That's Tuf

The 1986 Baen edition of George RR Martin's "Tuf Voyaging" I own has this cover:



Fine, no?

And then in 2003 Meisha Merlin decided to jazz it up a bit.



(There's also a back cover)

Alas, my copy (2014) is much more boring:

I imagine "Game of Thrones" is responsible for the decision to go "heraldic shield" on the cover. (A not very well thought out shield. The cat is fine, but Tuf is not in the habit of using outsized laser guns or whatever that's supposed to be, and what does Saturn have to do with anything? Very "this is generic SF")

Am thankful I bought the original, even with the stupid lettering. The British one with the same artwork at least had lettering that doesn't look like it's sagging under its own weight, nor red letters on an orange background.

The 2013 one
https://www.isfdb.org/wiki/images/9/9a/TFVGNGDVPC2013.jpg

was better than the shield one, IMO. But I guess it confused the punters less so didn't sell as well?

And the French ones don't even have boobs!

Unsurprisingly, the MM version was also SFBC, because they never met a book they couldn't make look worse.

(Like the omnibus of the first 3 Pern books, to which I saw and heard McCaffrey wince and say, "Good Lord, a steering wheel on a dragon!")

Tuf is one of my favorite characters. I love whimsical stories with exciting endings and droll witty characters, such as Sherlock Holmes. Even sillier and more outright fanciful ones such as Asimov's Azazel stories and Anderson and Dickson's Hokas in Earthman's Burden.

I was saddened to read this in a blog post--by Dominic Stevens--that referenced Tuf Voyaging:

"As I said last month, one of the best things about this collection of his shorter fiction is the frank and honest introductions to each section, and in introducing Tuf Voyaging, Martin admits that he meant to write many more of these tales to make it an ongoing series in the vein of say Moorcock’s ongoing series of Elric of Melniboné, but Hollywood came calling and Martin has never found the opportunity to return. This is a real shame as the two tales here, “A Best for Norn” and “Guardians”, show just how well written and thought provoking the (mis)adventures of Haviland Tuf are."

https://fantasy-faction.com/2012/dreamsongs-a-retrospective-book-two-by-george-r...

Imagine what could have been, perhaps dozens of Tuf stories. Alas.

>5 MisterMo: More evidence, if any more was needed, that we're in one of the worse timelines.

These were good stories and I was sorry there weren't more.

But I knew him back when the idea of anyone I knew having anything to do with TV was less believable than warp drive. TBF, he's the only one who did.

We really lost a good SF writer when that happened.