Titles That Took Some Thought

Today's post is a tribute to those poor, under-paid souls who try their hardest to put together a catchy, snappy, pick-me-up-and-buy-me title. These are the ones that have, sadly, missed the mark. Mucho thankos to Michael who sent me here, from whence I shamelessly stole all of these books.

Yes. Yes it is.

Not only am I depressed, but I'm a complete idiot, too. Thanks, Dr. McGrath.

I like pinochle, myself.

And finally, the grand daddy of bad book titles:

Coprophagia for children, yum yum.

Phallic Phriday: Chicks with Guns

So is there anything more phallic than a gun? Well, yes, I suppose. Obelisks and missiles and swords come to mind. Really, most things military or commemorating military things, but I digress. Guns, especially handguns, become kind of a detachable penis (great song!) or an extension of the penis that one can fondle in public. So you see a hot chick with a gun and it's kinda like she's handling your penis, right? At least, I've got to suppose that's the idea behind these covers.




Blood red nails and a tiny little gun. Someone's not too secure in his masculinity.

This one's even better. Attached to legs that go allllll the way up is a very phallic gun that's just about in the position (on the outside of the leg) that a phallus would occupy (on the inside of the leg). The four-inch fuck-me-red heels and the title (a HARD Bargain?!) just add to the allure. The funniest part is that when I first saw this book I thought it was written by John Tesh who has always freaked me out just the tiniest bit. I have NEVER seen a woman check this out even though I think it's marketed to the Janet Evanovich crowd. Bad, bad artist. No dinner for you.

Finally (drum roll please)....

I ain't fer sure, but I think she's actually MASTURBATING WITH THE GUN!

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.

Mammary...Monday...in...Spaaaaaace!

Hey, kids! How's shakes? Maughta's been draggin' her heels long enough I thought I'd step in and get rid of those goldarned rabbits. What's say we beat up on Baen some more, huh? Like shootin' fish in a barrel...

Behold, The Death of Sleep:

What's not for bepimpled and undersexed fifteen-year-old boys to love about this classic Baen cover? A barely-clad bimbo in an impractically skin-tight spacesuit jetpacks provocatively in front of a Jovian planet, no doubt rocketing off to an extraterrestrial adventure that will require her to shed said impractical spacesuit and wander about some cold uncharted planetscape buck naked. Our heroine is so busy demonstrating the effects of zero gravity on breast orientation (one went east, one went west...) that she forgot to put her helmet on before leaving Europa.

Which might be why she looks so tired. I hope she doesn't get sucked into the eddy in the spacetime continuum that just popped up in the lower left.

Meanwhile, back on Earth...

With Baen around, it's all too easy.

This cover reminds me of Bladerunner, except Bladerunner doesn't suck. [Disclaimer: no, I have not read this book. In order to stave off angry letters from Wismer worshippers, I'll add that I'm sure the book is one of the greatest works of fiction crafted in the 20th century and I'm not worthy to clean the dog doo off of Don Wismer's riding boots. I must admit that with a metaphor as weak as "the sargasso of space" on the cover, I'm hardly tempted to read further. Besides, might I remind the gentle reader that the point of this blog is to destroy crappy covers?]

This cover looks like it was put together by Tom of Finland (NSFW link here), only its falls short of the requisite number of bulging penises. We do have a nice pornstache, though. I suppose this is what Clark Gable would have looked like if he'd lived long enough to play a private dick in a cyberpunk adventure, complete with black-trenchcoated femmes fatales and pseudo-Japanese neon signage.

Well, snark away, loyal minions! I hope this post will hold you off for a little while as I try to prod Maughta into giving you some more goods real soon-like.

Rabbits. Rabbits, rabbits, rabbits.

You're Watership Down!

by Richard Adams

Though many think of you as a bit young, even childish, you're actually incredibly deep and complex. You show people the need to rethink their
assumptions, and confront them on everything from how they think to where they build their houses. You might be one of the greatest people of all time. You'd be recognized as such if you weren't always talking about talking rabbits.


Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

Bellybutton Baen Day!

Hey kids. It's midway between Mammary Monday and Phallic Phriday so you know what that means! Bellybutton Baen Day! Shall we see how far Baen has come?

Thanks to faithful reader Snow for suggesting these covers. They're chicks! They're in chainmail! And there must be a big fetish market for this, 'cause they made five compilations.

First up, the inaugural Chicks in Chainmail.

This is Baen at its classicist (notice I didn't say classiest? I can't even imagine Baen with a bit of class, myself). Yes, she's wearing waaaaay too little, but she's supposed to inspire wet dreams in fourteen-year-olds. At least she's got gauntlets and...ummm...leglets and a shield. Still she obviously kicks ass. Notice the dead guy.

I'm a fan of the title portrayal, too. Hot pink for the Chicks and metallic blue, solid looking CHAINMAIL just works for me.

A- on this cover. A fine effort.

Second in the series: Did You Say Chicks?!

Okay, so no one's dead this time, and the chick is wearing decidedly less armor, but that is the horniest looking elf I've ever seen. And the interrobang rocks (sounds dirty, too).

(DocTurtle says that books like this; a collection of short stories featuring Xena, Warrior Princessesque characters, should be illustrated. "What's the point," he asks, "of the book otherwise?" They have that, dear. It's called Penthouse.)

A fine contribution. A few points taken off for the lack of gore and the ugliness of the chick. I want my chicks in chainail to be smooooooookin'. A solid B+ for this one.

Our third installment is Chicks'n Chained Males.

Does anyone have to ask the grade? Absolute A+. TWO hot chicks, an awesome title, and a totally dippy grad-student-looking guy in chains. Can you ask for anything more? Great job, Baen! (Never thought I'd say that!)

#4 I include here just 'cause it's a funny title. The Chick is in the Mail.

That title buries the needle in the awsometer. Her chainmail is getting a little over the top, what with the boots and the belt, but DocTurtle just asked me why I don't look like that ('cause I don't have the boots, of course), so she must be doing something for someone. (DocTurtle is, of course, the most sensitive feminist-type guy I know, so the covers must really be working.)

A good job. A. Missing the plus only 'cause there're not two chicks.

And finally, the point of this whole exercise, Turn the Other Chick.

Uck. Did their good artist die? What is this shite? From the top: The font totally sucks. No more do we have the cool metallic font, now it's just boring standard-fantasy-font. Going lower, that chick looks like a man. An ugly man. She's no longer laughing and carefree, now she looks like she's going to go Lorena Bobbit on your ass. And she has the nice phallic sword to do it, too. Linebacker shoulderpads? Blech. Gratuitous panty shot is just, well, gratuitous.

This is just bad. Baen appears to be getting its artists from that matchbook "draw me" ad.

F.

And that's why Baen has sunk and should be mocked by all. Mock away.

RIP, Robert Jordan

Boy, it's not a good year to be a fantasy writer. First Madeline L'Engle pops off and now Robert Jordan succumbs to some freaky rare blood disease that, being the hypochondriac that I am, I'm now convinced I have. Not really, but I was trying to convince DocTurtle that I had histrionic personality disorder, narcissistic personality disorder, borderline personality disorder, and obsessive compulsive personality disorder. What I really have is a shouldn't-be-allowed-to-look-at-the-wikipedia-entry-on-personality-disorders disorder. But I digress.

So, in tribute to Robert Jordan, I've chosen to mock the first four covers of the Wheel of Time series today. I hate these books, not because of their subject or anything to do with them as books (I find them kind of boringly typical epic fantasy bildungsromanen, and if you've read one, you've read them all), but because THEY DON'T FUCKING FIT THROUGH THE BOOKDROP!!! At least once a week I get a fourteen year-old boy with hygiene problems and a mullet bucking the check-out line to hand me a Robert Jordan book that won't fit in the drop. Dammit, Robert, did you have to write such tomes? I thought not.

But anyway, the covers are so typically traditionally epic fantasy'y that they really don't deserve too much in depth snark except to give new dialogue to the people on the covers. I give you ROBERT JORDAN IMPROV THEATRE! (I apologize in advance for my crappy crappy utilization of MS Paint. And the lameness of this post. But hey, that just means that this is your chance to snark on me!)




























P.S. Be sure to stop by Wednesday for our Baen Belly Button Day (Wednesday is halfway between Mammary Monday and Phallic Phriday, after all)*! And tune in next week when we resume Mammary Monday funness. And I promise never to do something as lame as this again. :)


P.P.S. Damn you, blogger, for screwing up my pagination again! It vexes me!



*Thanks to VembaTsith for making the name up!

Phallic Phriday Theft

So I'm trolling the internet for book covers to amuse my masses (are you amused yet?), and lo and behold, seems that All About Romance Novels has been having cover contests since 1999! They were doing Worst Cover of the Year long before I came on the scene. I highly recommend you spend an hour or two wandering around and check out their picks. My Phavorite Phallic Phrolic? This little beauty typifies all that is wrong (but oooooooh so right) with historical romance covers. I've stolen the comments from the lovely ladies (and bulked-up gentlemen?) at All About Romance Novels for your perusal. Oh, by the way...the heroine's name? Caroline WHITE.





Lone Arrow's Pride was the fifth place choice. It's a classic example of the "extremely overt sexuality" type cover that most fans feel romance has long since outgrown. The heroine's subservient position is bad enough, but just in case the reader misses the point, there's a very phallic-looking spear on the cover. Many voters described this cover as a throwback and bemoaned the fact that it seemed to include every possible romance cliché.


Cheryl chose it for that reason: "This encapsulates all that's horrible in romance covers - the awful, submissive pose of the woman, the stereotypical Indian-white woman cliché, the bulked up beyond belief male. Just ick."


Carrie said, "Lone Arrow's Pride is the biggest stinker of them all. Nice phallic symbol and kneeling wench. But an impossibly built hero in a bad wig and a loin cloth is perhaps the biggest turn-off of all."


And this from Elizabeth who makes a good point about the title: "They're all marvelous, but this one's too amusingly phallic to pass by. Looks more like an obsessed groupie cornering a member of the Village People than any fantasy of mine. Obviously he has no issues with pride - I'm more worried about what's happened to hers."



It's interesting to note, however, that several voters really liked this cover. So while some of us may feel it is stuck in the past, others feel that this type of image is what romance is all about.

Baen Does it Again!

Special Hump Day Edition.

Did you know that Wednesday is called Hump Day? I think it's because Wednesday is that last hump in the week before the slide on down to the weekend. More information about Hump Day can, I'm sure, be found on the internet. But here at Judge a Book by its Cover, we have a special use for Hump Day. It's midweek between Mammary Monday and Phallic Phriday, and as such I am tasked (well, I've tasked myself) with the...ummmm...task of finding a book that combines the best of Mammaries with a subtle hint of Phalluses. Phortunately, Baen comes through for me once again! Let's all give the artists chained in the basement of Baen a big round of applause, because I'm sure it's difficult for them to sleep at night after producing such dreck.

STOP! SISTER TIME!

Let's see....

Skintight pleather? Check.

Sexy long hair? Check.

Contorted position? Check.

Triple-F tits on a Barbie Doll body? Check.

Why, it must be a Baen heroine! Yes, combining every 14 year-old boy's fantasy with a large phallic gun and really generic futuristic city-scape background must be a formula that's working well for our friends at Baen. We certainly see it often enough.

(P. S. This post is supposed to have nice pagination and spacing, I swear! Why is blogger vexing me?!)

Fantasy Quickies

I have a lot of fantasies involving quickies (hello, sailor), but none of them include these book covers. Proving once and for all that fantasy/sci fi covers out-weird romance novel covers, here're a few I've come across just recently. (No! Not like that! Get your mind out of the gutter!)

First up is a nice little Weis/Hickman jobbie. I've made fun of Weis/Hickman before because, gosh darn it, it's just so easy! My whole problem with this cover, besides the fact that if you look closely there are three breast-like-shapes outlined in armor (it is Mammary Monday after all) is that the armor on that horse is so stupid! Yes! Let's protect the ears, the nape of the horse's neck and the horse's ass (where if it were smashed with a sword it would hurt but not debilitate), but leave open the ever-so-vulnerable JUGULAR and BELLY! Plus we're gonna make it stand in lava. You can tell its feet are hot 'cause it's standing still on only two of them.

"I need that like a fish needs a bicycle!"

Yes, it's the oldest joke in the universe, but that is, of course, Piers Anthony's milieu. The man has not met a bad pun that he can't make worse. There are people who are good with puns (Spider Robinson and Terry Pratchett, two of my alllllll time favorite authors, come to mind) and then there's Piers Anthony who sits back and lets his readers write his books with the worst puns possible.

And it's a stupid cover. So there.

(P.S. If there is a G-d of reincarnation, I'd like to be a mermaid. But I don't want to look this dumb. Thanks!)

Even Dr. Melfi can't help you when you've got an arrow in your neck!

Y'know, the best place to be when there are arrows flying is in full sight on the battlements wearing lime green and strumming a ukulele. Someone put her out of her misery, please!

So when the going gets tough, I think I need a baritone sorceress, myself. A big mean one. I'd take Ruth Brown over little Miss Pansy here any day!

Not a Phallic Phriday Post

Well, not even a book post, but interesting (to me) nonetheless. Because it's so freakin' funny, here are some of the search terms that people have been using to find my blog. I don't ever remember discussing Jesus dipped in urine OR little bunny naked. Oh, and some people are really into pecs.

Of course, that said, I'm glad no one can access my search histories!

librarian blog
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ook covers
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Favorite Patron Award!

Okay, I'm going to get to the cover snark in a second, but first I need to tell you about my new all-time favorite patrons who came in today. Picture a little old couple at about eighty years old, New Yorkers who now spend part of their time in Asheville, NC and the other half in Palm Beach, FL. So I'm sorting CDs (a fun glimpse into librarian life) and the little old lady comes up to me with two books, one a chick lit-type book and the other a Robert Patterson. "Which would you recommend?" she asks. I answer that I haven't read either, but Robert Patterson seems popular. She tells me that she wants something light and fluffy to read at night, no violence. I say that the Robert Patterson is definitely out. So we go over to the New Large Print section from whence her selections hailed, and I see a Joanna Trollope romance. I say that either the chick lit-type book or the Joanna Trollope would probably be light and fluffy enough (throwing in what I think is important, that Joanna Trollope is descendant from the great Anthony Trollope, but I digress). She says "yeah, but which would you read?" So I say that I'd probably be more interested in reading the chick lit book, but she might be more interested in the Trollope romance. "Of course," I say, "I don't know you so I can't be very sure what you'd enjoy." She asks me what the difference is, and I say that the chick lit is probably a bit more "risque." She says, really loudly, "Gee, you don't know me! I'm a SEXY BITCH!" Her husband chimed in to concur. It was the CUTEST thing that anyone has ever said to me. I just wanted to give her a hug.

She ended up taking both books. We'll see which one she likes better!

Anyway, got a nifty book in the trusty ole mailbag today. Having mentioned in the past something about Botswanan romance novels, faithful reader Kyle E. sent me an ACTUAL Botswanan romance novel!

Apparently it's kinda a small-town guy meets up with a big-city girl type thing. I'm enamored of their sign language. He's saying, "Hey, this is Love on the Rocks! Where's my martini?" and she's saying "Have some of my apple instead." I don't know what kind of pace they're supposed to be setting, but with communication like that it's going to go SLOOOOOOOOOWLY.

Non-related-mailbox-items Tuesday (alliteration is not my forte today)

Why yes, I am alive. Thanks for coming back even with the lack of a new post forever. It's so nice to be missed. Unfortunately sometimes life intrudes, and life in this case meant lying about on the beach in Virginia Beach and watching other people (DocTurtle) run 13.1 miles. Nothing I enjoy more than lazing about watching mostly naked men exert themselves. *sigh* And now it's back to the library with the homeless and the crazies and the tourists and the totally insane book covers. Like these from the mailbox:

First up is Tangerine by Edward Bloor. According to the Effing Librarian (shout out to an awesome blogger!), "I'm told the lightning is important, so the illustrator added it, I guess. But all I can do is yell, "get out from under those damn trees you stupid kids." But they don't listen and I think one of them dies. Probably the one closest to the white bolt. Couldn't he see it painted there? It's not like it's moving or anything. But you know kids. Tell them to go left and they go right. Dumb kid."

All I can say is this kid is obviously unable to defend a goal very well, 'cause there are three soccer balls (foot balls for my overseas pals) and one FOOT BALL ("American football" or "that stupid sport the Americans call Football 'cause they're too stupid to think up their own name" for my overseas pals) well inside the goal. I think Mr. Goalie should go back to the bench. At least someone's mother doesn't have to worry about the half-time snack as there are readily available tangerines (and apparently fried child) to eat.

Christians and Centaurs and Satyrs, oh my!

From Larry Lennhoff comes Thessalonica, another cover from Baen. I wouldn't have a site if it weren't for Baen, and for that we must thank them. For this cover, however, we must curse them.

Fellow librarian Anna tells me that she was embarrassed to check out the following book, Wyrms, out of the library. The things we do for our Orson Scott Card geekdom, eh? As Anna puts it, "Unfortunately, this is one of his earliest works and it shows. The penis tentacle is actually from the book!"

A special phallic cover for the middle of the week (no waiting for Phallic Phriday!). I'm just impressed by the wide-spread legs that are apparently on backwards. That and the tarantula hair really make this cover for me.

Happy Tuesday, everyone. Keep up the e-mails and the comments (even long-as-hell, crazy, whacked-out, racist, mad-as-a-badger comments like the one on the previous post...Mr. Eng, I know you were unhappy we made fun of your cover, but damn!), and I will try to keep up with posting more than once a week.

To Prepositionland, and Beyond!

Hey! For the record, we're both feeling a lot better, thank you very much, and while Maughta's taking a much-deserved Sunday afternoon (more like Sunday evening, but who's keeping track?) nap, I thought I'd sneak in and surprise her with another cover-bashing update.

Hmmmm...lessee...what genre should I pick on today? Hmmmm...

Howzabout one o' these here NASCAR romances, perhaps the trashiest of the trash fiction? I shudder to think that there is such a thing (I swear you cannot make this shit up) as the "NASCAR Library Collection" (winner of the Palm d'Or at the 2006 International Oxymoron Convention) Maughta's picked on a few titles in the past, now it's my turn.

This particular installment, To the Limit, comes to us from Pamela Britton, author of such gripping tales, apparently, as In the Groove and On the Edge. While not writing disposable novels for the marginally literate and completely indiscerning, Ms. Britton works on retainer for Sesame Street as their resident prepositions maven. The literary world is simply on tenterhooks during the current lead-up to her impending December release, Between the Lines, the long-awaited capstone to her critically-aclaimed trilogy Over the River, Through the Woods, and To Grandmother's House We Go.

Back to the work at hand: if this isn't Harlequin's attempt to tap into that elusive Y-chromosome-bearing market share, what is it? Aside from the fact that it's written by a chick, this book cover's designed to appeal to the casual male shopper. Mysterious Mr. Stoic (good-looking, but not, like, in a gay way, man...not like that Fabio dude) looks on as powerful automobiles hurtle by at incomprehensible speeds. He is distant, silent, brooding, aloof. He is all that is male: oil, gasoline, axle grease. He's wearing a headset, for Pete's sake! Men can feel safe reading this book. No sissy book, this: a real man can buy this book without shame.

'Cause I know you can't get enough of these (ah, schadenfreude!), here's another from the...ulp...NASCAR Library Collection:

I dunno about you, but I'm totally looking forward to that cameo appearance by Carl Edwards. Carl Edwards, people! Edwards! E-D-W-...You know! Um...I must admit I'm kinda proud that I had no idea who Carl Edwards is until I Googled him just a minute ago. Yep, another MF who gets paid about a gajillion times more per day than I'll ever earn in my life to drive around, really quickly, in circles. (Bitter? Naaah...I mean, as a society, we gotta have our priorities, right? And as we all know, supporting NASCAR is more important than educating our children.)

Back to the book, though, Carl Edwards notwithstanding: you know this book has gotta be good, because the author's a USA Today Bestselling Author. Which means she's big among people who turn to a cartoon newspaper to stay informed about current events. Oh, wait, I'm supposed to be picking on the cover, right?

Um...yeah, so there are these two really freakin' huge people looming in the ether above this race track, and the male person looks like he's about to gomp on the female person's nose. And vice versa.

"Lurlene, your nose is just 'bout the most delectable fruit I ever seen."

"Stop talkin' nonsense, Jim Bob, and kiss me."

"OW! Consarn it, Lurlene, whatcha go and bite me for?"

I'll leave it to you to complete the dialogue. I'm off to make some dinner. (But I won't be wearin' one o' those frilly aprons...)

Choose Your Own Mindfuck

Okay, I admit it. I loved Choose Your Own Adventure books when I was a kid. I loved reading and this was like interactive reading. What could be better? If you don't remember these, the books start out with about five pages of plot. Say, you're in San Francisco and the big one hits. A stranger is pinned nearby, but you know that a block away is someone whom you know and who might be in trouble. Then the book gives you a choice. Do you, A) save the stranger? or B) go save your friend? Either way could lead you to half a dozen more choices. In some of them you're a hero, in some you die, some scenarios just kind of fizzle out. As an adult I can look back and think about morality plays and critical thinking skills, but as a kid I was kinda a control freak (okay, so still am) and I enjoyed trying to make the "right" choice. Which was usually the boring choice. In Earthquake!, as detailed above, if you choose to save the stranger he ends up being a multi-millionaire and giving you money to go to college. Of course, the story ends there, which is dull and boring, whereas if you go the other way you run into tigers and poisonous spiders and all other kinds of cool things.

Choose Your Own Adventures also had cool plots like Journey to the Ant People and You Are a Shark! Of course, I don't think I ever ran across the following book:

Okay, so really I'm flabbergasted by the actual book and not the cover, but the cover is its own form of bad, too. My particular favorite aspect is the railroad that conveniently runs through the front yard of Mr. Slave-owning-rifle-shooting-but-not-chasing-guy. 'Cause kids are literal.

Back by Popular Demand: Mammary Monday!

Greetings from a survivor of Unbelievably Bad Cold '07; the Hacking and Snorting Tour. There is nothing worse than having a cold when it's 100 degrees outside. Okay, there's one thing worse: Having a cold when it's 100 degrees outside, getting better for a week, and then having it COME BACK for an encore performance. Motherfucker. But enough about me. I know you're all here for the boobs. Take it away, Virgin of Flames!

Okay, first off, let me say that this is probably a good book. It looks artsy enough, and apparently the author won the PEN/Hemingway award, which if I weren't so lazy I'd look up, but it sounds classy, anyway. So don't yell at me about snarking on a good book. I'd snark on my own (nonexistent) book if it had a lousy enough cover. Right? Good.

And from far away it looks kinda normal, right?

Strangely enough, there's something missing from this little picture that Amazon.com has...something that becomes apparent as you slowly let your eyes go from the top of the book to the bottom...

Marian imagery...o-o-o-o-o-okay...

....

Flower bikini...weird, but okay...

...

Whoa! Naked chick! Lopsided tits!

What is she doing there?!? Why is she traumatizing me?!?

'Cause I know you are all sick, sick people who only come here for porn, here's a closeup:

Who is this poor girl? Did she know that her boobs were going to be plastered across a trade paperback from Penguin? Are we sure she's a girl? Is that really her body or has her head been badly photoshopped onto it (as it kind of appears)? Is she the ex-girlfriend and this is some kind of revenge by the illustrator? Questions I will leave you to mull.

A Quickie for All of Our Jewish Friends

Me again. Maughta's still under the weather (but on the mend), and just after my inaugural post to y'all this past week, I came down with whatever's been ailing her. Bleh. Fortunately, I've just about recovered, too, just in time for school to start tomorrow. Good timing, Maughta. Next time, get me sick in the middle of July.

Anyhow, onto the book cover-bashing!

Faithful reader Ryan (a different Ryan from the eagle-eyed reader who pointed us towards the beautiful and dubiously-grammatical Lexicon: Dragons Triumvirate from the last post) wanted to let Maughta know about a book entitled Jewish Sci-Fi Stories For Children. While looking for a highly postable version of that book's cover (yes, Ryan, agreed, it's ugly, but hang on...), I happened upon something much more heinous. Behold:

Ouch.

According to the folks at Jewish.com, in this book "Danny embarks upon a journey of thousands of miles, in search of a meaningful spiritual adventure. What he finds is that his own 'coming-of-age ceremony' was what he was looking for the whole time!" Meanwhile, he gets face-painted by some extremely goyische "native" types. I've never known goings-on of this kind at any bar mitzvah I've ever seen. Mazel tov, Danny! I wonder how many of the 613 laws he's breaking on this cover alone.

Mining the Mailbag

Hey there, ladies and germs! [squeezes horn attached to belt] Anybody out there? Is this thing on? [taps mike] Seriously, folks! I came here to be funny! Uh...yeah...

So Maughta's feeling under the weather and hasn't had a chance to update this site for a while, so to stave off the tar and pitchforks and the unending flow of bad book covers she's sent me (DocTurtle, a.k.a. TurtleBoy) to the gates to deal with y'all.

You've helped out by providing a good deal of material to work with. In addition to the lists of illy-illustrated books she's got scattered all over the place (her corner's a bibliographer's nightmare) and the mental list I've been mining for a while now ("Do this one, Maughta, this one!") your submissions give enough fodder for five or six healthy posts. I'll go ahead and start with a few gems from the inbox. For our first course, we have faithful reader Feral Boy to thank:

This looks like a Senor Wences skit gone very, very awry, a sort of Hieronymous Bosch meets The Muppet Show. I'm actually cheating here, drawing from the inside of the book, since the cover isn't nearly as bad, as pointed out by Feral Boy:

At least we know that John Stamos landed on his feet after Full House was cancelled. I like the fact that the illustrators were too ashamed to have their full names included on the front cover.

Yes, the above both come from Helen A. Rosburg's Elsie and the Elven King, which, if I'm understanding things correctly, is kind of like a Tolkienesque rewrite of the Kama Sutra. Elf sex, anyone? Regular comics readers might be getting a Brooke McEldowney vibe right now. Maughta checked this book out and had it lying around for a few days (though not prominently, lest the neighbors get ideas). Scary stuff.

Moving on, we find this beauty, courtesy of faithful reader Ryan:

What's not to like about this cover? It's got dragons engaged in in-flight swordplay, carrying laser cannons and semiautomatic pistols...I thought that dragons were fearsome for powers that inhered in their being, like fire-breathing and whatnot? Wouldn't a dragon catch hell from his dragon buddies if he started packing a sidearm? Just sayin'.

I dunno. The whole scene reminds me of an unfortunate Japanese import I would've seen back in 1980 on TBS if I'd turned the TV on on Saturday morning waaaaaaaay before the good cartoons came on. I think the cover artist here was going after his own demographic, to wit, fantasy-addled fifteen-year-old boys. (Note to fantasy-addled fifteen-year-old-boys: please don't sue. We don't have much money.)

Blam...er...thank Erin for our next course. The titles say it all:

I guess there is a niche to be filled here, and a captive audience [rimshot]. The cold, hard simplicity of that first title is just marvelous, poignantly coupled with the brutal black cover design. Bravo! I have to admit being intrigued by the second book. As advertized, I'm sure there's a treasure trove of useful information on any number of topics, from drug smuggling (what percentage should you tip the crooked cell block commander?) to romantic encounters (is the laundry room a good place for a first date?).

On a more serious note, if you do a little digging you find that this text was written in 1951 by a number of pretty well-known authors (such as Robert Lowell, William Everson, and William Stafford) who were imprisoned as conscientious objectors during the first half of the century.

Socially responsible snarking here, folks.

Damn, that killed the high, didn't it? Um...

...And we're back! Anna sends us this wonderfully-airbrushed 1925 Newberry Award winner by Charles J. "Pull My" Finger, chocked full of "stories of enchantment and mystery." I'm sure the stories are indeed enchanting (Anna calls them "quite good"), but you wouldn't know it from the look of the kids on the cover. They were so busy being enchanted that they didn't notice their transportation to the Silver Lands. Where exactly are those? I'm voting on fin-de-siecle Rhodesia. Colonial brutality, internecine warfare, oh the enchantment!

Meanwhile, girlfriend there looks positively enraptured by Saved by the Bell's Zack Morris. He's just spewing forth those hilarious hijinx with Screech and the gang, like the time when they all got together and sawed each other's arms off, replacing them with mannequins' limbs? Good times, good times.

On that note, I'll end my first guest posting. Maughta's on me to tag-team with her more in the future, so you might see more of me, for which I apologize in advance. Until next time, happy snarking!

Raccoons in SPAAAAACE!

Why? Did I miss the memo that it'd be cool to have a woman and a raccoon on the cover of one's pulp sci-fi?



Guess so.



To my right I feature the ever popular Eric Van Lustbader (that's a name of a porn star if I've ever heard one...something like Schlong Wars: A New Poke) with his lusty-reading-wench-with-feral-raccoon. So I personally see a ring of what looks like at least 12 dragons etched into the wall behind our low-cut lass. Twelve is better than five, I guess.

"Kids, cats, and telepaths...Heartwarming!"

Just what I'm looking for in a sci-fi novel.

That chair looks extremely uncomfortable. And what's with Jor-El in the background? Maybe he's telepathically saying, "A matching raccoon is every piebald heroine's perfect accessory as she reclines in an extremely uncomfortable chair."

I like the leggings, though. As we've seen before, I have a fondness for leggings.

And finally, A picture of my poor little guinea pig Maelion who is under the weather with a (really gross, kinda zombie-looking) infected eye. I know you're all sending her cyber-broccoli and wishing her to get well soon!

Bless you, faithful readers!

I've been sick as a dog. There's something so wrong about having a cold when it's sunny and hot outside. Fortunately, even when I'm under the weather my faithful readers come through for me. I'm including Dolf's entire e-mail 'cause he is right on about this cover. The only thing I'd like to add is, GREAT PELVIC THRUST!

Hello Ms. Judgeabook,

My coworker was reading this book this morning and i just loved the cover. Apart from the mandatory fantasy stuff (a hooded and cloaked villain), there is also "the girl that has fallen down and twisted her ankle". I think that that is only mandatory for the monster movies from the '50s,but the cliche itself is pretty obvious and the picture deserves credit for that. Apart from that, i just love the attempts to give this book as much credibility as possible. First there are the burning books. I immediately associate that with Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose. Great marketing! Then there is the marvelous line: "This is fantasy for grown-ups". You don't have to be ashamed when caught reading this book. The whole composition of the drawing is kind of icky. What kind of emotions bubble up when your typical grown-up geek looks at the cover? I hope you like the cover. If not you can always toss it away. Anyway, thanks for maintaining a very original blog. Best regards, Dolf Schuurman

Thank YOU, Dolf Schuurman!

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ADDENDUM: here's a really interesting discussion on what effect a cover has on the perception of a book, and I've been called a "seminal" blog. My inner 14 year-old boy is giggling his ass off.