Orbit Books bypasses Mars en route to the “Most Awesomely Bad SFF Cover in the World”

Publisher Orbit Books has bypassed Mars and left Martian science fiction fans stranded en route to its “Most Awesomely Bad SFF Cover in the World.” Sifting through over 350 reader submissions for “the most ridiculously bad high-concept SFF book cover in the universe,” including more than
20 ideas that mention Mars or Martians, here are the five fictional book titles that Orbit will consider for its mock book cover:

• The Thing with the Glass Buttock

• Rise of the Fallen, Book Seven, The Pre-Antepenultimate Battle

• A Stain Upon The Vastness

• Across a Trembling Sea the Cyborg Fairies Dance

• An Old Dragon, A Dead Witch, and a Fat Guy: The Third Book of Stories that Go Nowhere

If you fancy any of these titles, vote for your favorite one using Orbit’s online poll. Once Orbit has settled on a title, they’ll work out the reading line, the blurbs, and the cover elements. Then, fans will have an opportunity to help Orbit design a mock cover for the fictional book.

Pictured: A word cloud for Orbit’s journey to the “Most Awesomely Bad SFF Cover in the World.” According to Annalee Newitz of the science fiction blog io9, Tanith Lee's 1980 novel Sabella has “liberal doses of love, vampires, Mars, and space.”