Flame Tiger Throwdown

[dreamer_easy]

Dear Cracked.com,

Regarding your recent item, The Best (Worst) Fantasy & Science Fiction Book Covers:

1. The war between jocks and nerds is over. The nerds won. Try to keep this in mind.

2. Now, let me see. What section of your audience is most likely to be interested in an item on F&SF book covers? Could it be F&SF readers? The people you unimaginatively insult at the top of the article?

3. For an article about bad specfic book covers, surely a limitless source of material, you spend an awful lot of time making jokes about the titles, the taglines, the (presumable) content, etc. In fact, most of the covers are merely a bit crummy.
     3a. Although the cover of Raven 3: The Frozen God deserves some sort of award for terribleness.

4. There are half a dozen genuine lols in the article, so it's still worth a glance, but geez. Must do better.

No love,
- Kate

Comments

[antikythera.livejournal.com]

The MMORPG ads at the bottom are the icing on the cake.

Parody and mockery are funnier when they're done by someone who actually likes the subject but can see the absurdity in it. This isn't any smarter or funnier than any old jock making fun of nerds.

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

He simply doesn't know the material. No excuse when Google will regurgitate a billion insane covers at the mere touch of a button.

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

Yes, it's the tediousness of the insults that's the most annoying thing about it.

As regards your point 1, though, that's kind of like saying that the war between the Republicans and the Democrats in America is over and the Democrats won. As long as there are jocks and nerds, there will be people like the weasels on this site trying to set them against each other for the sheer hell of it, and sometimes they'll succeed. The simple fact is that the world needs both, and they need to work together. To. Put aside their ancient. Differences and join in the. Fight to build a new. World, a better. World, in which--I'm sorry, I seem to be channelling a very bad impression of William Shatner here. Anyway, you get the idea.

Yes, there's some bad art there, but at least one of those was a Frazetta (the one with the polar bears, I think).

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

Who the Cracked team think is running their Web site is beyond me.

[swiftangel.livejournal.com]

I actually like the one with the polar bears.

I got a couple pages in and was just far too amused by the title for Jack Vance "Servants of the Wankh". In my defence, I've not been well and have had very little sleep over the past week and a bit (and it is currently after midnight here). :)

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I reckon Cracked can have that one as a free throw. :)

[brewsternorth.livejournal.com]

Pfui. I imagine if Cracked had wanted to spread the sporkage, they could have cast their net to include every conceivable book cover. Regular fiction turns out some fairly chunder-inducing designs, and as to academic textbooks...

[puppetmaker40.livejournal.com]

The sad thing for me is how many of those authors are either authors I have worked with as an editor or friends. I will say that I had NOTHING to do with any of those covers.

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

No comment, lol

[hexacontium.livejournal.com]

lol!
Um...I thought about making a custom Ace action figure based on that cover.

[dulcinbradbury.livejournal.com]

I recently saw a post of yours recommended in the comments of another post I was reading. As I'm interested in both SF/F & gender studies, I decided you were worth continuing to read. Just thought I'd say hello. :)

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

O HAI and welcome. :D

[nyssa-p.livejournal.com]

I had a look. No giggle.

Even looked at the "boobs on things that don't have boobs". Not even a snort.

Thanks to that, now I need another coffee!

My friend did an article on another article by Cracked and it's aptly named "The Internet Doesn't Care About You":
http://www.smokingtree.net/Internet%20-%20Cracked2.htm

[mad-fool.livejournal.com]

After a quick check through the article I can say that I have read four of the books they selected.

I'm not sure if I should be saying that with a sense of embarrassment or one of fierce pride.

Part of me really wants to hunt down a copy of 'Servants of the Wankh' to make it my fifth.

[jondennis.livejournal.com]

Not funny, but those were some hideous covers. I know there's people with design sense who like genre fiction. Why are none of them working in the indutstry?

[iblis-kukl.livejournal.com]