10.10.2007

Belly Button Baen Day: The Laser Edition

I'm ba-a-a-a-ack! Yes, I finally escaped from the basement dungeon of Baen, where they evil overlords had locked me up for daring to make fun of their covers. My escape included a stick of gum, an easily tricked lackey, and a MacGyveresque device. Let the reader beware, lest it happens to you! From my dingy cell I could hear the scritchings of the Baen artists (chained to their dungeon desks) while their commander strode amongst them, cracking his whip and crying, "More breasts!" "Bigger!" "More explosions!" For the books in today's post, he must have been shouting, "MORE LASERS!!!!"




Giant robot chipmunks battle it out on Endor surrounded by, yes, lasers. Whosoever is shooting these lasers is a REALLY BAD SHOT! Of course, you probably can't kill your main character on your cover, where will you go from there?






What does this cover lack? You guessed it, Yellow Eyes. Or eyes of any kind. The robot chipmunks must use echolocation.




"Two lasers...coming out of my hands...Mom must be soooo proud!"



Yes, just what I want to see my heroes do: run away from the beast! I bet this makes fascinating storytelling...


The beast attacked! John activated his dual duelling laser Vorpal Blades, than TURNED TAIL AND RAN! The beast had NO IDEA what to do! This had never happened in a SF book before!


...and then the author ran out of exclamation points.













Huh huh! My laser's bigger than everyone else's laser! I win!

I wonder, is the lizard's brain splattered all over the spine of this book? I consider it a letdown if it isn't.



















Au contraire, mon Baen frere. I have waaaaay MORE lasers than you. I win!

Green and blue and purple and yellow lasers...Is there anything this cover lacks? Oh, yeah, perspective. And taste.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have to say, I love this blog. As an impoverished student who could only ever afford the scary 80s print runs of my favourite fantasy/sci-fi authors... this blog strongly resembles my bookshelf. Unfortunately, I don't get to see awesome covers like this at work (it's a Uni library), so I just have to make do with weird titles instead.

Unknown said...

I'm eagerly awaiting the novelization of Laser Cats.

Anonymous said...

You never fail to amaze me. Having lived with you for a lot of years, I am always surprised to see how humorous you can be. Glad you're out of your funk and back.

Unknown said...

Star Flight is cross-listed as a Phallic Phriday selection, I expect.

Our Soldier Man's expression, and the sort of rounded end of his white laser beam, betray this scene as the money shot in an interspecial intergalactic gay porno movie.

An EXTRA-special interspecial piece of porn, if you will.

writtenwyrdd said...

Check out some of the other David Drake covers. Also, Honor Harrington covers have lasers galore.

I hadn't really thought about the phallic nature of lasers before. Thanks for broadening my mind!

Anonymous said...

The brains of the Andre Norton lizard aren't plastered all over the cover because Our Hero is doing a dental exam -- perhaps checking out the enamel to see if the liz is bulimic.

(Has there ever been a sci-fi novel with a hero who's a dentist?)

Anonymous said...

John Ringo? Does he think he's one of the Beatles? Love, Sexy Sadie

Anonymous said...

I laughed, then laughed some more. Funny stuff here, thanks!

Snow said...

I saw "Vorpal Blade" at the bookstore the other day and marked it on my "must tell Maughta about this list". Of course, Maughta was one step (and several months) ahead of me.

We need more Baen days. We need a separate Baen tag.

Anonymous said...

(Has there ever been a sci-fi novel with a hero who's a dentist?)

yes, Piers Anthony wrote a novel called Prostho Plus about an intergalactic dentist.

Wow, here's a post no one is ever likely to read.