Courtesy of reader Patrick Vera, who saw it on Amazon’s Japanese site, the cover of the Japanese version of The Ghost Brigades:
I’m making the assumption that is supposed to be Jane Sagan on the cover. Apparently in Japan, Jane Sagan has a remarkable resemblance to actress Jennifer Esposito. I do not have a problem with this.
At least she’s green.
Dr. Phil
I gotta say that blows the TOR US cover out of the water! However the Sub-Press cover has them all beat!
Uh, knowing Japanese art, I wouldn’t swear that’s a chick…
ThatRobert:
Good point, although it looks enough like the portrayal of Jane Sagan on the Japanese cover of “Old Man’s War” that I think it is. And we know that it’s a woman on the OMW cover because there are breasts, including nipples on the metal suit she’s wearing. Which seemed a bit excessive at the time. But comes in handy for our ID purposes now.
Where’s the nipples? On the Japanese OMW cover there were nipples!
See.
Actually now that you mention it, is that armor cleavage there behind the gun???
Strange choices in anatomical accuracy for space suits aside, japanese novel covers are nearly always pretty bad-ass. This is no exception.
If I’m reading the title right, it’s “Toosugita Hoshi” or “A Too-Far Star”.
You’ve just got a thing for Jennifer Esposito because she resembles Krissy. I suppose that means the cover of the Japanese edition does as well, in a very distant way…
John Scalzi said: I do not have a problem with this.
I concur.
I’d say more than a little inspired by the titular (in both ways) blonde star of the now-cancelled Blizzard game, Starcraft Ghost.
Not remembering what the Japanese OMW cover looked like, I’ll have to take your word for it. Although I can’t see any nipples on the armor on this cover, and the face is just ambiguous enough that it could be a bishounen version of Jared Dirac. But I suppose you know best.
…
Now that’s pretty.
I like it. I actually want a copy simply for the beautiful cover.
I’m reading this blog in Japan right now, and If I’m reading the Japanese right, the title reads something like: ” The Distant Star — Old Man and Space Man 2…”
Scott @ 16 – more likely it reads “The Distant Star – Old Man and the Cosmos 2″, “Old man and the Cosmos” being what the first one was named in japan, IIRC.
Yeah, but why “The Distant Star”?
Epsosito could do a convincing Mrs. Scalzi in the biopic of your life. Alas, Chris Penn is dead, so you’ll need someone else [maybe that should be my entry to your hate mail contest].
But it’s not just a “distant” star, it’s a “too distant” star, which is quite a bit more poetic (and metaphorical).
Sounds like a cool title to me, even if it doesn’t really have much relationship to the original English title :)
it’s strange, too, because “yuurei-dan” sounds so cool in my mind!
or maybe bakemono-dan.
Probably yuurei. bakemono implies monsters and demons, and not just the supposed spiritual remains of dead people.
I’m not sure that yuurei works in this context either, mostly due to historical culture stuff. Yuurei are often female, not male, whereas in the west ghosts can be either male or female with equal probability….
Not that that sort of thing should really matter, but it probably does. Culture is really weird.
So that’s probably why “Distant Star”.
Hey, at least she’s green.
(I was about to say that sentence probably doesn’t get typed often, but then I remembered Trek fandom.)
Erbo @ 13 Here you go.
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y242/iiradned/omwjp.jpg
I like it a lot more than the French edition — and it doesn’t get better with The Last Colony…
Actually, I like the French “Last Colony” cover, for reasons which I will soon reveal.
That hair’s gonna be a bitch, though–it’s long enough to foul the seal ring for her helmet….
glad I could find this!
now i can practice japanese and read an awesome book (actually I’ll start with 老人と宇宙, old men and space, not to be confused with pigs in space from the muppet show).
As for the title change, at least they put the english up in the corner so people know what you wanted to call it!