Writer's Grove

Good Show Sir!

One of my favorite websites these days is Good Show Sir, a UK site dedicated to the absolute worst sci-fi and fantasy covers. The best bit about it is that the content is generated by random people snapping pictures of bad covers that they find in used bookstores. You can contribute too: take your camera phone next time you’re in a used bookstore and have a blast.

I am inordinately proud to have contributed to the site today. My submission of Red Flame Burning, which I found at Bookman’s in Mesa, is now up on the site, and I’m delighted that it’s rated as quite a good show indeed. When you submit, you get to have some fun imagining what the art director told the artist, or make some other pithy comment. And then, of course, people get to make all sorts of comments after that and pile on.

Want a practice one? Here’s the cover for In the Cube, a novel of FUTURE BOSTON!

See, apparently, in future Boston, several things have happened: mullets are back, Bill Belichek’s game plans (or something else equally valuable) are being stored in the Cube, and said Cube is guarded by a woman equipped with a Shoulder Mounted Assault Beaver. Also, there are no more bras.

Do you have a favorite bad cover—maybe one lurking on your own bookshelf, gathering dust?