You guys/gals criticized me for saying that the cover for Peter V. Brett’s The Daylight War wasn’t over-sexualized. Maybe you were right, maybe I was right. Maybe we both were. I think there’s a line between positive sexual energy and being over-sexualized, but it’s a thin one and often hard to discern. But, to follow up, I thought I’d post this absolute gem from Baen Books for Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance by Lois McMaster Bujold. You know, the author with 10+ Hugo nominations, and various other lauded awards, to her name. Doesn’t she, and don’t we, deserve better? Sadly, this is hardly new territory for Baen.
In somewhat related news, it worth following the recent discussion titled #1reasonwhy about the struggle that women face while trying to find equality and fair representation in the videogame industry. The coverage on Giant Bomb is a good starting point for following the discussion.
I am just at a loss for words over that cover. Where do I start with what is wrong with that cover?
How is she still in that chair? Where are her legs?!
Baen never lets us down.
the girl laying down looks like gaius baltar
Jim Hines should do that one, with his wife posing as the guy. :)
That’s awful. :(
It does remind me of some of the covers Baen did for the Flandry series.
Where did this come from? The hardcover has a rather nice cityscape shot.
@Joel — It’s from the paperback edition of the novel. Apparently this art was featured on the back of the hardcover edition.
I read CAPTAIN VORPATRIL’S ALLIANCE on Saturday, and I was pleasantly surprised by the relative blandness of the HC cover… until I happened to turn the book over. Sigh.
At least Rish is in a *relevant* pose (as a dancer), but I have no idea what the hell Tej is doing…
There’s a reason I don’t buy books from Baen: this piece of crap cover does not deserve to exist. Simply awful…
Why did nobody tell me we were transported back to the 1980s? :|
Several comments.
My eyes! My god damned eyes!
I’d be interested to hear what Bujold has to say about the cover and what about it made her agree to let it front her book.
My F&$&!^g eyes!
Baen is such an interesting company. They publish some of the most loved authors currently writing (Bujold is a case in point) and reprint several classics that deserve to be in print…and they hire some of the worst artists and have an art director(s) whose taste in cover art is at best questionable. It is always a surprise when a Baen book actually has a decent cover, and by ‘decent’ I don’t *just* mean one that avoids having poorly rendered scantily clad women on it.