Book covers are ... an art form. Sometimes they're great, sometimes they're not. Sometimes they're ... special. I run across funny ones as I acquire/learn about books, one of which I shared in this month's book thread, but I thought I'd make a thread dedicated to them, in case anyone else finds them as amusing as I do. I encourage everyone who likes books to participate! We start with ... I don't know, this is Steampunk/80's skirt/cowboy/romance, or ... something. Whatever it is, it's ridiculous:
Oh, and as a bonus, f the cover I posted in the November Book thread: Women don't bend that way! Obligatory Bowler hat and goggles mean this must be steampunk, right?
I don't have anything to contribute at the moment, but I support and have high hopes for this thread. Actually I did just think of one I've seen before, what book is it that has a dragon-man holding a sword in one hand and a gun in the other on its cover? That was pretty amazing!
I was able to find this for you after having seen it once two years ago; because the memory of it is burned into my deepest synapses. Also, the Shannara books were great because the illustrator obviously stole all the character designs from the old D&D cartoon.
Computer science books tend to have unusual covers, because of their abstract subject matter. Some of them are weird, but look good anyways: Others are just weird:
The Forth book has underboob? Why? Dear god, why? And the slave holding up the FORTH thing is somehow horribly misshapen. I think the helmet is warping his flesh.
Nah. It's just such obvious pandering to programmers who don't get out much. "Use FORTH and you will see boobies!"
http://judgeabook.blogspot.com/ Some real gems there. http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_X2YpBDWHkYo/SLN3_K5oeOI/AAAAAAAAAsc/Ol98MxOXGxc/s400/one two three.jpg http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_X2YpBDWHk.../jFQSEHAqXW8/s400/oie_littlepeoplereverse.jpg
It looks like they do Romance book covers in batch photo shoots. Just in case you were wondering what the models think.
Amazon has been traumatising me with these two for months. Time. For. Revenge! The mere sight of this child invokes a lust to punch her face repeatedly. I'm a pacifist. There are fifty bazillion books in that series. All with the same cover. Each time I managed to block one from recommendations, another rose up, zombie-like, to devour my soul. And why won't it comb its hair!? I appreciate it's hard to do good cover art if you're a self-pub type. I truly do. But there's "not good" and then there's "hovering people in cheap fancy dress on a photoshopped beach"
I'm sorry. It's just that I was distracted by the "oh hunky Viking, please wield your sword in my general direction" expression on the bewigged Saxon's face.
There's another in the series. Viking sword Saxon shield. Hilarious photo subtext: the man looks like he's about to use the woman as a human shield. I'm guessing he's the Viking, then.
"I think what's interesting is that ... we shoot it in real life, and then the animation and, you know, would make it look much more romantic than it is when we shoot it, is pretty cool." I think she's a little confused about how Photoshop works. Kilt guy is way cute.
More likely it was the other way around. The book and the illustration pre-date the D&D cartoon, so stealing the character designs from the cartoon would have required the use of a time machine. The illustrator is the prolific/iconic (late) Darrel Sweet, who did covers for everything from the Lord of the Rings to the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, so there is a chance that the D&D cartoon people were influenced by his work. (larger image)
I had these as my first editions (they were my father's). The artwork is by Tolkien: I like those covers a lot, so I guess that makes this post off-topic. Sorry!
Those are the ones I read too. I also had the flu when I started RotK, and ended up reading the first chapter about 15 times because I kept falling asleep. I've read it a bunch since then, but that first chapter always makes me feel all foggy and sleepy to this day.
Make a thread for awesome book covers (which there are plenty out there) if you want to show good ones!! /threadcop Ok, now even good books can have bad covers. I think they were trying to go for a throwback to some of the late 80s-early 90s covers with this one, but everything about it makes me not want to read it (even though it's supposed to be quite excellent!)
I love those covers too and would love to own them. I own these covers (also inherited from my Dad): I lost my copy of the Two Towers when I was 12 and replaced it with this version: I love these books and will love to pass them on to my kids when they are old enough but they are so flimsy and creased that to read them would cause them to fall apart, I think.
It's kinda mean to make fun of self-published titles because they make such easy targets, but this one forced me to: That is just some Eschergirls material right there.
I was in a used bookstore last week and came across this: What the hell is going on there? It's a portly, middle-aged man with long hair and a pot on his head shooting off a flare gun? The post is actually quite similar to the Battletech novel Lokust posted, but it's like they couldn't get a muscular guy for the art session.
