Jun 05
Leah Comments: Another beaut from my personal collection. Fairly good book, but the protagonists (human woman and psychic alien cat) don’t look like that. First, I’ve never seen a living, healthy adult human being with such a tiny head. Second, they’re both pregnant in this volume of the series. No sign of that here. Also, the text never says anything about the cat having a double chin.
Published 1995
June 5th, 2017 at 11:27 am
Andrea Martin on a graveyard stand-up comedy tour:
“So why are there fences around cemeteries? Because people are dying to get in!”
June 5th, 2017 at 11:36 am
That must be the dumbest way to carry a sword that doesn’t involve inserting it between your own ribs!
June 5th, 2017 at 11:38 am
Gayle Greeno, not wishing to be associated with such puerile cover art, instead had her name rendered completely illegible. Good show, ma’am!
June 5th, 2017 at 11:56 am
Earrings on a cat. Is this a GSS first?
June 5th, 2017 at 12:20 pm
@fred. I believe so.
Moving on from the moggie- I can hardly claim that’s the worst blurb we’ve had on this site- it does at least make sense- but in sheer awkwardness it rivals those from
Murder at the Galactic Writer’s Society and
Fortune’s Wheel. Which is saying something.
June 5th, 2017 at 12:44 pm
That “lost sword” gig doesn’t look so bad now, does it, kitty cat?
June 5th, 2017 at 12:51 pm
This cover is not ‘bad’. This cover is transcendentally sublime. Having seen this cover and had my eyes opened to the light, I am now selling all my earthly possessions. From this day forward I will spend all my time either looking at this cover or displaying it to others, so they too may experience enlightenment.
June 5th, 2017 at 12:55 pm
Sorry about that last comment. Guess those were the wrong kind of mushrooms!
HAHAHAH look at that cat!!!!
June 5th, 2017 at 1:00 pm
The artist sure likes lichen. Either that or wee gnomes use the graveyard for their paintball course.
June 5th, 2017 at 1:14 pm
@fred: You could even say…the artist is lichen it.😎
EEEYAHHHH!
June 5th, 2017 at 1:15 pm
That’s the Stealing the Elf King’s Roses font, isn’t it? I’d recognise those curlicues anywhere.
June 5th, 2017 at 1:59 pm
@RachelJ—good blurb analysis. I’m not quite sure of the logic of a forgotten past hiding a secret. Too many layers to wade through there. We should hold a “Blurb Study” (or “BS”) Symposium someday.
June 5th, 2017 at 2:02 pm
Puss needs at least one ear syringed.
June 5th, 2017 at 2:05 pm
Soon no one cared about Joan’s recycling tips… even the cat wanted to run.
June 5th, 2017 at 2:12 pm
Is that Old Man Willow?
June 5th, 2017 at 2:15 pm
@SI
Puss: “now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go recycle last night’s dinner.”
June 5th, 2017 at 2:21 pm
“Yes, I go to Wellesley, and I don’t think any of this is funny!”
June 5th, 2017 at 4:47 pm
The moment Mark Zuckerberg realised he’d spent too much time in California…
June 5th, 2017 at 5:23 pm
It does look like she has a preggers tummy bulge, but only on the right side of her body.
June 5th, 2017 at 6:00 pm
@fred: and partway down her leg…so…world’s worst colostomy?
June 5th, 2017 at 6:02 pm
A fat cat with earrings, and a small-headed woman who may or may not be pregnant, but who is nevertheless wearing an extremely baggy, unflattering outfit and carrying her sword in a truly ridiculous fashion. On top of that, the cat’s expression is likely because the woman is prattling on, at length, about something that the cat finds incredibly boring.
June 5th, 2017 at 6:07 pm
If you look closely at the cat’s butt it’s about to slide off of that fallen tombstone. The woman’s face is frozen in horror at the thought of it.
June 5th, 2017 at 6:11 pm
It reminds me of the time i paid a ten dollar admission to a graveyard and the chap says ” get your change from the magic tree in the corner ” .
June 5th, 2017 at 6:39 pm
“So a priest, a midget, and a camel walk into a bar…”
June 5th, 2017 at 7:16 pm
Well, ‘ghatti’ refers to tree sap gum. Is the story actually about the arbor?
June 5th, 2017 at 7:16 pm
The earrings on the cat are actually in the book. They were a gift. The woman has a matching set. Yeah, I know that’s ridiculous. Deal with it.
June 5th, 2017 at 7:54 pm
Book Three of The Gotti’s Tale . . . .
“So then I stuck Louie the Loser’s head in a vise and tightened it until his effin’ eye balls popped out, then I turned to the hooker and said, ‘You want some of this, b–ch?’ So then me and Frankie Yum-Yum go over to the club and check the receipts from today’s numbers game and along the way I pay off that cop who watches the corner for me. Then I put some effin’ arsenic in Little Paulie’s espresso and say to him, ‘Hey, down the fuckin’ hatch, Paulie!’, and I laugh as the sonuvabitch drowns in his own lungs. Then I have a meeting with Joey No-Nose and I say ‘Joey, a little bird tells me you is skimming’ off the protection take, what do you say to that?’ And Joey, he’s such a fuckin’ pussy, he starts crying like a baby and says he wouldn’t ever touch my money and he’s, like, totally loyal. I felt sorry for him, so I just told Frankie Yum-Yum to break his thumbs but don’t kill him. Then I went to confession.”
Sorry, I should have said “Spoiler alert.”
June 5th, 2017 at 8:42 pm
Anyone who owns a cat knows they would rather chew their own ears off (impossible, yes) than wear the same earrings their human does.
June 5th, 2017 at 8:50 pm
Mammas, don’t let your babies grow up to marry each other…
June 5th, 2017 at 11:14 pm
The only problem I ever had with this book, aside from the god-awful cover, is that it starts with the murder of a woman who shares my name. It’s actually not a bad read, for a book full of psychic aliens who look like overgrown moggies.
June 6th, 2017 at 1:26 am
The pointy shoes amuse me as well. Needs “booties” tag.
Microcephalic woman with stupid look on her face, cat who presumably got the double chin by gaining too much weight while preggers (maybe she gained the weight the human should have?), stupid sword placement, strangely lumpy trousers, and the hideous embossed font last seen embarrassing Diane Duane (though this book’s older).
Cat envies the Lost Sword kitteh, and Orson. At least they don’t have to wear giant unmatched earrings.
June 6th, 2017 at 2:53 am
My epitaph will be ‘Knock Before Entering’.
June 6th, 2017 at 7:58 am
“Does the (1) forgotten (2) hide a (3) which could avert a (4) against (5)?”
(1)
a) Seekers’
b) village idiot’s
c) Blue Oyster Leather Bar & Dance Club’s
d) cat’s
(2)
a) past
b) keys
c) Facebook password
d) litterbox
(3)
a) secret
b) golden rod of mysterious purpose
c) Russian collusion
d) ghastly surprise
(4)
a) modern-day vendetta
b) vengeance by spaying
c) romantic encounter
d) revolt
(5)
a) Seekers and Resonants alike
b) good taste
c) DVD zone restrictions
d) dandruff
June 6th, 2017 at 10:23 am
Yay, I’ll play!
Does the Blue Oyster Leather Bar & Dance Club’s Facebook password hide a golden rod of mysterious purpose which could avert a romantic encounter against dandruff?
I sure hope so!!!
June 6th, 2017 at 10:23 pm
I like all of those permutations better than the original.
June 6th, 2017 at 11:43 pm
@ Anna T. – The rambling thing is what stood out to me, too. What else could she possibly be saying other than, “so then I told him it’s fine if you only have the triple extra large trousers, which reminds me, did I ever tell you about the time…”
June 7th, 2017 at 4:04 am
@HappyBookworm. Well, maybe the protagonist is in fact a crashing bore, and the cover artist is merely trying to warn us?
June 7th, 2017 at 5:57 am
Ten piasters (paid through the Yellow River Bank @ Chinese GSS) to anyone who can locate her knees.
June 7th, 2017 at 10:00 am
@B.Chiclitz. I believe that’s her right knee next to the cat’s left ear. The left seems more and more absent the more I look for it.
I would make a joke about her having a wooden leg, but for all we know the character *does*. Such jests have backfired before.
June 7th, 2017 at 2:38 pm
@RachelJ—”Such jests have backfired before.”
Especially on the campus of Wellesley.
June 8th, 2017 at 8:18 am
How many votes for a new “Goofy Stare” tag?
June 8th, 2017 at 8:56 am
One vote from me. Or “goofy facial expression” or summat like that. I vote it be applied to “Our Dream, Your Fantasy” too.
Not sure if the cat’s looking bored with the rambling (it’s a cat, after all), or if the woman’s just blathering and the cat’s looking around trying to figure out who she’s talking to. “The hell? There’s nobody else here. She’s not looking at me, so who does she think she’s babbling to? A ghost? A hallucination?”
June 8th, 2017 at 5:20 pm
@GSSxn—Wellesley undergrads do not need an audience, they specialize in the meta-response.
June 12th, 2017 at 10:58 pm
Fun fact: this cover looks much better if your monitor is dimmed down just as far as it can go. Try it, you’ll agree!
June 13th, 2017 at 8:55 am
@DS: I keep my monitor dimmed down somewhere below 50% as a rule. So I see GSSers complaining about some cover and think, “But it’s not too bad…” and then I turn up the brightness and yes, it is.