The world's most annoying book cover

[jsgoddess]

I think I've found it. It's the dust jacket for this version (http://www.amazon.com/Gods-Themselves-Isaac-Asimov/dp/038502701X/ref=tmm_hrd_title_0) of Isaac Asimov's The Gods Themselves. You might not be able to tell from the picture, but the words have odd shadows that create the blurry effect. My eyes cannot even remotely focus on the damned thing.

Bring out your bad book covers if you think you can top this one.

[Andy L]

Ok. That is pretty bad now, but check out the German version of the cover for the Warriors Apprentice, here http://www.dendarii.co.uk/Covers/German/twa_de.jpg or this cover for Niven's Protector (darn, I can't find the image, but it's truly weird - frog-like aliens wearing brain-hats) (or the back cover blurb I talk about in this thread http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=558747)

[jsgoddess]

Ok. That is pretty bad now, but check out the German version of the cover for the Warriors Apprentice, here http://www.dendarii.co.uk/Covers/German/twa_de.jpg

Was that designer blind? Maybe they looked at the Asimov book too long and lost the ability to see straight. :D

[Tim R. Mortiss]

The Asimov book looks like a color plate misalignment. But if I recall, the story involves an alien planet where the natives have three sexes, which somehow merge to create families. Perhaps the designer deliberately misaligned the three colors to illustrate this "merging" as it is happening?

Just a thought. It's still annoying to look at, though!

[Andy L]

The Asimov book looks like a color plate misalignment. But if I recall, the story involves an alien planet where the natives have three sexes, which somehow merge to create families. Perhaps the designer deliberately misaligned the three colors to illustrate this "merging" as it is happening?

Just a thought. It's still annoying to look at, though!

Yes, that's almost certainly what the intention was, but it makes my eyes hurt.

[Exapno Mapcase]

It's just a bad image capture. I have the original book and I think Tim R. Mortiss has it just right: the off-placement register symbolizes the off-placement sexes. It's more obvious on the spine, where instead of red and blue on a white background, the letters are red and white and blue interlaced. The spine is harder to read than the front, but I wouldn't say that the cover itself would be described as blurry. I can't find a good image online so there must be something about low-res scans at work.

I have one of the worst covers of all time on one of my books, but I'm afraid I'm going to play the anonymity card and not show it to you. Authors don't get to see covers ahead of time, with rare examples, and I first saw it only when the finished book was shipped to me. I was crushed. It didn't help that they changed the title, too, without telling me.

That German cover is unfortunate. I had a [different] book appear in several European countries and I was amazed at how much more compelling and imaginative the covers were than the American one.

[jsgoddess]

It's just a bad image capture. I have the original book and I think Tim R. Mortiss has it just right: the off-placement register symbolizes the off-placement sexes. It's more obvious on the spine, where instead of red and blue on a white background, the letters are red and white and blue interlaced. The spine is harder to read than the front, but I wouldn't say that the cover itself would be described as blurry. I can't find a good image online so there must be something about low-res scans at work.

My eyes give me the effect as blurry. They try to force the colors back together and it just doesn't work!

[Tim R. Mortiss]

Well, it's a good thing that you can't judge a book by it's cover. (somebody had to say it!)

[Chronos]

For a long time, there was a trend with sci-fi books to just take a random sci-fi-y picture and slap it on the cover, without regard to any of the actual content of the book. Thankfully, this seems to be abating, nowadays.

[Skald the Rhymer]

I'll go with this (http://www.amazon.com/Friday-Robert-Heinlein/dp/034530988X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1295831433&sr=1-1) cover for Robert Heinlein's Friday. I would have included the original cover for The Cat Who Walks Through Walls, but a slight coloring error seems to have been made. Persons who have read them will understand why.

[tnetennba]

It's just a bad image capture. I have the original book and I think Tim R. Mortiss has it just right: the off-placement register symbolizes the off-placement sexes. It's more obvious on the spine, where instead of red and blue on a white background, the letters are red and white and blue interlaced. The spine is harder to read than the front, but I wouldn't say that the cover itself would be described as blurry. I can't find a good image online so there must be something about low-res scans at work.

I have one of the worst covers of all time on one of my books, but I'm afraid I'm going to play the anonymity card and not show it to you. Authors don't get to see covers ahead of time, with rare examples, and I first saw it only when the finished book was shipped to me. I was crushed. It didn't help that they changed the title, too, without telling me.

That German cover is unfortunate. I had a [different] book appear in several European countries and I was amazed at how much more compelling and imaginative the covers were than the American one.

I don't know what you mean by "ahead of time," but I have always seen my cover 8-9 months ahead of the release.

[Left Hand of Dorkness]

Annoying in a different way: Le Guin's novel The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia is one of my all-time favorite science-fiction works. It's set on a materialist planet with a moon colonized by anarchists, and the protagonist is from the moon, which is the titular ambiguous utopia. She uses each society to explore its counterpart, but Le Guin's sympathies clearly lie with the anarchists.

So the book jacket has a blurb on the back. They describe the materialist world as the utopia, with a dystopian moon.

Guys, did you not read the book? Or are you Objectivists who just couldn't keep quiet?

[Left Hand of Dorkness]

Here it is:
SHevek, a brilliant physicist, decides to take action. He will seek answers, question the unquestionable, and attempt to tear down the walls of hatred that have isolated his planet of anarchists from the rest of the civilized universe. To do this dangerous task will mean giving up his family and possibly his life. [So far so good, except I think his world was a moon, not a planet] Shevek must make the unprecedented journey to the utopian mother planet, Anarres, to challenge the complex structures of life and living, and ignite the fires of change.
Majorly wrong plot point there...

[Chronos]

I'll go with this cover for Robert Heinlein's Friday. I would have included the original cover for The Cat Who Walks Through Walls, but a slight coloring error seems to have been made. Persons who have read them will understand why.You're referring to the protagonist's skin color? That's something that I can see someone missing on a quick skim through the book-- The only reference is something like "permanent suntan". It's a relevant plot point at that moment, admittedly (because her "family" are racist against Maori), but it doesn't tie into the main story much. In any event, it's at least an attempt at a relevant cover illustration: It'd bother me a lot more if they used that picture for, say, Podkayne (whose skin color is never specified, but would never be caught dead wearing that top).

[Skald the Rhymer]

You're referring to the protagonist's skin color? That's something that I can see someone missing on a quick skim through the book-- The only reference is something like "permanent suntan". It's a relevant plot point at that moment, admittedly (because her "family" are racist against Maori), but it doesn't tie into the main story much. In any event, it's at least an attempt at a relevant cover illustration: It'd bother me a lot more if they used that picture for, say, Podkayne (whose skin color is never specified, but would never be caught dead wearing that top).

It bugs me. It buys into the notion that "white" is the default, that white women are the standard of beauty, that an attractive dark-skinned woman on the cover would not sell books. I'd keep going but it ends in a RhymerRant and nobody wants that.

[maggenpye]

It bugs me. It buys into the notion that "white" is the default, that white women are the standard of beauty, that an attractive dark-skinned woman on the cover would not sell books. I'd keep going but it ends in a RhymerRant and nobody wants that.

And an attractive "copper skinned" young wizard (http://www.google.co.nz/imgres?imgurl=http://www.tavia.co.uk/earthsea/images/woe.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.tavia.co.uk/earthsea/factfiles/source.htm&usg=__EVhAdipZvay34V_ZnpJIlyWJKaA=&h=800&w=491&sz=148&hl=en&start=0&zoom=1&tbnid=tOu-fDRFu_aEJM:&tbnh=145&tbnw=91&ei=NOc8Tb2tEIr2swOJ3qmOAw&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dbook,%2Bwizard%2Bearthsea%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26hs%3DCsX%26sa%3DX%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26biw%3D1024%26bih%3D578%26tbs%3Disch:1%26prmd%3Divns&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=384&vpy=46&dur=479&hovh=148&hovw=91&tx=104&ty=121&oei=NOc8Tb2tEIr2swOJ3qmOAw&esq=1&page=1&ndsp=21&ved=1t:429,r:2,s:0)wouldn't sell books either. This bigotry spilled over in the the TV adaptation as well. It was a big part of the book that the only pale skinned peole were the Kargs from the north who didn't practice magic and sure as hell wouldn't be attending the school on Roke for another few books at least.

[Der Trihs]

For another example of "whitening" the protagonist, compare the two covers of CJ Cherryh's The Paladin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Paladin). Keep in mind that it's set in what is essentially alternate-China.

Or for sexploitation, we have this (http://openlibrary.org/works/OL1950915W/The_door_into_fire) cover variant for Diane Duane's The Door Into Fire (click for a closeup), which makes it look like a pornographic Conan ripoff. I actually own this version, unfortunately.

[RealityChuck]

Annoying in a different way: Le Guin's novel The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia is one of my all-time favorite science-fiction works. It's set on a materialist planet with a moon colonized by anarchists, and the protagonist is from the moon, which is the titular ambiguous utopia. She uses each society to explore its counterpart, but Le Guin's sympathies clearly lie with the anarchists.

So the book jacket has a blurb on the back. They describe the materialist world as the utopia, with a dystopian moon.

Guys, did you not read the book? Or are you Objectivists who just couldn't keep quiet?I actually was going to mention this book as having one of the ugliest covers I've even seen on an SF novel (for the original hardcover (http://www.mudcitypress.com/images/dispossessed2.jpg)).

And the people who write the blurbs usually haven't read the book -- they don't have time. They're guided by the editor, who gives them a quick rundown. It's easy to get that garbled, and to have it be missed.

Other ugly covers was the series of books published by Doubleday in the 60s. To save money, they did all their covers in only two colors, which made the look cheap and unappealing.

[tnetennba]

This is a pervasive issue in teen fiction, with the argument (and some data to support it) that books with non-white characters don't sell. A few high-profile books with non-white characters just in the last couple of years were given white characters or had their racial features so minimized they were neutral-looking brunettes.

[tnetennba]

I should have added that Le Guin has been a vocal opponent of whitewashed covers in that world.

I read that it typically happens when the author is white. Makes for a can of worms, there.

[Zsofia]

I can't seem to find a picture of the original cover for CJ Cherryh's The Pride of Chanur - it's hilarious to me that she's been mentioned elsewhere in this thread. Now, it does technically portray a scene in the book - so there's a naked human dude with a bunch of cat people. But god, it's humiliating to be caught reading.

[jsgoddess]

Or for sexploitation, we have this (http://openlibrary.org/works/OL1950915W/The_door_into_fire) cover variant for Diane Duane's The Door Into Fire (click for a closeup), which makes it look like a pornographic Conan ripoff. I actually own this version, unfortunately.

I saw that cover a few weeks ago when I was looking at Duane's work on Amazon. I assumed I didn't want to read it.

YES, I judge books by their covers! I ADMIT IT! :D

[Der Trihs]

I saw that cover a few weeks ago when I was looking at Duane's work on Amazon. I assumed I didn't want to read it.

YES, I judge books by their covers! I ADMIT IT! :D
There's actually occasional sex in the book. But it isn't at all explicit and certainly doesn't involve naked women kneeling in front of a guy with a sword.

[jsgoddess]

There's actually occasional sex in the book. But it isn't at all explicit and certainly doesn't involve naked women kneeling in front of a guy with a sword.

I can handle explicit sex, but yeah. That cover is more Gor-ean than sexy. :D

[Peremensoe]

Annoying in a different way: Le Guin's novel The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia is one of my all-time favorite science-fiction works. It's set on a materialist planet with a moon colonized by anarchists, and the protagonist is from the moon, which is the titular ambiguous utopia. She uses each society to explore its counterpart, but Le Guin's sympathies clearly lie with the anarchists.

So the book jacket has a blurb on the back. They describe the materialist world as the utopia, with a dystopian moon.

Urras and Anarres comprise a binary planet system, orbiting each other (though Anarres is smaller). Each appears as the "moon" to the other. Residents of both can see "dystopia" in the sky. All this goes with the deliberate paralleling and interleaving of perspectives throughout the book.

Shevek must make the unprecedented journey to the utopian mother planet, Anarres, to challenge the complex structures of life and living, and ignite the fires of change.

Well, yes, that's wrong. Urras is the mother planet of the Cetians, and Shevek is from Anarres. But given the unfamiliarity of binary planets, the mirrored perpsectives, the nonlinear structure of the narrative--I can see how somebody could get mixed up. It's still unacceptable, of course.

[Chronos]

It bugs me. It buys into the notion that "white" is the default, that white women are the standard of beauty, that an attractive dark-skinned woman on the cover would not sell books. I'd keep going but it ends in a RhymerRant and nobody wants that. I can certainly understand that; I'm just saying that, in that particular case, it might plausibly be a case of ignorance rather than active racism.

Then again, though, even if the race of a character isn't mentioned at all (and in many books, it isn't), then one could just as plausibly depict the character as black, and I suppose that happens much less often than it statistically ought to. It sort of reminds me of a time I once saw someone complaining about the Lord of the Rings, that there weren't any minority characters in it.

[Exapno Mapcase]

I don't know what you mean by "ahead of time," but I have always seen my cover 8-9 months ahead of the release.

I meant what I said about that particular book literally, that I did not see the cover until I had the finished book in hand. (Admittedly, the entire history of that project, from the first contact with the publisher to that ending, was one of those horror stories that authors tell when they want to play "can you top this?")

All publishers have different policies, and all genres have different customs. But authors almost always get covers crammed down their throats. I've never been involved in or consulted about a cover. I've never seen one even as a separate piece of finished artwork - obviously long after any comments could be made - until right before the book's release.

"8-9 months ahead of the release" astounds me. Can I ask what type of book this is?

Back on subject, it's always fun when the art department tries to use sex to sell sf. It goes back forever too. Charles Eric Maine's World Without Men (http://people.uncw.edu/smithms/Ace%20singles/sD-series/D-274.jpg) from Ace is a hoot. Love the lipstick. And if anyone can figure out how the bra on the background woman stays up without an anti-gravity device...

[Peremensoe]

And if anyone can figure out how the bra on the background woman stays up without an anti-gravity device...

Same way it does on the foreground woman, I expect.

Maybe they are anti-gravity devices.

[tnetennba]

"8-9 months ahead of the release" astounds me. Can I ask what type of book this is?

Novels for children, publisher is Random House. They have advanced copies about that time anyway, so the cover's not a secret anymore. They do ask me what I think, but I know that the answer is always "I love it!" (For the record, I do like all my covers, especially the new one).

Incidentally, I get a kick out of your username. Love Harpo.

[Exapno Mapcase]

Same way it does on the foreground woman, I expect.

Bra? I thought that was paint!


Novels for children, publisher is Random House. They have advanced copies about that time anyway, so the cover's not a secret anymore. They do ask me what I think, but I know that the answer is always "I love it!" (For the record, I do like all my covers, especially the new one).

Incidentally, I get a kick out of your username. Love Harpo.

Children's books seem to be a different world. I'm still surprised they have that much of a lead time.

Like your name, Exapno works because I don't have to be the one that spells it for a quote. :)

[MrDibble]

I can't seem to find a picture of the original cover for CJ Cherryh's The Pride of Chanur - it's hilarious to me that she's been mentioned elsewhere in this thread. Now, it does technically portray a scene in the book - so there's a naked human dude with a bunch of cat people. But god, it's humiliating to be caught reading.

Cherryh must have pissed off a cover artist or cover editor or something. My copy of Fires of Azeroth (http://www.dancingbadger.com/poser/fantasy_armor.htm) is the one my link rips into.

[Skald the Rhymer]

For another example of "whitening" the protagonist, compare the two covers of CJ Cherryh's The Paladin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Paladin). Keep in mind that it's set in what is essentially alternate-China.

Or for sexploitation, we have this (http://openlibrary.org/works/OL1950915W/The_door_into_fire) cover variant for Diane Duane's The Door Into Fire (click for a closeup), which makes it look like a pornographic Conan ripoff. I actually own this version, unfortunately.

The arms of the girl in the second one are....confusing. I can only assume Helen Parr was the model.

[CalMeacham]

For a long time, there was a trend with sci-fi books to just take a random sci-fi-y picture and slap it on the cover, without regard to any of the actual content of the book. Thankfully, this seems to be abating, nowadays.

I think your timetable is off. Science Fiction covers (especially paperback ones) back in the 1950s and 1960s frequently had little or nothing to do with the contents, but by the 1970s the reverse was the case -- the covers were usually relevant, and were commissioned specifically for the work in question. Compare Larry Niven book covers from the 1960s, for instance, with those from the 1970s.


Not that they don't frequently just slap a science fiction-y cover on, especially in the case of anthologies. I have a UK edition of Jules Verne stories that uses as its cover a drawing obviously intended for Arthur C. Clarke's Rendezvous with Rama.The book came out in 2000.

[choie]

Wrong skin color, blur, sexism ... all bad, but not surprising errors. How about the wrong number of appendages? And not for some alien or fantasy creature, but for a regular human?

Witness the horror of Castles in the Air (http://i741.photobucket.com/albums/xx51/choie_album/general%20stuff/castles_in_the_air.jpg), by Christina Dodd.

(I know romance novel covers are usually quite awful, but this is in a category all by itself! Poor Ms. Dodd. But she good-naturedly embraced her publisher's embarrassing error (http://www.christinadodd.com/castles.html) and successfully sold all copies of that original run, so she's the one laughing all the way to the bank.)

[Corner Case]

I have a paperback version of Star Trek stories (it's one of a dozen novelizations). The cover depicts the TOS Enterprise whisking around the planet propelled by its three rocket engines - you know, the fire streaking out of the two nacelles and the fire blazing out of the engineering hull (where the shuttle bay is). Another one shows the Enterprise landed on the surface of a planet.

I laugh every time I see them!

[Irishman]

I think I've found it. It's the dust jacket for this version (http://www.amazon.com/Gods-Themselves-Isaac-Asimov/dp/038502701X/ref=tmm_hrd_title_0) of Isaac Asimov's The Gods Themselves.

That's one of them 3-D eye thingies. Stare at it long enough and a rabbit pops out at you. ;)


It'd bother me a lot more if they used that picture for, say, Podkayne (whose skin color is never specified, but would never be caught dead wearing that top).

Actually, Podkayne is specifically described as being a pale blond, looking Nordic, and it strong contrast to her Maori uncle who is dark as night. Characters in the story even comment on it.

Some snooty women on the space liner are snarking when she isn't around, commenting about the old black man and his white "neice" wink wink.

[CalMeacham]

I have a paperback version of Star Trek stories (it's one of a dozen novelizations). The cover depicts the TOS Enterprise whisking around the planet propelled by its three rocket engines - you know, the fire streaking out of the two nacelles and the fire blazing out of the engineering hull (where the shuttle bay is). Another one shows the Enterprise landed on the surface of a planet.

I laugh every time I see them!
Reply With Quote

That's the first collection of James Blish's rendering scripts as short stories, which came out while the series was running, and called simply Star Trek.(The later ones had numbers appended to them)


As I've pointed out before on this Board, the cover is simply the promotional art that NBC came up with for the series. They ran it on TV to promote the show, and in places like TV Guide. It's not the fault of some cover painter -- it's the decision of NBC execs, who thought people would be confused if a space ship didn't have jets spurting out the back -- even if they were coming out of space-warping nacelles and the shuttlecraft bay.

[CalMeacham]

This page claims the artist was James Bama, and reproduces the poster:

http://drexfiles.wordpress.com/2009/06/24/james-bama-american-realist-first-trek-publicity-artist/

[Chronos]

Quoth CalMeacham:I think your timetable is off. Science Fiction covers (especially paperback ones) back in the 1950s and 1960s frequently had little or nothing to do with the contents, but by the 1970s the reverse was the case -- the covers were usually relevant, and were commissioned specifically for the work in question. Compare Larry Niven book covers from the 1960s, for instance, with those from the 1970s.Not actually inconsistent with what I said, though I hadn't realized that the trend towards relevant covers started so long ago. I just knew that old books I read often had irrelevant covers, and new books often had relevant ones. When I get home, though, I'll check the dates on some specific examples.

Quoth Irishman:Actually, Podkayne is specifically described as being a pale blond, looking Nordic, and it strong contrast to her Maori uncle who is dark as night. Characters in the story even comment on it. Either it's been way too long since I've read that book, or the copy I got had that edited out, because I have no memory of that whatsoever.

[Irishman]

I reread it a couple months ago.

[Evil Captor]

I can handle explicit sex, but yeah. That cover is more Gor-ean than sexy. :D

Yes, nothing sexy about naked women kneeling in front of men! Heaven forfend anyone should think such a thing!

[Sam A. Robrin]

This page claims the artist was James Bama, and reproduces the poster:

http://drexfiles.wordpress.com/2009/06/24/james-bama-american-realist-first-trek-publicity-artist/

One mistake on that site: The Get Smart cover is by Jack Davis. I can even spot an illegible signature in the lower right-hand corner.

[Eleanor of Aquitaine]

This cover for Michael Flynn's Falling Stars (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/031287443X) is pretty ridiculous. Those space suits are hilarious. The novel takes place in 2017. It's realistic, near-future hard science fiction, which does feature astronauts working in low-earth orbit - but not wearing spandex bodysuits with glass domes for helmets.

[CalMeacham]

One mistake on that site: The Get Smart cover is by Jack Davis. I can even spot an illegible signature in the lower right-hand corner.



Not a mistake -- you didn't read carefully enough. To quote from that very page:

The “Get Smart” poster was drawn by everyone’s favorite, Jack Davis from “Mad Magazine”.






Not actually inconsistent with what I said, though I hadn't realized that the trend towards relevant covers started so long ago.

No offense, but I don't see how that's "not actually inconsistent". Relevant paperback covers became pretty prevalent in the 1970s. I can cite plenty of examples -- the whole Ballantine/Del Rey The Best of... series had custom covers, always illustrating one or more of the stories. The Ace covers for the Heinlein juveniles, all by Steele Savage, werre relevant. All of the Larry Niven covers after about 1970 were relevant -- Protector, Ringworld, etc. In fact, they made a very determined effort at Del Rey to not only put relevant covers, but also illustrations inside the covers.

[Sassy]

Presented without comment (because everything I want to say is incoherent or obscene): http://childrensatheneum.blogspot.com/2010/08/covers-to-appear-to-twilight-generation.html

[Chronos]

"Bella and Edward's Favorite Book" is rather absurd, but what's wrong with putting a rose on the cover of a love story? Roses have been a symbol of love since pretty much forever.

[pinkfreud]

I nominate the first edition of Stephen King's Carrie (http://www.mortalwombat.com/Special/Carrie_Cover.jpg), which depicts a foxy-looking, heavily eyelinered chick who cannot possibly be the lumpy, awkward outcast Carrie White.

I'm also not keen on the original cover art for King's The Stand (http://www.mortalwombat.com/Special/The_Stand_cover.jpg), which seems to imply that the book is about a battle between Luke Skywalker and some medieval guy wearing a commedia dell'arte mask.

[Chronos]

OK, on looking over my book collection, I see that there doesn't actually seem to be any correlation between age of the book and how relevant the cover is: Some old books have bad covers and some new books have good ones, but there are also some that go the other way around. My 1983 edition of The Stars, like Dust, for instance, has some sort of weird... spaceship? that appears to be mostly keel and that looks like it's falling apart (clearly just a random sci-fi-ish illustration that the publisher attached to the book), while my 1991 edition of The Caves of Steel clearly depicts Lije and Daneel in the corridors of New New York. On the other hand, though, my 1975 edition of Space Cadet shows a group of folks in pressure suits and magnetic boots holding a tether on the outside of a ship (a scene I'm pretty sure was in the book), and my 1991 edition of Speaker for the Dead shows some sort of futuristic cityscape, despite the story taking place almost entirely in a small colony town. And then there are some where the cover art was clearly based on the story, but not very well: For instance, Flatlander shows Gil and his "imaginary arm", except that the imaginary arm is coming out of a real sleeve, and he doesn't have his real arm on that side.

[CalMeacham]

OK, on looking over my book collection, I see that there doesn't actually seem to be any correlation between age of the book and how relevant the cover is: Some old books have bad covers and some new books have good ones, but there are also some that go the other way around.

In my collection, as I say, older books often don't have covers with much connection. A 1960s edition of Niven's World of Ptaavs has a shadowy silhouette -- with two glowing eyes, so it can't be a thrint. A somewhat later copy has a "symbolic" cover with lots of identical figures -- which could've been used for just about anything. But in the early 1970s the cover shows two dolphins with artrificial "hands" discovering the Sea Statue, which is clearly illustrating the book.


Most of my 1960s paperbacks (and rare 1950s ones) have abstract covers (like Powers' "Blobs"), but not all that many of the ones from Bantam or Ballantine or Pocket Books or Signet actually portray anything from the story. (Ace, on the other hand, was ahead of the others. Their Edgar Rice Burroughs series has covers by Frazetta or Roy G. Krenkel that definitely illustrated the story. Their editions of "classic" texts often copied hardcover illustrations, like The King in Yellow, or were original illustrations to Metropolis, l"Atlantide, Off on a Comet, Almuric, Duneand others.)
But after about 1970 the covers seemed to be making a real effort to be relevant to the text. By the late seventies you had people like Darrel K. Sweeyt and The Brother Hildebrand and Michael Whelan and others very clearly drawing covers to match the guts of the books. There were occasional lapses, as I note above, especially with anthologies. But even anthologies tried to have artwork that matched the contents.

[Lamia]

Presented without comment (because everything I want to say is incoherent or obscene): http://childrensatheneum.blogspot.com/2010/08/covers-to-appear-to-twilight-generation.htmlSee also this edition of Jane Austen's Persuasion (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/193659451X/). My reaction when I stumbled across this on Amazon was basically :confused: :mad: :(

[jayjay]

Presented without comment (because everything I want to say is incoherent or obscene): http://childrensatheneum.blogspot.com/2010/08/covers-to-appear-to-twilight-generation.html

That blogger is way off...there is no rose on any of the Twilight Saga covers that I can see. I just did a search on Google Images...Twilight has an apple, New Moon has a parrot tulip, Eclipse has some sort of red ribbon, and Breaking Dawn has chess pieces.

A Twilight wallpaper with all four of the covers, minus title and author text (http://fc02.deviantart.net/fs41/f/2009/013/8/9/Twilight_Saga__Books_Wallpaper_by_miratio.jpg).

Lamia's link is actually much closer. It's pretty obvious that it was modeled after the Twilight cover, with a rose in place of the apple.

[Kamino Neko]

Don't concentrate on the fact that a rose was used for all of them, concentrate on the actual formatting of the covers - a bright red or red/white object on a stark black background.

[koeeoaddi]

I love this cookbook cover (http://991.com/newGallery/Elvis-Presley-Are-You-Hungry-To-481370.jpg) so very, very much.

[Evil Captor]

See also this edition of Jane Austen's Persuasion (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/193659451X/). My reaction when I stumbled across this on Amazon was basically :confused: :mad: :(

So ... pictures of roses ... not exactly COMPELLING art ... the first rose in the series looks kinda vagina-ish ... but so do a lot of things. Have you seen the honey-baked ham art?

[Trepa Mayfield]

Don't concentrate on the fact that a rose was used for all of them, concentrate on the actual formatting of the covers - a bright red or red/white object on a stark black background.

And? What's the problem? I don't think there's anything wrong with the Twilight series covers--in fact, I think that the Breaking Dawn cover is quite striking and a powerful image.

[Zsofia]

The problem is that they're putting out books with covers that "look Twilightty" whether it's appropriate for the books or not. Possibly thinking that teenage girls are stupid enough to be snowed by it.

[Exapno Mapcase]

The problem is that they're putting out books with covers that "look Twilightty" whether it's appropriate for the books or not. Possibly thinking that teenage girls are stupid enough to be snowed by it.

You can judge a book by its cover. Almost all genre titles give off huge and instantly perceptible clues about what the book is about. Space. Romance. Crime. Fantasy. Western. A large percentage of the reading audience needs no more than that. If you have to break it down, you can have less clothed or more clothed chicks to denote the level of spiciness in your romance, or have the chick carry either a sword or a huge gun to denote whether it's fantasy or sf. [Those half-naked creatures on book covers are chicks, no matter how many postgraduate degrees they have inside the book.] Realism doesn't get a publisher a sufficient extra return to make it worth anybody's time.

Then there's You Can't Judge a Book By Its Cover (http://www.amazon.com/You-Cant-Judge-Book-Cover/dp/B0006C0ACU/ref=sr_1_8?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1296057720&sr=1-8). The image is too blurry to make it obvious, but that is a real nude with visible nipples. Marvin Kitman was a tv critic and humorist about popular culture. There was a moment around 1970 when real books intended for ordinary bookstores could experiment with putting real nudes on the covers, something that few porn books did at the time. The nude - which is repeated on the back cover as well - has nothing to do with the book. I doubt the cover sold many extra copies because that's one of Kitman's least known titles. Too bad, because that's one of the funniest joke covers ever in publishing.

OTOH, Mickey Spillane's The Erection Set (http://www.amazon.com/Erection-Set-Mickey-Spillane/dp/052509945X/ref=tmm_hrd_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1296058168&sr=1-31), featuring a much more visible nude - Spillane's current wife - undoubtedly sold a boatload just for the cover in 1972.

[RealityChuck]

Nudes? How about the first paperback cover of "Regiment of Women"?
I couldn't find a better image (http://img1.fantasticfiction.co.uk/isbnthumbs/044/057/0440572614.jpg)It certainly made the book easy to find, though the book had nothing particularly to do with eroticism (and the cover is oddly unerotic). But the cover is relevant to the story, which is about a society where sex roles are reversed.

Book covers are marketing. They announce what the book is like, so people can tell immediately. You can tell immediately if a book is science fiction, fantasy, literary fiction, best selling fiction, chick lit, or whatever. It's like decaf coffee always using green on the box.

[kaylasdad99]

Have you seen the honey-baked ham art?Pics or there's no such thing.

[kaylasdad99]

The problem is that they're putting out books with covers that "look Twilightty" whether it's appropriate for the books or not. Possibly thinking that teenage girls are stupid enough to be snowed by it.Who was the last person who went broke by underestimating the intelligence of teenage girls?

[kaylasdad99]

Book covers are marketing. They announce what the book is like, so people can tell immediately. You can tell immediately if a book is science fiction, fantasy, literary fiction, best selling fiction, chick lit, or whatever. It's like decaf coffee always using green on the box.Coffee comes in BOXES?

[Larry Mudd]

Pics or there's no such thing.Ta-da! (http://millionwordyear.com/megaword2010/?p=2210")

[kaylasdad99]

HA! Thank you for that.

[Evil Captor]

Pics or there's no such thing.

Gorge yourself. (http://www.honeybaked.com/) Though I admit the image found by Larry Mudd is more ... compelling. But anyway you slice it, you're talking meat flaps here!

[mlees]

Back on subject, it's always fun when the art department tries to use sex to sell sf. It goes back forever too. Charles Eric Maine's World Without Men (http://people.uncw.edu/smithms/Ace%20singles/sD-series/D-274.jpg) from Ace is a hoot. Love the lipstick. And if anyone can figure out how the bra on the background woman stays up without an anti-gravity device...

She's not wearing a bra. That's all shadow. (Note shadow on left arm, but not on the right arm.)

[Steve MB]

For instance, Flatlander shows Gil and his "imaginary arm", except that the imaginary arm is coming out of a real sleeve, and he doesn't have his real arm on that side.

He started manifesting the "imaginary arm" after losing his original one and before getting a real replacement arm (in fact, he was surprised that the imaginary arm was still able to manifest separately after he got the transplant).

One I remember is from Charles Sheffield's My Brother's Keeper (http://www.amazon.com/My-Brothers-Keeper-Charles-Sheffield/dp/0671578731).

[Evil Captor]

He started manifesting the "imaginary arm" after losing his original one and before getting a real replacement arm (in fact, he was surprised that the imaginary arm was still able to manifest separately after he got the transplant).

One I remember is from Charles Sheffield's My Brother's Keeper (http://www.amazon.com/My-Brothers-Keeper-Charles-Sheffield/dp/0671578731).

Ripped-shirt Fabio kind guy ... exploding helicopter ... woman's face ... snake ... electronic thigmajig ... numbers ... mosque ...

Obviously, the snake ate the electronic thigamajig, causing the helicopter to crash into a mosque, ripping up his shirt real bad and spilling a lot of numbers all over the place, causing the woman to be concerned.

What's the problem?

[Kamino Neko]

One I remember is from Charles Sheffield's My Brother's Keeper (http://www.amazon.com/My-Brothers-Keeper-Charles-Sheffield/dp/0671578731).

*looks at logo*

*looks at probable hero*

SOMEONE's seen a few too many Doc Savage covers...

[Vinyl Turnip]

I'm surprised no one has suggested this one (http://www.amazon.com/Arguing-Idiots-Small-Minds-Government/dp/B002Q1IUPI/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1296074440&sr=8-2) yet, and I hope it's only because it's so difficult to decide which of his book covers to nominate.

[emmaliminal]

These are also-rans, but worth mentioning, I guess.

I love Octavia Butler (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octavia_E._Butler)'s books; Dawn (http://www.amazon.com/Dawn-Xenogenesis-Bk-Octavia-Butler/dp/0446603775/) famously came out with some random white lady on the cover the first time out in paperback (http://www.amazon.com/Dawn-Octavia-Butler/dp/0445205164/). Unlike in the Ursula LeGuin books, where the protagonist's skin color is mentioned but not relevant to the plot (IIRC, it being unimportant in that world was sort of LeGuin's point), Dawn's protagonist's blackness is an issue, and racism is a theme in the series.

I can't look at the cover of Foreigner (http://www.amazon.com/Foreigner-Anniversary-C-J-Cherryh/dp/0756402514/) without feeling like it's time for Sweatin' to the Oldies. The weird thing is the book is copyright 1994. Who was even still wearing headbands and massive shoulder pads in 1994? Never have been able to get into reading it.

[Andy L]

I should mention this website by a librarian who regularly mocks bad covers http://judgeabook.blogspot.com/

[Sam A. Robrin]

Not a mistake -- you didn't read carefully enough. To quote from that very page:












Sorry about that, Chief....

[Zsofia]

These are also-rans, but worth mentioning, I guess.

I love Octavia Butler (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octavia_E._Butler)'s books; Dawn (http://www.amazon.com/Dawn-Xenogenesis-Bk-Octavia-Butler/dp/0446603775/) famously came out with some random white lady on the cover the first time out in paperback (http://www.amazon.com/Dawn-Octavia-Butler/dp/0445205164/). Unlike in the Ursula LeGuin books, where the protagonist's skin color is mentioned but not relevant to the plot (IIRC, it being unimportant in that world was sort of LeGuin's point), Dawn's protagonist's blackness is an issue, and racism is a theme in the series.

I can't look at the cover of Foreigner (http://www.amazon.com/Foreigner-Anniversary-C-J-Cherryh/dp/0756402514/) without feeling like it's time for Sweatin' to the Oldies. The weird thing is the book is copyright 1994. Who was even still wearing headbands and massive shoulder pads in 1994? Never have been able to get into reading it.
Space aliens in the far future?