (The
woman's breasts seem to be attached under the armpits, because they're
pointed about 120 degrees apart.)
Craig S. Richardson
<r.ph...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>Even more astonishing,
>these bikinis are often:
>
>Made of metal (Ow! Double ow if the temperature is anything but perfectly
>temperate)
>
>Worn while riding a horse or other animal (Ow! Ow! Ow!)
>
>Worn during battle (Character must be an invulnerable exhibitionist)
It's another example of "bulletproof nudity" - she's protected
_because_ her outfit is so revealing. For the male equivalent, why do
you think Stallone, Van Damme, Lee (any of them), or Lundgren end up
with their shirts off so often?
--Craig
--
David Collins from Burnley: 70K pounds
Luke Weaver from Spurs: 500K pounds
Matthew Etherington from Grasshoppers-Zurich: 1.2M pounds
Leyton Orient 1-0 St. Mirren in the 2003 UEFA Cup Final: Priceless
Konrad Gaertner
>
> It is a truth universally acknowledged among publishers,
> that sheer self-interest lies in leaving covers to the
> marketing department, who will do whatever they believe will
> make the book sell to the casual browser, with utter
> disregard to truth or to the contents of the works
> themselves.
>
actuall errors on the covers. Don't publishers realise how bad they
look when they misspell something on the cover? Or list the wrong
author? We're talking about a semi-permanent object that may well
find itself sitting on the shelf of a major public library for the
next several decades. Is it too much trouble to have the author
proofread the cover text?
For that matter, publishers get the blame for every duplicated,
missing, or upside-down page, even though I'm pretty sure they have
little if any control over that. Maybe its time to name who the
printer/binder is.
--KG
Ross TenEyck
>The only sf or fantasy novels I've ever read in which the heroine actually
>wears a bikini of any variety were all written by Jack Chalker or Piers
>Anthony. Nevertheless, an astonishing proportion of total sf and fantasy
>novels feature women wearing bikinis on the cover. Even more astonishing,
>these bikinis are often:
>Made of metal (Ow! Double ow if the temperature is anything but perfectly
>temperate)
Even worse are the ones with spiky bits. I remember one cover
featuring the typical buxom female barbarian in a brass bikini,
where the bikini bottom had this spike pointing up towards her
belly button. It would have gutted her if she had ever bent
over, sneezed, or exhaled.
>Worn during battle (Character must be an invulnerable exhibitionist)
One of the GURPS books had, under "cinematic rules," one covering
"bulletproof nudity" -- the character's defense stats increase
the less clothing they're wearing.
--
================== http://www.alumni.caltech.edu/~teneyck ==================
Ross TenEyck Seattle, WA \ Light, kindled in the furnace of hydrogen;
ten...@alumni.caltech.edu \ like smoke, sunlight carries the hot-metal
Are wa yume? Soretomo maboroshi? \ tang of Creation's forge.
Dorothy J Heydt
Konrad Gaertner <gae...@aol.com> wrote:
>>
>But this thread isn't really about bad/innappropiate cover art, but
>actuall errors on the covers. Don't publishers realise how bad they
>look when they misspell something on the cover? Or list the wrong
>author? We're talking about a semi-permanent object that may well
>find itself sitting on the shelf of a major public library for the
>next several decades. Is it too much trouble to have the author
>proofread the cover text?
SOMEbody undoubtedly proofreads it. Probably several somebodies.
And they still miss things sometimes. If the author were to
proof it too, he might miss it too. And he might get into a
fruitless argument with the marketing department about the actual
text of the blurb being a mistake, thus eating up time on an
already tight publishing schedule. Any given publisher is not
the only client of its printer, and has to have the material
ready to go to press when the printer can squeeze it in.
This isn't always bad. _A Point of Honor_ was printed and
released a couple months *earlier* than it was originally
scheduled for, because that was when the printer could fit it in.
Dorothy J Heydt
Ross TenEyck <ten...@alumnae.caltech.edu> wrote:
>
>Even worse are the [bikinis] with spiky bits. I remember one cover
>featuring the typical buxom female barbarian in a brass bikini,
>where the bikini bottom had this spike pointing up towards her
>belly button. It would have gutted her if she had ever bent
>over, sneezed, or exhaled.
The all-time owie award goes, however, not to any cover but to
the scene in _Excalibur_ where Uther is having ado with Ygraine (to
use Sir Thomas Malory's tactful phrase) and she is mother-naked
and he is in full, spiky, armor.
Dorothy J Heydt
>gown. The problem is, her body doesn't look right. Her legs join
>the hips at the wrong angle, her waist is too thin, and, as my
>girlfriend said, "If my boobs did that, I'd go to the doctor." (The
>woman's breasts seem to be attached under the armpits, because they're
>pointed about 120 degrees apart.)
Well, I may be about to give you more information than you care
to have, but mine do that anyway when I lie down. But I'm *old.*
Still, I haven't reached the stage, reported by an art teacher I
knew in junior college, of a model he used to have who, during
breaks, would pick up one of her breasts and casually toss it
over her shoulder. (The relevant adjective is "pendulous.")
James C. Ellis
>
[re: the chainmail bikini]
> It's another example of "bulletproof nudity" - she's protected
> _because_ her outfit is so revealing.
As I recall, there was a cheap RPG ("Macho Women with Guns",
perchance?) that worked this way; the more revealing the outfit, the
better the armour class.
Biff
--
-------------------------------------------------------------------
"Me? Lady, I'm your worst nightmare - a pumpkin with a gun.
[...] Euminides this! " - Mervyn, the Sandman #66
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Ross TenEyck
I was reading a book of Arabic fairy tales once, and one of the
standard tropes was the hero coming upon a female ghoul sitting
in the middle of the road, grinding something in a mortar, with
her breasts thrown over her shoulder to keep them out of the
way.
The right thing to do was to sneak up behind her and suckle from
her breast before she noticed you. Once you'd done that, she'd
be compelled to treat you as her child, which at a minimum would
include not tearing you into pieces and devouring you on the spot.
Andrew Plotkin
>>Still, I haven't reached the stage, reported by an art teacher I
>>knew in junior college, of a model he used to have who, during
>>breaks, would pick up one of her breasts and casually toss it
>>over her shoulder. (The relevant adjective is "pendulous.")
> I was reading a book of Arabic fairy tales once, and one of the
> standard tropes was the hero coming upon a female ghoul sitting
> in the middle of the road, grinding something in a mortar, with
> her breasts thrown over her shoulder to keep them out of the
> way.
> The right thing to do was to sneak up behind her and suckle from
> her breast before she noticed you. Once you'd done that, she'd
> be compelled to treat you as her child, which at a minimum would
> include not tearing you into pieces and devouring you on the spot.
"Can you throw them over your shoulder,
like a Continental soldier?"
Okay, most Continental soldiers possessed pendulous parts which were
*not* breasts, but the concept must have crept in there somewhere. (In
the long historical ascendency of ears.)
--Z
"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the borogoves..."
*
* Votes count. Count votes.
Sea Wasp
>
> Even worse are the ones with spiky bits. I remember one cover
> featuring the typical buxom female barbarian in a brass bikini,
> where the bikini bottom had this spike pointing up towards her
> belly button. It would have gutted her if she had ever bent
> over, sneezed, or exhaled.
The "Slayers" anime movies have had fun with this. The overly-buxom,
lunatic and not-particularly-bright sorceress Naga wears a skimpy
platemail outfit (with cape) that has large, very spiky shoulder-pads.
Several times she has gone to cast a spell which apparently requires a
dramatic uplifting of the arms, and jabbed herself in the head, thus
of course ruining the spell.
Andrew Wheeler
> Does it not seem logical that in sheer self-interest, which
> publishers are reputed to stock in large quantities, the
> author would be given at least an opportunity to participate
> in the cover and other blurb text? Just *participate*, not
> even necessarily have a veto. I have always wondered . . . .
You are assuming that the author is the best judge of cover copy. In
many cases, an author is a *good* judge of cover copy, but I would
say the *best* judge is a collaboration between a good marketer and a
good copyeditor (combining the virtues of knowing what will attract
readers with the virtues of spelling things correctly).
Some authors are uninterested, some are too busy with other things,
some have radically different ideas of how a book should be
presented, and a few (a very very few, I hasten to add, certainly
none that any of us might have ever heard of -- don't know why I'd
even mention it, really) are less than pleasant to deal with.
It would be nice if the authors who wanted to be involved (and who
also had something worthwhile to contribute) were involved, but it
doesn't always happen that way.
--
Andrew Wheeler
Editor, SF Book Club (USA)
"If, sir, you, sir, choose to chew, sir, with the Goo-Goose, chew,
sir. Do, sir."
Ross TenEyck
>Ross TenEyck wrote:
>>
>> Even worse are the ones with spiky bits. I remember one cover
>> featuring the typical buxom female barbarian in a brass bikini,
>> where the bikini bottom had this spike pointing up towards her
>> belly button. It would have gutted her if she had ever bent
>> over, sneezed, or exhaled.
> The "Slayers" anime movies have had fun with this. The overly-buxom,
>lunatic and not-particularly-bright sorceress Naga wears a skimpy
>platemail outfit (with cape) that has large, very spiky shoulder-pads.
>Several times she has gone to cast a spell which apparently requires a
>dramatic uplifting of the arms, and jabbed herself in the head, thus
>of course ruining the spell.
Hmm... I must have missed those. I gave up on the OAVs and movies
pretty quickly -- Naga is just TOO scary.
And without Zelgadis, Gourry, and Amelia, it's just no fun :)
D. Gascoyne
...and can you imagine shaving what is euphemistically called the "bikini area"
with a straight razor (which is presumably all that said bikini clad fantasy
heroine has available to her)????
Eric Walker
That is a cogent response, but slightly aside of my intent, however
poorly phrased. What I meant was "Should not the author be allowed
*an* opportunity to scream about gross errors or dead-foolish plot
giveaways?" as opposed to participating in the creation of what is,
as you rightly note, a specialized weapon, a marketing tool.
--
Cordially,
Eric Walker, webmaster
Great Science-Fiction & Fantasy Works
http://owlcroft.com/sfandf
Eric Walker
>
> In article <9eh65p$h...@gap.cco.caltech.edu>,
> Ross TenEyck <ten...@alumnae.caltech.edu> wrote:
> >
> >Even worse are the [bikinis] with spiky bits. I remember one cover
> >featuring the typical buxom female barbarian in a brass bikini,
> >where the bikini bottom had this spike pointing up towards her
> >belly button. It would have gutted her if she had ever bent
> >over, sneezed, or exhaled.
>
> The all-time owie award goes, however, not to any cover but to
> the scene in _Excalibur_ where Uther is having ado with Ygraine (to
> use Sir Thomas Malory's tactful phrase) and she is mother-naked
> and he is in full, spiky, armor.
Can somebody remind me, I seem to recall that in the movie
_Excalibur_ it was actually depicted that way--can that be right?
Dorothy J Heydt
Eric Walker <wal...@owlcroft.com> wrote:
>Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
>>
>> In article <9eh65p$h...@gap.cco.caltech.edu>,
>> Ross TenEyck <ten...@alumnae.caltech.edu> wrote:
>> >
>> >Even worse are the [bikinis] with spiky bits. I remember one cover
>> >featuring the typical buxom female barbarian in a brass bikini,
>> >where the bikini bottom had this spike pointing up towards her
>> >belly button. It would have gutted her if she had ever bent
>> >over, sneezed, or exhaled.
>>
>> The all-time owie award goes, however, not to any cover but to
>> the scene in _Excalibur_ where Uther is having ado with Ygraine (to
>> use Sir Thomas Malory's tactful phrase) and she is mother-naked
>> and he is in full, spiky, armor.
>
>Can somebody remind me, I seem to recall that in the movie
>_Excalibur_ it was actually depicted that way--can that be right?
That's what I was talking about. The movie. And it was depicted
that way. And it was not right, it was wrong wrong wrong.
Matthias Warkus
...and D. Gascoyne <gasc...@home.com> wrote:
> ...and can you imagine shaving what is euphemistically called the
> "bikini area" with a straight razor (which is presumably all that
> said bikini clad fantasy heroine has available to her)????
Now this reminds me of a fun phone call I had, maybe two years ago. I
had just described to a female friend the horrors of male shaving. My
case in point was how I had managed to injure my upper lip (!) becaue
I was distracted by something when working on that last bit of
stubble.
She said: "Hey. You've got no idea of the areas where women shave."
Whereas I said: "Yes, but at least you can't get cuts on your lips..."
Then, it took me a couple of minutes to get what she had said and what
I had said. I was careful to laugh only after the call was over.
mawa
--
Vollrauschverweigerer!
Videobandsortierer!
Vorbohrer!
Wärmflaschenfüller!
John Ringo
Dorothy J Heydt <djh...@kithrup.com> wrote in message
news:GDsJ1...@kithrup.com...
snip
> > Emailing a copy of the cover takes a few seconds. The cover my wife
> >did recently went back and forth between the authors and her several
> >times, being incrementally changed, over a period of a week.
>
> I think you miss my point. The out-of-town person in the loop,
> even in the days of faxen and things, can't stand around a table
> with the rest of the participants and argue in real time.
>
These days, Jim has his author's write the cover blurbs. (If they so choose,
and I do.) Then he "touches them up" and solicits feedback. I've actually
"edited" his editing on one (Gust Front.) He also e-mails the roughs of the
cover. I have a "side" relationship with Pat Turner, for that matter, and
get the _very_ rough stuff from him (often involving much wire form).
This does not, unfortunately, mean that I can always get changed what I want
changed. But at least I go the hat off of Roger.
John
(The Roger Ramius Blurbs are all David's fault, though.)
;-)
--
Gust Front: http://www.johnringo.com/GustFront/GustCover.htm (April 2001,
Baen Books)
March Upcountry: http://www.johnringo.com/MUCover.htm (with David Weber, May
2001, Baen Books)
March To The Sea: (with David Weber, August 2001, Baen Books)
LHeilb8013
which refers to a "hero" who never appears in the book.......!!
Lloyd Heilbrunn
Reverend Sean O'Hara
>
> In article <3B0C12DA...@rcn.com>,
> Reverend Sean O'Hara <oha...@rcn.com> wrote:
> >
> >I have an old Poul Anderson book with a woman in a rather revealing
> >gown. The problem is, her body doesn't look right. Her legs join
> >the hips at the wrong angle, her waist is too thin, and, as my
> >girlfriend said, "If my boobs did that, I'd go to the doctor." (The
> >woman's breasts seem to be attached under the armpits, because they're
> >pointed about 120 degrees apart.)
>
> Well, I may be about to give you more information than you care
> to have, but mine do that anyway when I lie down. But I'm *old.*
>
is standing upright. And they're still on opposite sides of her
ribcage.
> Still, I haven't reached the stage, reported by an art teacher I
> knew in junior college, of a model he used to have who, during
> breaks, would pick up one of her breasts and casually toss it
> over her shoulder. (The relevant adjective is "pendulous.")
>
I would assume by that point the breasts couldn't be pointed in any
direction other than down.
Neil Barnes
<3B0C12DA...@rcn.com>:
>I have an old Poul Anderson book with a woman in a rather revealing
>gown. The problem is, her body doesn't look right. Her legs join
>the hips at the wrong angle, her waist is too thin, and, as my
>girlfriend said, "If my boobs did that, I'd go to the doctor." (The
>woman's breasts seem to be attached under the armpits, because they're
>pointed about 120 degrees apart.)
>
Not SFwritten - but if you have a copy of Jim Steinman's 'Bad for Good' in
your record collection (this image isn't really big enough to see:
http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B0000025IQ.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg ) the chap on
the front not only has wings, but a disturbing number of right hands...
--
I have a quantum car. Every time I look at the speedometer I get lost...
barnacle
http://www.nailed-barnacle.co.uk
Cyril N. Alberga
Rachel Brown wrote:
>
> Dorothy J Heydt <djh...@kithrup.com> wrote in article
> >
> > And the cover to Adrienne Martine-Barnes's _The Fire Sword_ caused
> > her to point out that her heroine spends a fair amount of time
> > in a nightgown, or clothed for the 12th century, or wrapped in a
> > blue cloak, or even stark naked quite a bit, but *never* in a
> > muslin bikini.
>
> The only sf or fantasy novels I've ever read in which the heroine actually
> wears a bikini of any variety were all written by Jack Chalker or Piers
> Anthony. Nevertheless, an astonishing proportion of total sf and fantasy
> novels feature women wearing bikinis on the cover. Even more astonishing,
> these bikinis are often:
>
> Made of metal (Ow! Double ow if the temperature is anything but perfectly
> temperate)
>
> Worn while riding a horse or other animal (Ow! Ow! Ow!)
>
> Worn during battle (Character must be an invulnerable exhibitionist)
>
> A particularly egregious example can be found on the cover of Patricia
> Wrede's _Shadow Magic_, in which the bikini has tassles.
>
> Rachel
>
Isn't there a funny take on that in one of the "Maureen Birnbaum" shorts
by (mumble)?
Cyril
Andrew Wheeler
> <snip earlier exchange>
> That is a cogent response, but slightly aside of my intent, however
> poorly phrased. What I meant was "Should not the author be allowed
> *an* opportunity to scream about gross errors or dead-foolish plot
> giveaways?" as opposed to participating in the creation of what is,
> as you rightly note, a specialized weapon, a marketing tool.
Well, one of the things I was trying to gently say is that there are
some authors who should not be allowed anywhere near the marketing of
their own books, so I don't believe author input is always an unmixed
good.
That, of course, begs the question of who decides which authors should
be involved. It ends up being the publisher, but I certainly wouldn't
say that the decision is always made correctly, or even that the right
reasons are considered.
--
Andrew Wheeler
Editor, SFBC (USA) -- not speaking officially
Personal mail: andrew...@earthlink.com
Club related: andrew....@bookspan.com
James Nicoll
>
>...and can you imagine shaving what is euphemistically called the "bikini area"
>with a straight razor (which is presumably all that said bikini clad fantasy
>heroine has available to her)????
Waxing or some similar technique. Plucking with tweezers.
Have you ever slipped with a straight razor? I have (cat wanted
attention so it hopped up on the toilet behind me and bit me on the bottom
just as I was beginning to slide the razor up my throat) and it is a bad
bad idea.
James Nicoll
--
The Canadians were a hospitable and tolerant desert people,
living on the edge of a wilderness of snow and permafrost. Winnipeg,
Regina and Saskatoon were cities of the northern desert, Samarkands
of ice. J.G. Ballard
Dorothy J Heydt
And if tweezers haven't been invented yet, I understand using two
small pieces of slate to grip the hairs with works.
> Have you ever slipped with a straight razor? I have (cat wanted
>attention so it hopped up on the toilet behind me and bit me on the bottom
>just as I was beginning to slide the razor up my throat) and it is a bad
>bad idea.
No, but it does not surprise me that you have.
Lawrence Watt-Evans
<clo...@erols.com> wrote:
>My first novel (THE CRYSTAL CROWN) depicts the heroine, dressed in what
>appears to be a single sheet of damp Kleenex. In the book she was
>wearing something not unlike a graduation gown, full and long and with
>long sleeves...
Yes, and I guarantee that cover sold better than would one that
matched the text.
--
The Misenchanted Page: http://www.sff.net/people/LWE/ Last update 4/24/01
My latest novel is NIGHT OF MADNESS
Andrew Wheeler
> <snip discussion of bikinis on covers>
> Isn't there a funny take on that in one of the "Maureen Birnbaum" shorts
> by (mumble)?
That would be Effinger.
Kent Coyle
On Mon, 21 May 2001, Reverend Sean O'Hara wrote:
> Over the weekend I reread some Douglas Adams novels. When I got to
> "Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency," I noticed that the spangle
> on the cover proclaiming "Best-selling Author of" etc. actually
> read, "Best-selling Athor of" etc. I'd noticed this mistake before,
> but looking at it got me thinking of all the errors I've seen on
> covers (not necessarily typographical, but misleading cover synopses
> on the back).
>
> The "athor" mistake was obviously caused by the lack of a spell
> checker, but one I noticed on Terry Pratchett's "Interesting
> Times" was obviously caused by the use of a spell checker. The
> back cover reads: "When a carrier albatross arrives with an
> Urgent request for a 'Great Wizard,' Rincewind finds himself..."
> The problem is that the message asked for a "Great Wizzard" [sic].
> The two "z"s in the "Wizzard" are important because they tell
> the wizards that the message refers to Rincewind, who has "Wizzard"
> on his hat.
>
> Then there's the cover synopsis of "The Stone Canal" which states
> that Jonathan Wilde "was accused of losing World War III." While
> there are interpretations of events that lend themselves to Wilde
> losing the war, it might be more apt to've said "accused of loosing
> World War III."
>
> I'm sure people can think of five bazillion examples of cover
> synopses giving away an important plot development that occurs
> on page 800.
>
> Of course, the worst mistake I've ever seen on a cover wasn't a
> science fiction or fantasy novel, but a biography of Harry Truman.
> The book was titled "Harry S. [sic] Truman." The problem: The period
> after the "S" implies that it's an initial standing for a middle
> name. In fact, the "S" *was* Truman's middle name (apparently there
> was a vogue early in the century for giving children letters rather
> than full middle names). So the title of the books should've been
> "Harry S Truman." The difference is very subtle, but it's the
> sort of thing you'd expect the author to catch.
>
> Can anyone think of more egregious mistakes?
>
> --
> Reverend Sean O'Hara
> You too can be an ordained minister: http://www.ulc.org/ulc
> Staff Writer for EXPULSION: http://www.expulsion.org
> "My side! Your side! My side! Your side!" - Stark, "Farscape"
>
Not on the cover, (and not SF) but Shirer's _20th Century Journey_,
Vol. 3, misspells Sen. Sam Ervin's name (as Irving) repeatedly. It just
about ruins all three volumes. If he can't get *that* right, what else is
wrong?
Jo Walton
> In article <3B0A9AE7...@rcn.com>,
> Reverend Sean O'Hara <oha...@rcn.com> wrote:
> >>
> >Writers don't even get to copy-edit the back-cover to make sure
> >the characters are spelled right?
>
> Of course not. The first time the writer *sees* the cover, back
> or front, is (usually) when the book appears on the shelves, or
> (occasionally) when the kindly editor sends a few copies of the
> cover flat.
>
> Either way, the covers have been *PRINTED* at (this is my
> wild-eyed guess) a cost roughly equivalent to that of printing
> the rest of the book, and it is way too late for the author to
> provide any input.
I got to see the covers that were printed for the advance review copies
of _The King's Peace_ and got to correct the typo on the blurb so that
the protagonist's name is correctly spelled on the ones that actually got
sold. If anyone's got one where it's "Sulian" in the blurb, it's one of
the advance copies.
But I was lucky there. And even if they hadn't been able to change it,
well, it's not _Rouge Queen_.
--
Jo J...@bluejo.demon.co.uk
I kissed a kif at Kefk
Locus Recommended First Novel: *THE KING'S PEACE* out now from Tor.
Sample Chapters, Map, Poems, & stuff at http://www.bluejo.demon.co.uk
cd skogsberg
>"Rachel Brown" <r.ph...@worldnet.att.net> writes:
>>The only sf or fantasy novels I've ever read in which the heroine
>>actually wears a bikini of any variety were all written by Jack
>>Chalker or Piers Anthony. Nevertheless, an astonishing proportion
>>of total sf and fantasy novels feature women wearing bikinis on the
>>cover. Even more astonishing, these bikinis are often:
>>Made of metal (Ow! Double ow if the temperature is anything but
>>perfectly temperate)
>Even worse are the ones with spiky bits. I remember one cover
>featuring the typical buxom female barbarian in a brass bikini,
>where the bikini bottom had this spike pointing up towards her
>belly button. It would have gutted her if she had ever bent
>over, sneezed, or exhaled.
For all of you, take a look at Jonas Nelson's picture 'Klichè' -
http://elfwood.lysator.liu.se/loth/n/e/nelson/kliche.jpg.html
/cd
--
"I must drink beer. Beer is the mind-killer. Beer is the little death
that brings total obliteration. I will face my beer. I will permit it
to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn
the inner eye to see it's path. When the beer is gone ther will be
nothing. Only I will remain." -- Phillip, _Goats_, 990517
Charles Frederick Goodin
Kent Coyle <k...@email.unc.edu> wrote:
>> Of course, the worst mistake I've ever seen on a cover wasn't a
>> science fiction or fantasy novel, but a biography of Harry Truman.
>> The book was titled "Harry S. [sic] Truman." The problem: The period
>> after the "S" implies that it's an initial standing for a middle
>> name. In fact, the "S" *was* Truman's middle name (apparently there
>> was a vogue early in the century for giving children letters rather
>> than full middle names). So the title of the books should've been
>> "Harry S Truman." The difference is very subtle, but it's the
>> sort of thing you'd expect the author to catch.
But if your middle name is "S", then isn't your middle initial (that is,
the first letter of your middle name) "S."? The "S." stands for "S".
Sure, it's longer than the name it's (supposedly) abbreviating, but it's
still accurate, isn't it?
--
chuk
Ross TenEyck
>These days, Jim has his author's write the cover blurbs. (If they so choose,
>and I do.) Then he "touches them up" and solicits feedback. I've actually
>"edited" his editing on one (Gust Front.) He also e-mails the roughs of the
>cover. I have a "side" relationship with Pat Turner, for that matter, and
>get the _very_ rough stuff from him (often involving much wire form).
OK, now I have to ask -- does this mean that Eric had anything
to do with the back cover blurb for _Telzey_? 'Cause I've
refrained from mentioning that in the various Is-Eric-an-evil-
butcher threads on the assumption that he had no control over
it... but if he did, then I have to say it's pretty heinous.
Allow me to quote:
"They called it the 'Lion Game,' and they made the mistake
of thinking that in this clash of predators, Telzey was
just a harmless kitten. But when the dust settled, Telzey
would be the only one purring...."
OK, it's not technically inaccurate, but it is far too
cutesy... especially for Telzey. "Purring" indeed. Ugh.
Michael J. Lowrey
> >"Rachel Brown" <r.ph...@worldnet.att.net> writes:
>
> >>The only sf or fantasy novels I've ever read in which the heroine
> >>actually wears a bikini of any variety were all written by Jack
> >>Chalker or Piers Anthony. Nevertheless, an astonishing proportion
> >>of total sf and fantasy novels feature women wearing bikinis on the
> >>cover. Even more astonishing, these bikinis are often:
>
> >>Made of metal (Ow! Double ow if the temperature is anything but
> >>perfectly temperate)
>
> >Even worse are the ones with spiky bits. I remember one cover
> >featuring the typical buxom female barbarian in a brass bikini,
> >where the bikini bottom had this spike pointing up towards her
> >belly button. It would have gutted her if she had ever bent
> >over, sneezed, or exhaled.
Cicatrice's term for the medical condition caused by all
this wearing of chainmail bikinis: "Piranha hickies"
--
Michael J. "Orange Mike" Lowrey
lunching at Usenet's
John Ringo
> ...and D. Gascoyne <gasc...@home.com> wrote:
> > ...and can you imagine shaving what is euphemistically called the
> > "bikini area" with a straight razor (which is presumably all that
> > said bikini clad fantasy heroine has available to her)????
>
Actually, in a society of that nature one would presume they used a hot wax
treatment rather than a razor. Men would hot wax their faces but facial hair
is remarkably tenacious stuff.
This is not an argument for the "reality" of chainmail bikinis or, for that
matter, the outfit that Xena wears. But it _is_ an _answer_.
John
Sea Wasp
>
> In article <3B0C6E27...@home.com>, D. Gascoyne <gasc...@home.com> wrote:
> >
> >...and can you imagine shaving what is euphemistically called the "bikini area"
> >with a straight razor (which is presumably all that said bikini clad fantasy
> >heroine has available to her)????
>
> Waxing or some similar technique. Plucking with tweezers.
>
> Have you ever slipped with a straight razor? I have (cat wanted
> attention so it hopped up on the toilet behind me and bit me on the bottom
> just as I was beginning to slide the razor up my throat) and it is a bad
> bad idea.
Why did I just KNOW, as soon as I saw someone mention the words
"Straight Razor" that I would see another Nicoll Event posting?
I always wondered WHY people would shave that area, myself. I mean...
NO WAY am I putting a sharp object ANYWHERE near that area on purpose.
John Ringo
Ross TenEyck <ten...@alumnae.caltech.edu> wrote in message
news:9ejhn8$k...@gap.cco.caltech.edu...
snip
> OK, now I have to ask -- does this mean that Eric had anything
> to do with the back cover blurb for _Telzey_? 'Cause I've
> refrained from mentioning that in the various Is-Eric-an-evil-
> butcher threads on the assumption that he had no control over
> it... but if he did, then I have to say it's pretty heinous.
>
> Allow me to quote:
>
> "They called it the 'Lion Game,' and they made the mistake
> of thinking that in this clash of predators, Telzey was
> just a harmless kitten. But when the dust settled, Telzey
> would be the only one purring...."
>
> OK, it's not technically inaccurate, but it is far too
> cutesy... especially for Telzey. "Purring" indeed. Ugh.
>
> --
I don't know if Eric wrote it or not. I'm reasonably certain that he saw it,
though, and had the option to cut it.
Personally, I wouldn't have. The idea was to sell the book and that's an
effective statement, albeit a bit "cutesy."
And if you wish to call him "The Butchering Bear" feel free. The books sold
rather well, however. Butchery and all.
:->
John
Michael S. Schiffer
>> In article <3B0C6E27...@home.com>, D. Gascoyne
>> <gasc...@home.com> wrote:
>> >
>> >...and can you imagine shaving what is euphemistically called the
>> >"bikini area" with a straight razor (which is presumably all that
>> >said bikini clad fantasy heroine has available to her)????
>...
> Why did I just KNOW, as soon as I saw someone mention the words
>"Straight Razor" that I would see another Nicoll Event posting?
> I always wondered WHY people would shave that area, myself. I
>mean... NO WAY am I putting a sharp object ANYWHERE near that area
>on purpose.
As opposed to near their carotid arteries?
Mike
--
Michael S. Schiffer, LHN, FCS If reading in an archive, please do
ms...@mediaone.net not click on words highlighted as links
msch...@condor.depaul.edu by Deja or other archives. They violate
the author's copyright and his wishes.
Sea Wasp
>
> Sea Wasp <sea...@wizvax.net> wrote in <3B0D4F...@wizvax.net>:
> >> In article <3B0C6E27...@home.com>, D. Gascoyne
> >> <gasc...@home.com> wrote:
> >> >
> >> >...and can you imagine shaving what is euphemistically called the
> >> >"bikini area" with a straight razor (which is presumably all that
> >> >said bikini clad fantasy heroine has available to her)????
>
> >...
>
> > Why did I just KNOW, as soon as I saw someone mention the words
> >"Straight Razor" that I would see another Nicoll Event posting?
>
> > I always wondered WHY people would shave that area, myself. I
> >mean... NO WAY am I putting a sharp object ANYWHERE near that area
> >on purpose.
>
> As opposed to near their carotid arteries?
Cutting the carotids is merely lethal.
It doesn't carry nearly the reflexive "GOD NO!" impact of the other.
O'course, once I had the chance I switched to an electric razor. No
more blades for me.
D. Gascoyne
> > It was the Thu, 24 May 2001 02:14:47 GMT...
> > ...and D. Gascoyne <gasc...@home.com> wrote:
> > > ...and can you imagine shaving what is euphemistically called the
> > > "bikini area" with a straight razor (which is presumably all that
> > > said bikini clad fantasy heroine has available to her)????
> >
>
> Actually, in a society of that nature one would presume they used a hot wax
> treatment rather than a razor. Men would hot wax their faces but facial hair
> is remarkably tenacious stuff.
>
> This is not an argument for the "reality" of chainmail bikinis or, for that
> matter, the outfit that Xena wears. But it _is_ an _answer_.
>
That's true. One of my favourite bits of Pliny (the elder, I think - I always
get them confused) is a description of the Roman bath. One of the featured
sounds is the yelps of men being waxed :-)
Debbie
David Johnston
>
> On Wed, 23 May 2001 10:25:31 -0400, "Brenda W. Clough"
> <clo...@erols.com> wrote:
>
> >My first novel (THE CRYSTAL CROWN) depicts the heroine, dressed in what
> >appears to be a single sheet of damp Kleenex. In the book she was
> >wearing something not unlike a graduation gown, full and long and with
> >long sleeves...
>
> Yes, and I guarantee that cover sold better than would one that
> matched the text.
Bah. When I go into my bookstore and say, "this looks interesting",
it's not the cover I'm looking at, but the spine. I don't really think
cover art makes that much difference in most cases because by the time
you see it, you have already taken it off the shelf.
rric...@lanminds.com
<nrus...@acsu.buffalo.edu> wrote:
>Reverend Sean O'Hara <oha...@rcn.com> wrote:
>
>>Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
>>> _
>>>
>>> We aren't getting into egregious mistakes in cover *art* here,
>>> are we?
>>>
>>That should get an entire thread to itself.
In one of the Simon Green's Hawk and Fisher books, Hawk has his scars
on the wrong side of his face. And there is one where he has a sword,
even though the books specifically state that he uses an axe because
it takes less depth perception. (Which has been bad since he lost an
eye.)
The copy of Norton's _Starman's Son_ that I read had a mutant cat of
entirely the wrong color on the cover.
And there was the copy of her _Year of the Unicorn_ that showed the
heroine in chainmail bikini wielding a sword while a huge multicolored
serpent winds around her. The only thing that this cover has in
common with the story is that there is a female character.
Rebecca
Remove "not" when replying by email
Richard Horton
wrote:
>
> Have you ever slipped with a straight razor? I have
You are James Nicoll and I claim my five pounds.
--
Rich Horton | Stable Email: mailto://richard...@sff.net
Home Page: http://www.sff.net/people/richard.horton
Also visit SF Site (http://www.sfsite.com) and Tangent Online (http://www.sfsite.com/tangent)
Richard Horton
<oha...@rcn.com> wrote:
>In fact, the "S" *was* Truman's middle name (apparently there
>was a vogue early in the century for giving children letters rather
>than full middle names).
My Grandfather, born 1903, always spelled his name Stanley V Curnow
and told us that his middle "name" was the letter V. However, my
mother told me after he died that his middle name was actually "Velt"
(after the sitting President when he was born), and that he thought
that abbreviated name so silly that he abandoned it for the letter V.
Bill Snyder
<rrho...@prodigy.net> wrote:
>On 24 May 2001 10:26:46 -0400, jdni...@panix.com (James Nicoll)
>wrote:
>
>>
>> Have you ever slipped with a straight razor? I have
>
>You are James Nicoll and I claim my five pounds.
You'll have to take it in coins; ISTR that the last time James tried
to handle banknotes, the paper cuts almost went gangrenous.
--
Bill Snyder [This space unintentionally left blank.]
James Nicoll
Bill Snyder <bsn...@iadfw.net> wrote:
>On Thu, 24 May 2001 21:26:32 -0500, Richard Horton
><rrho...@prodigy.net> wrote:
>
>>On 24 May 2001 10:26:46 -0400, jdni...@panix.com (James Nicoll)
>>wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> Have you ever slipped with a straight razor? I have
>>
>>You are James Nicoll and I claim my five pounds.
>
>You'll have to take it in coins; ISTR that the last time James tried
>to handle banknotes, the paper cuts almost went gangrenous.
The great thing about Canada, as opposed to Brazil or some other
tropical nation with a more vigorous ecosystem, is that that sort of thing
doesn't happen to me anymore. Also, after the thing with my father's foot,
I got very careful about not ignoring infections for, oh, I don't know,
six -months-.
Chad R. Orzel
<oha...@rcn.com> wrote:
{The usual piling of gripes on Darrell Sweet}
>Other misleading cover art.
>
>I'd have to go with "A Fire Upon the Deep." Maybe I missed something,
>but I don't remember any description of the OOB being shaped like
>a manta ray with a giant tail. And why is space sort of a sky
>color?
>
>While I generally like the covers to George R. R. Martin's Song
>of Ice and Fire books, I have to say that the first one is quite
>wrong. I guess that the character on the cover is supposed to
>be Jon, but he's far too old.
{etc.}
This is a general class of recurring Usenet gripes that I've never
really understood. I've never been bothered by the absolute fidelity
of the cover art to the descriptions in the text, so long as the
artist at least gets the general _tone_ right. The Vinge cover is an
excellent example, as are the various Culture novels with cool
spaceship paintings on the cover. None of the ships really look like
the ships in the books, so far as I can tell, but they look pretty
cool, and convey the basic idea-- "Whiz-bang Space Opera Here!!"--
quite well. Glen Cook's Garrett books are also decent examples- the
scenes depicted on the covers (guy in trench coat and fedora hangs out
with elves, dwares, attractive women, and vengeful godlings) don't
really match up with anything in the books themselves, but they do a
nice job of selling the books as the Chandler-meets-Tolkien pastiches
that they are.
What bugs me in cover art is the use of paintings which give a
misleading impression of the book. The best example that leaps to mind
is a Barbara Hambly book whose cover featured a wizard with flowing
robes and pointy hat sitting in a modern kitchen with a can of beer.
While technically sort of accurate (the book involved a woman who was
visited in her home by a wizard), it's tremendously misleading because
eighty percent of the book was spent in the wizard's home world. The
cover leads you to expect a medievaloid mage in Manhattan, and instead
you get a transition in the other direction.
For the sake of novelty, though, how about a "Good Cover Art" thread?
(OK, it's not _much_ more novel, but it's at least more upbeat...)
What books do you think have cool and appropriate cover paintings
(restricting things, for the moment, to paintings of actual things, as
opposed to the abstract-shapes-and-colors school of cover art-- while
that can also be effective, it's sort of a different regime...)?
Glancing quickly over my hardcover shelves, my favorites would have to
be Steven Brust's _Agyar_ and Robin "Megan Lindholm" Hobb's
_Assassin's Apprentice._ The cover for _Agyar_ does a wonderful job of
capturing the spirit (if not the details) of a painting described in
the book, and the Hobb is just a really cool Michael Whelan painting.
Later,
OilCan
Mark Atwood
> apparently there
> was a vogue early in the century for giving children letters rather
> than full middle names
My father, who was born in the 1940s, has a middle name of L.
--
Mark Atwood | I'm wearing black only until I find something darker.
m...@pobox.com | http://www.pobox.com/~mra
John F. Eldredge
Hash: SHA1
On Wed, 23 May 2001 17:06:27 +1000, Steve Taylor
<teapot7s...@ozemail.com.au> wrote:
>"John F. Eldredge" wrote:
>
>> The worst cases, in my opinion, are where the cover art implies
>> that the book is a different genre than it actually is. Fritz
>> Leiber's _The Green Millennium_ is the classic example.
>
>What was on your cover? - remember there have been different
>editions.
>
My copy, which dates back to the mid-1970's, if I remember correctly,
has a woman in a metal bikini, riding astride a green-striped tiger,
and surrounded by ape-men brandishing swords. The novel is science
fiction, not fantasy; the closest resemblence to the cover art is a
kitten with green fur.
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--
John F. Eldredge -- eldr...@earthlink.net, eldr...@poboxes.com
PGP key available from http://home.earthlink.net/~eldredge/
"There must be, not a balance of power, but a community of power;
not organized rivalries, but an organized common peace."
Woodrow Wilson