Jul 15
Click for full imageArt Direction: Well with the name Alpha Centauri our cover is basically spelt out for us… Centaur taking a point blank shot at a red headed girl straight out of Sunday school while she rides a horse. Make sure to make her jumper a timeless classic, something you could look back at in a hundred years and say… that never went out of fashion.
Published 1982
(Average: 6.68 out of 10)
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July 15th, 2011 at 8:59 am
“Hey! You! Gobsmacked girl in the sweater! GET OFF MY WIFE!!”
July 15th, 2011 at 9:20 am
I think this cover is freakier than you’re giving it credit. That’s no regular white stallion: it’s a two-headed horse! With one head a regular horsehead, and the other head a centaur-archer! Wild!
July 15th, 2011 at 10:38 am
The war between the Centaurs and the 80s catalogue models was pretty one-sided.
July 15th, 2011 at 10:43 am
Do a lot of artist’s models suffer from crippling skeletal deformities? Should we start a charity for them?
July 15th, 2011 at 1:29 pm
That centaur could stand to lose a few pounds.
Not that I have rippling abs myself, but I don’t run around with my shirt off all day.
July 15th, 2011 at 3:18 pm
The lack of flyswatters in the depiction of centaurs has always bothered me. It’s always bows quivers and ravished or about to be ravished women. But no sight of probably the most useful thing a centaur would carry.
July 15th, 2011 at 5:41 pm
Centaurs were known to be expert herbalists, fred, the most famous being Chiron. I am sure they would have a good horsefly repellent. Wish I knew what it was.
July 15th, 2011 at 7:51 pm
If horseflies are drawn to horses, does that mean dragonflies love dragons?
July 15th, 2011 at 8:42 pm
This cover could have been greatly improved with the inclusion of a unicorn.
July 15th, 2011 at 11:47 pm
What? It’s “Alpha Centauri”? I thought you said you wanted the cover “a little centaur-ey”! Oh well, maybe no-one will notice…
July 16th, 2011 at 1:28 am
Tom, I thank the gods I am a boy, damselflies are huge.
July 16th, 2011 at 1:36 am
Ah, the never-seen series finale for Follyfoot.
July 18th, 2011 at 1:40 am
BEHIND YOU!
July 18th, 2011 at 8:43 am
Hey, Dalton H, that’s my line!
I bet that centaur wishes he had little mini-mes for hands. Each one could carry it’s own bow and arrow.
July 24th, 2011 at 2:24 am
@Pat – Actually Chiron had a completely different origin then the other centaurs. They came about when a human king wanted to get with Hera, but Zeus wasn’t having none of that with his sister-wife, even though he was a major cheater. So he sent a cloud that looked like Hera to the king, who raped the fake-Hera. The cloud then gave birth to the centaurs. And they weren’t good people. They thought nothing of raping women and little boys and probably didn’t smell too good either.
Meanwhile Chiron was fathered by Cronus who had taken the form of a horse to force himself on the nymph Philyra.
And I know Wikipedia has it somewhat different, but I went through a huge Greek myth obsession as a child and read a lot of them, repeatedly, until I had them pretty well memorized. Not just the cleaned up versions we got in elementary school, but the “real deal” ones.
Anyway, any idiot can edit Wikipedia.
July 25th, 2011 at 12:41 pm
The centaur is aiming past the girl, at something they’re both looking at. Something that’s probably more interesting than both centaur and girl, and should have been on the cover instead.
August 15th, 2011 at 7:44 pm
Well officer, I was riding old Betsy today when out of nowhere this half-horse-half-man named “Alpha” robbed us at arrow-point. He took my wallet, my watch, my necklace, and even Betsy’s good shoes!
November 5th, 2013 at 3:00 pm
“Shot in the head,
And you’re to blame!
You give centaurs
A BAD NAME.”
November 5th, 2013 at 5:33 pm
The centaur-assassin has been sent back in time to prevent Meryl Streep from growing up into the funny-accent champion she did in our time. Or maybe it was just people who saw ‘Mamma Mia’ and thought ‘this cannot be allowed to occur’.
November 6th, 2013 at 2:46 am
Another cover that would have been far more compelling if the artist had painted the situation just a few moments into the future.
October 16th, 2014 at 3:35 pm
@Tatwood, more likely for her accent in Evil Angels “A dingo stowl moi bay-boi!”
(Shudder, it’s almost in dick van dyke territory)
October 26th, 2014 at 2:23 am
Google Books synopsis:
“Transported to another world where a merciless people are determined to obliterate a race of noble centaurs, Becky is given the opportunity to save them from extinction.â€
The horse is also called Becky, apparently.
December 2nd, 2016 at 1:08 pm
‘You put on some zinc oxide THIS INSTANT, young lady! Or else!’
December 2nd, 2016 at 1:09 pm
Website of note The Chive have put together a gallery of familiar faces for your amusement this morning…
December 2nd, 2016 at 1:20 pm
The blurb “The kind of book that should be around for hundreds of years!” sounds a bit weird.
A book will physically last for centuries if no one ever reads it.
December 2nd, 2016 at 1:24 pm
What young girl doesn’t like to read classical fantasy? A perfect Christmas book gift for your 12-year-old niece.
December 2nd, 2016 at 2:37 pm
Alpha Centauri? More like Proxima Centauri.
December 2nd, 2016 at 2:55 pm
‘Ten says I can put an arrow into the neighbor’s window and have it bounce off.’
‘You’re on!’
December 2nd, 2016 at 4:22 pm
The big head is just plain creepy on this other cover.
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/ac/98/2c/ac982c2f81ac2cdf8df5da11e4b17be6.jpg
December 2nd, 2016 at 4:23 pm
Now that it’s all right to use parochial British references and Doctor Who jokes:
Panto season is upon us, so Stuart Fell and Ysanne Churchman have donned the Neddy costume.
December 2nd, 2016 at 4:28 pm
@Raoul: You win. I mean, yes, Centaurus does in fact mean “centaur”, but using α Centauri – which, for most rational people, will conjure up thoughts of space – as the title of your generic fantasy novel will disappoint people. It certainly disappoints me.
December 2nd, 2016 at 4:44 pm
Don’t ever borrow a centaur’s favorite sweater without asking.
December 2nd, 2016 at 4:54 pm
Centaurs appear to be the fantasyland version of Hell’s Angels. She must have stumbled on their meth-lab in the woods.
December 2nd, 2016 at 5:37 pm
@Ray P—yeah, and from the look of the inflamed, distended nostrils, I’d say that horse has been snorting lines too. Now that he’s all wired up, I’ll bet he goes after that Centaur.
“Go ahead! I take your fucking arrows! You think you kill me with arrows? I take your fucking arrows! Go ahead!”
December 2nd, 2016 at 8:56 pm
I actually feel kind of sorry for this book, and the author, after reading that cover blurb.
@RachelJ: and after reading that, I feel less sorry for it. ‘Transported to a magic land’ stories are the worst.
December 2nd, 2016 at 11:24 pm
@Chiclitz never mix horse and angel dust.
December 3rd, 2016 at 12:51 am
@Vyrmis. Oh, some aren’t bad. The premise does tend to encourage lazy writing, though: “Help! What is this strange world I’ve fallen into? What’s going on? -Nevermind, I’ll find some local to explain all the rules to the reader- er, I mean, me.”
No doubt this particular centaur has got fed up with having to deliver worldbuilding exposition to every twit who happens to stumble through a magical portal. Enough is enough!
December 3rd, 2016 at 1:47 am
Incidentally, just what is that backdrop supposed to be? A set of floor-length curtains, slightly faded?
December 3rd, 2016 at 4:31 am
Centaur: This is your deathday! I, the alpha male centaur will kill you!
Sweater girl: What? Sorry, did you say something?
December 3rd, 2016 at 9:55 am
The book will be around for hundreds of years only if it’s printed on quality paper, otherwise about 50 years.