Category Archives: Artists and Cover Art

Dumb Cover Art

We’ve talked about this before, but they’re still publishing them so we gotta keep talking about it.

This is the same book, a later reprint. Same book.
Which one are you going to buy? Yah, me too.

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Publishers: I do not like these half-dressed waif teen cover images. I’m not going to buy them. This image is boring and completely misrepresents Kiernan and her quality of writing. To me, with the $evere book buying habit, this cover gets lost in the noise. I completely overlooked this and all her other titles when I had the opportunity to buy them at a book store recently. I did discover Kiernan through the older cover art, above. Kiernan deserves better than to be lost amongst the bajillion others with so similar art. It also insults me, your potential customer. The book is about paleontology. Could we compromise? Can we at least give girlfriend here a rock hammer, not that she could lift it…

Oh, wait! I get it. That’s supposed to be Dancy? Yeah, you missed that one.

I REALLY LIKE this book, Threshold, and am looking forward to reading more from Caitlin R. Kiernan and her pseudonym Katherine Tierney.

Banging on about Cover Art

Our purpose here at Darkcargo is to bring a forum space to the “rank-and-file” of science fiction and fantasy readers. We are not literary analysts, publishers, ::waves hands vaguely:: whatevers. We’re just readers, and the people who pay for that final SF/F product, or sneer at your silly cover art.
Lynn writes what she calls a book diary at http://lynnsbooks.wordpress.com/
I invited her to do a few posts with topics about reading. Here, she tells me her take on what makes or breaks a cover art.
DC: I love picking on cover art. What’s the worst cover that you’ve recently paid money for? (come on! “Show me yours, I’ll show you mine!”) What’s the coolest cover currently in your library?

I love book covers.  I love books after all and for me the cover is part and parcel of the whole.  It’s a little taster of the good things to come.  And yet somehow I always feel a bit shallow for banging on about what’s on the jacket.  It’s the content that counts after all.  Right?  Of course, that’s right, you wouldn’t love a book if the content was naff but the artwork was sublime but, at the end of the day, it would be the cover that drew you to it in the first place and made it stand out from all the others on the shelf.

Covers are important and some of them are fantastic pieces of art which really should receive more recognition (or am I just trying to not seem a total book cover lover?)

So, thinking about covers made me think of a few issues.  Firstly the way that the covers are changed, sometimes quite dramatically, depending on the country of sale.  There are loads of examples of this but the one I’m using is for a  YA series that I read a couple of years ago by Cassandra Clare – I really didn’t like the UK covers for this in fact I found them a bit off-putting and clearly this seemed to be the consensus of opinion as all the UK covers seem to have gone into hibernation or become extinct.  Check it out here:

The blue cover is the UK one – but I just find it a bit freaky and all the others were similarly freaky.  Maybe I’m being too harsh, on reflection it’s starting to grow on me – and also getting back to my point  above you have to admit that it does draw the eye comparatively speaking (okay so I’m now arguing with myself!).  Anyway, given the target audience for this book (not me I admit) – I wonder why UK publishers thought the creepy blue cover would appeal more than the hench guy?  Which of these covers would appeal most to you?

The second issue is all about why sometimes the cover art doesn’t reflect what is contained in the book.  I was recently reading a book and was flummoxed by the cover because the girl in the story looked nothing like the girl on the cover.  I found myself constantly closing the book, to take a look whilst scratching my head all puzzled, particularly after I’d read a particular chapter describing her features – which were, in fact, nothing like the girl on the front.  I know this is a popular topic for discussion and I do appreciate that sometimes the artwork is produced before the book is finished but it is mildly distracting.  After all, it’s not like I need a picture of the girl in the story to be on the front cover.  I have a perfectly good imagination so if you can’t get the picture to be at least in the ballpark of what you’re describing then use a different type of cover.  Simples.

The third issue I thought of, and I’m probably going to have a bit of a rant now, is when the covers are changed mid-way through a series.  No.  Don’t do that.  If I’m collecting a series of books, I don’t want the first 5 to have a theme and then six onwards to have an actor on the front because the book has now been turned into a popular series on HBO.  I want the whole series to have continuity.  I want to stand them all together and for them to have a lovely pleasing look – yes, I realise that’s probably a bit sad but if I’m collecting the whole series then that’s what I damn well expect.  Stick to the programme people.  Anyway, I actually refuse to buy a book on principle if the cover is changed because it’s been made into a film.  I think it’s just a shame and actually a bit lazy.

In terms of good and bad covers I think I’m prejudiced.  I think I’m much harsher on the genres that I don’t read a lot of although I’m trying to get over this.  For example, my local supermarket seems to dedicate quite a lot of shelf space to romance novels – and it’s immediately obvious, women in off the shoulder frothy dresses being swept off their feet by some swashbuckling kind of guy.  I have nothing against that kind of book or, for that matter, anyone reading it, it’s just not for me (okay, I confess, I may have read a couple of romance novels but that was purely for scientific reasons).  And, I’m pretty sure that the people picking up those books are equally thinking the same thing about the book choices I’m making which they would probably never dream of reading.

So what covers have I liked and disliked recently.  I read Asimov for a read along and the book, which was from the library, really did have a quite hideous cover (in my humble opinion).  Never, in a million years, would I have picked up this book.  As it goes I was more than happy to be proved wrong because I really enjoyed the series.  You can check out the cover here though : http://www.chrisfossart.com/wp-content/gallery/asimov/asimov_foundation1.jpg - agree or disagree??

In terms of favourites, my favourite cover recently has been the King of Thorns by Mark Lawrence:

I love this cover (not to mention the story itself which is rather brilliant!)

Maybe you can’t judge a book by its cover.  Maybe sometimes the book cover isn’t an accurate reflection of the content.  Maybe the cover art is a bit meh.  But what’s the alternative?  Just bound white pages with a title printed on the front.  How very dull would that be.

Classy Classics Calendar

You can get yours at worldbuilders.org

Recently, Lady Darkcargo got back from some con or twother and sent me a little happy box. It included this calendar that has a different lady from each month representing some literary classic. M3 and I had fun looking at this back panel over dinner, trying to guess which book the images represented.

Then we break that plastic seal and start flipping through. Mark Twain, Nathaniel Hawthorn, Kipling, Tolstoy, Murasaki Shikibu, Defoe, John Steinbeck, Lewis Carrol, Shakespeare, Melville, Dumas, and Charles Dickens. Now, what do all these have in common?

All dead

All caucasian

All male

Nobody born earlier than 1564

EXCEPT Shikibu. Now, if you don’t have fun saying Shikibu, then you are already old and grumpy, no hope for you, and you should just sit the rest of life out quietly on the side lines.

Shikibu was around 978-1014 and wrote The Tale of Genji and The Diary of Lady Murasaki. She was a lady-in-waiting to the Japanese Empress and her work is considered some of Japan’s greatest literature.

Never heard of her or her works, shallow, uncultured American that I am. And it is excessively awesome that someone snuck her into this calendar to educate the masses. My library is also capable of educating me on Japanese litereature – they have a copy of The Tale of Genji!

Book Shopping

I treated myself to a haircut and a trip to the Last Bookstore In America* today. Here’s what I found.

First, it took me a while to even find the bloody books. Here’s a photo. You walk in and are confronted with a WALL of Nook Stuff. (see the front door back there?) It used to be that when you walk into a bookstore you were bombarded with NYT bestsellers, magazines, and New Releases. Now I’m innundated with a product I have no interest in. Boo.

Ok, past that. I went in to see if maybe (just maybe!) Saladin Ahmed’s Throne of the Crescent Moon was out early, put on the shelf by a non-regulations-following bookseller. Where in the hell are the goddamn new releases? The first tower of books I find past the Nook Shit is “Dieting and Health”. Huh.

Ok, moving on.

I found an edition of Moby Dick that has notes and so forth, excellent! It’s an ugly book, printed like it came off a home desk-jet printer, but the material is good.

Next, there were three copies of M.L.N. Hanover’s Killing Rites. This cover is repellant to me. How many of these have we seen? How many of this type of novel have I started and tossed and is now decidedly on my Avoid catergory? However, I have been assured by MyAwfulReviews that this is not one of THOSE books, just ignore the cover. However, MAR also liked Lev Grossman’s The Magicians, so that’s a negative point. However, I really loved Leviathan Wakes, another novel by this same author (pen names). However, it’s got a Zia on the front. So I bought a copy to make up my own mind.

Next. Another stupid cover. Why do publishers ruin books in this way? Why don’t they just save themselves a buck and make plain-text cover that says: Steampunk Fantasy by an Author You’ve Read Before and like? Ok, sounds great! Steven Harper wrote a murder mystery on the Moon that was an enjoyable read and I have been looking forward to snother by him for a long time. This one is called The Doomsday Vault.

The Treasure I discovered is this other, previously unknown to me, novel by R. A. MacAvoy. MacAvoy has written a lot, and I really liked her Tea with the Black Dragon. Death and Ressurection looks to be more from the same universe, plus some Southwest-”y” spiritual elements tossed in. I love finding small presses that take risks like this. This publisher is Prime Books.

So, let’s dive in!

*I know there are other bookstores.

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Strong Oh-So Femine Poses

Here at Darkcargo we have talked abit about cover art and how it can influence your pick of reading material.

This is the best little article I have seen on scifi/fantasy cover art that is suppose to feature strong kick-butt women:

Click HERE

Author Jim C. Hines is a brave soul indeed.

Cover Art: What Am I Missing Out On?

It’s getting to be just a touch nipply at night and I truly do enjoy snuggling down under two quilts and a few cats with a good book at the end of the day. Wrapped in that fuzzy warmth, I have enjoyed many an adventure. However, as I casted my eye over the cover of this particular science fiction escapade, I had my doubts.

A friend from knitting circle had recommended this author; we had been discussing, quite intellectually even, the science fiction genre. Primarily we had been hashing over how nearly every genre was rife with minimalist and primarily sexual roles for female characters.  I have always loved scifi, and so I learned at a young age that a developed sense of denial and the ability to overlook slights and condescension really allowed me to continue to revel in this genre.

But for some years now I have found myself seeking out and longing for fiction that treats all the characters as multifaceted entities. So here we were discussing this long-standing grievance of half the species and my personal desire for some seriously good escapism. A few recommendations came out of it and a subsequent trip to my library ensued. Now here I was staring at the cover to Dawn by Octavia Butler, published in 1987.

Let’s see:

1 naked chick                                                                    Check

2nd chick, suggestion of cleavage                                 Check

Both chicks placed in “interesting” poses                  Check

1980s hairdo                                                                    Check

This did not look promising. I don’t mind a bit of female nudity here and there: Renaissance oil paintings, lady justice in the county court, Angelina Jolie movie flick. But when I think “righteously good scifi story”, I don’t think “naked chick”.

So, let’s fast forward two nights. I am now over a 100 pages into Dawn and I DON’T WANT TO PUT IT DOWN! It’s a well-written story, with developed characters and an intriguing plot. If I had not had the recommendation from a trusted book-lover, I would have passed this awesome story up based on the cover art. Snob, that I am.

The cover shows two white females, one nude and the other tantalizingly hinting at some cleavage. So far in the story, we have met two humans, both dark-skinned. Nudity was a brief factor, in that we all have to shower sometime. The rest of the characters in the book are aliens. Why did the publisher choose not to feature the lead female black character and some of these funky ETs on the cover?

Now that I have Dawn on my shelf, calling to me as I take the time to type this out to you all, I have to wonder. I wonder how many other sluttily-dressed awesome scifi stories are out there? How many have I passed on by because of the cover art? If I want nudity, sex, little to no plot, zero character development, well there is a certain genre I head over to for that. And the cover art example we have been discussing is a good illustration of what I would expect on the majority of this unnamed genre. Not on my scifi.  Should I assume that once upon a time only adolescent males read science fiction, and so the publishers were forced to ignore the basic storylines and character features of the book and to simply put at least one bare lady on the cover? But we have moved on, right? We are a higher society now, right? Is there still a need to tart up my reading?  I say no, but based on this experience I will be more likely in the future to give a seemingly risqué book a second look.

Tales of the Talisman Art

So I recently started reading short fiction again, having subscribed to Tales of the Talisman. In a previous article, I went on about a short story by Jim Lee. Lucky for me I was able to get my hands on a back issue to read a previous Jim Lee story, Soul-Split, that featured the same characters. It was just as good as the other story, with the dry humorous banter between Demon Hunter and Ton Trong Duc, set in some pre-industrialized Vietnam.

So that is how all the art of Volume III, Issue 4 ended up in my hands. The cover features swash buckler, which is cool; but it is the back cover that had me fascinated. Stars and asteroids in the background and two red spaceships. Wait – WTF! Dolphins and sharks? In space? While I read the various works on the inside over a few nights, I kept flipping to the back cover. Yep – that smiling dolphin and hunting shark were still there. Both the front and back cover illustrations were done by Laura Givens, the Art Director of Tales of the Talisman. If I saw that back cover on someone’s coffee table, I would have to pick it up and flip through whatever fancy it bounded.

On the inside, not only are there great little short fictions, but poetry and more art. Each featured short story has one full-page illustration. But I want to talk about the pre-Columbus South American inspired little bits of art tucked in and around all the other stuff. It’s not noted who is responsible for these fanciful renditions of hieroglyphs, perhaps Laura Givens again, but I spent lots of time staring at each one. The hieroglyphs of South America are still somewhat of a mystery. They are extraordinarily hard to decipher. The archaeology world has figured out the names for some gods and rulers, but not much else. To the untutored eye, they appear to be a jumble of cartoonish, blocky, fanciful graffitti. But we know better – since palaces and government buildings are engraved with this stuff. So, to have that inspire art is pretty cool. I mean, we don’t really know what it says in the first place, so by using a variety of these odd, gruesome characters, the artist could literally be saying, “You’re father was a capybara and your mother smelled of coffee berries!” As you can see, these little bits of art are pretty bold.

My other favorite bits from this issue included Firewall by Daniel C. Smith, The Succession by Uncle River, and Demon Sun by Denise Rininger. Firewall is set in the far-future; humans have long conquered space and even had a fall or two from grace. A salvage-recovery ship finds an ancient vessel, with no life on-board. Yet the computer is still running – still running an AI program keeping all the non-organic sentient beings happily entertained in their own little universe on their own little adventures. The Succession was a potentially near-future tale of a new empire, The United Dominion, which encompassed Northwestern US, Western Canada, Alaska, and Eastern Russia. This entertaining story spoke to the higher question of how to choose a fitting successor – one that could keep the fledgling empire thriving. Demon Sun is set have in our modern-day world and half in another dimension – one where magic and music are intertwined. Can a man straddling both worlds collect all the pieces of a shattered soul? And then put it back together?

The Power of Cover Art

This is the story of how someone else’s cover art can sell your book.

Cover art is powerful.

*That* image, which you recognize as a thumbnail, or even as a corner of a tattered paperback sticking out of a pile of stuff, conveys so much more than just a sketch of the main character.

It continues to sell the book even after the book has been sold once, twice, thrice and is making the rounds at the library book sales.

It gives the author an image. Consistent cover art with similar design motifs from one volume to the next tie all of the author’s books together as a uniform package.

It also invites conversation.

The lack of cover art is the single thing I dislike the most about e-format. Not that the books aren’t displayed on the virtual bookshelves with a thumbnail image– I know that’s there. I hate that the e-device itself doesn’t display the cover to a passer-by.

Last Friday I walked into the pottery studio and this was on the worktable next to another potter’s workspace. It was face down, open on the table, and I could see that she was about 2/3 of the way through the book. I could see that she borrowed it or bought it used. I could see that she was likely to enjoy many of the same books I do. All this before I even knew her name.

Because that book was there, displaying its cover, we talked for a long time about our faves. That book and its cover made many more book sales beyond its own title, author and publisher.

Alternatively, another lady was reading a kindle and eating by herself at a table next to where we were playing Munchkin this weekend. I have no idea what she was reading. No cover, no discussion, no new book sales, no new friendships made. A table of five SF/F avid readers and participants in NaNoWriMo had no reason to interrupt her lunch.

Here’s what Margaret the Potter Gal and I discussed:

Abarat, Clive Barker

Julie Czerneda

Garth Nix, Sabriel series plus other series not Sabriel.

Alan Dean Foster, Pip and Flinx, plus the one about the dog

So You Want to Be a Wizard, Diane Duane

Wandering Star graphic novel, Terri S. Wood

Steven Brust, Jhereg series

Who Fears Death, Nnedi Okorafor

Leviathan Wakes, James S. A. Corey

Thraxas series by Martin Scott

Dresden Files by Jim Butcher

Sookie Stackhouse series by Charlaine Harris

Tanya Huff’s Valor series and Blood Price series

Because Kristen Britain’s Green Rider was face down open on a table, I went out and purchased Alan Dean Foster’s The Light Years Beneath My Feet and Clive Barker’s Abarat. This conversation and these purchases likely never would have happened if Margaret were reading on an e-book device.

If publishers let cover art die, they’re killing the industry.

Czerneda Comfort

I’ve read six, no, seven books by Julie Czerneda, so by now I take great comfort in her voice: familiar with her style and word choice. I can trust her to lead me down an interesting story with intriguing…er, bilogy bits.

Esen is my favorite non-human character–well, except for Brymn, a seven-limbed, bright blue, rubbery skinned alien who challenged the dogma of his peoples in order to save them (sniffs!)…and except for Huido, owner and chef of Claws and Jaws–Complete Interspecies Cuisine, who is a better friend than know I could ever be (super sniffs!)…

Anyways, Esen is sort of a liquid Being. She is the last of her kind (that she knows about at the end of book one), and the youngest and most bold. Her original form is a blue web, but she can take the shape of any alien being as needed.

In book two, Changing Vision, which I’m just starting tonight, she has the awesome pensive dinosaur shape you see on this cover, with the beautiful orange robe and nifty hat.

Here, she transforms:

“I released my hold on this body, discarding Esolesy Ki the Lishcyn, but not the Esen of my core, warming the surrounding air slightly with the exothermic result, exulting in the expansion of sensation and reliefof effort as my molecular self assumed its true configuration: the teardrop web-form of my kind.”

–from Changing Vision by Julie Czerneda.

Louis Royo does her covers. I just love these paintings. I wish I could see them much larger as there is so much going on. Look at the crazy cockroach dude in the lower right hand corner.

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