One of my favorite blogs is John Scalzi's Whatever.
Scalzi, a best selling author, popular blogger, and President of the Science Fiction Writers of America, is perhaps best known on teh Intarwebz for taping bacon to his cat, Ghlaghghee, a few years back. However, as several other Kossacks can attest (waves at plf515), Scalzi is also a smart, readable, and frequently very, very funny writer, both in his fiction and on his blog. If nothing else, his takedown of the Creationism Museum is something every science-loving American should read, if only for the so-funny-you'll-need-oxygen commentary.
One of Scalzi's pet peeves is bad cover art on science fiction and fantasy paperbacks. He's pointed out more than once that any number of well written, thoughtful, and thoroughly entertaining genre books have gone all but unread because of cover art that no one over the age of 14 would want to be caught dead with, let alone reading in public. If SF and fantasy really want to emerge from the ghetto and take their place alongside respectable genre fiction like mysteries and historical fiction, the hideous covers have got to go.
As in so many other things, Scalzi is right: an awful lot of SF and fantasy covers are terrible. However, as much as the terrible SF cover has become a commonplace of modern life, Scalzi doesn't go quite far enough. Literary fiction, children's books, romance novels, mysteries, classics, thrillers, advice books, experimental fiction and poetry - all of them, without exception, can and are adorned with cover art so unredeemably bad that the reader might wish the art director responsible to be transported back to London for a session in Ye Olde Stocks during tomato season If nothing else, the resulting splatter marks might be just as good on a book cover as the hideous examples below:
The Door Into Fire, by Diane Duane - what is it about this poor book? Not only was the original cover art awful, almost every edition I've seen since has been mediocre at best.
This one, though, has to take some sort of prize for epic awfulness - I mean, Herewise, the main character, is a lean young sorcerer, not a mighty-thewed barbarian in bad armor and a horned helmet. Segnbora, the female warrior who appears in the company of Herewiss's boyfriend Prince Freelorn, has both arms, normal sized breasts, and wears clothing. The sword Herewiss finally forges to channel his magic is plain and unadorned, not a fancy blade with a fancy hilt that seems tailor-made for a fanboy's collection of fantasy weaponry.
And so on, and so on, and so on, to the point where the reader has to wonder if the artist had even been given a synopsis of the book, let alone allowed to read the manuscript. It's as if the cover had originally been painted for another book entirely.
Which is, in point of fact, what happened in this case.
No, I'm not joking. I haven't yet managed to suss out the details, but Duane herself reportedly confirmed what her fans had thought for years: this particular edition of The Door Into Fire went to press, and then to the distributor, sporting a cover painting that had been commissioned for another, very different, fantasy novel, and by the time anyone figured out what had happened, it was too late. Is it any wonder that she finally said to hell with it and published the e-edition herself?
Hamlet II: Ophelia's Revenge, by David Bergantino-Rewriting Shakespeare is usually not a good idea, as Nahum Tate learned when his once-popular version of King Lear, featuring a happy ending, ended up a theatrical laughingstock as critics and playgoers both came to their senses. It usually isn't a great idea to rework his themes into another form either (Exhibit A: Strange Brew, the McKenzie Brothers' update of Hamlet featuring a haunted video machine, hockey playing robots, Elsinore Beer, and a dog who flies thanks to the power of his farts).
But rewriting Hamlet as a modern horror novel, populating it with the sort of easily killed teenagers who used to spend their summers at Camp Crystal Lake, then having the male lead targeted by the vengeful ghost of Ophelia...this is most definitely the stuff of Cosmic Horror. Is it any wonder that the poor bastard tasked with creating the cover art colored everything purple, from the teenagers to Ophelia's eyes? And isn't purple just so EVIL and ICKY and MENACING and WEIRD?
%%%%%
The Deluge, by Leonard da Vinci (ed. Robert Payne)-In case you're wondering, no, Da Vinci didn't actually write a novel about a cosmic flood. One Robert Payne took a few lines from Da Vinci's notebook, wrote a song about his enormous penis fleshed it out with a futuristic plot, and then turned it over to the tender mercies of a cover artist who seemingly had a severe case of Robert Vargas envy. And what in heaven's name happened to the buff but wounded studmuffin's nipples?
Love Medicine, by Louise Erdrich -Flaming Carrot becomes a jockey, tears the head off a Cabbage Patch Kid, and rides off on a purple horse in search of truth, justice, and literary respectability!
The Crying of Lot 49, by Thomas Pynchon -Yes, Pynchon's book is strange. Yes, there's a rock band in it. Yes, large parts of it seem to have been the inspiration for certain aspects of The Adventures of Buckeroo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension. Yes, Oedipa is an incredibly stupid name. But nothing, NOTHING in the book indicates that she dyed her hair to match her miniskirt.
Satan Burger, by Carlton Mellick III -What a naked person crouched on a table (or is it a toilet?) has to do with Satan or burgers is beyond me. Then again, the same author is responsible for classics like The Menstruating Mall, The Morbidly Obese Ninja, and that all-time page turner The Kobold Wizard's Dildo of Enlightenment +2, so maybe I'm missing something here.
The Best Dad is a Good Lover, by Charlie Shedd -Supposedly this is a Christian advice tome on how a good father is a loving partner to his wife. That still doesn't make this title one whit less appalling, or the sepia toned cover photo less funereal.
Perelandra, by CS Lewis -Can someone tell me why a ten year old was allowed anywhere near Mummy's airbrush? Or why darling little Jimmy decided to use Mountain Dew to illustrate an adult novel?
Too Many Clients, by Rex Stout -Nero Wolfe's decapitated head sneers at a girl who seems to be frozen in a ginger ale aspic. Where's Fritz when you need him most?
The Private Life of Julius Caesar, by William Marston -This amazing book was written by the creator of Wonder Woman. Marston, an early advocate of sexual freedom, was both polyamorous and into bondage, and it looks like he generously bestowed both kinks on the Noblest Roman of Them All. The cover artist evidently agreed, down to the teeny little nudes on the spine of the book, what look like a couple of whips, and handsome male slaveswho look just like Mr. Nonipple on the Da Vinci book kneeling before a beautiful Roman matron with perfectly permed hair.
Pregnesia, by Carla Cassidy -The title alone is enough to elevate this book to BSBIG status, but throw in a truly feckless hero, a pregnant but amnesiac heroine whose belly appears to be somewhere around her knees, and the worst use of perspective since Parmigianino botched the positioning of Baby Jesus in The Madonna of the Long Neck, and a category romance becomes very special indeed.
Six-Gun Planet, by John Jakes -Long before he wrote The American Bicentennial Series, John Jakes wrote potboiler science fiction and fantasy novels. This is one of them, and I must say, it's really nice to see that at least one graduate of a Famous Artists' Mail Order Course that requires students to draw Winky the Chipmunk did make a professional sale. Of course, it's almost certain that this is the artist's last professional sale, but that is neither here nor there....
%%%%%
And so, gentle readers - what cover art has blistered your eyeballs and scarred your psyche? It's Saturday night, so link away!
%%%%%
Readers & Book Lovers Series Schedule
DAY |
TIME (EST/EDT) |
Series Name |
Editor(s) |
SUN |
3:00 PM |
The Magic Theater |
ArkDem14 |
SUN |
6:00 PM |
Young Reader's Pavilion |
The Book Bear |
SUN |
9:30 PM |
SciFi/Fantasy Book Club |
quarkstomper |
MON |
8:00 PM |
Monday Murder Mystery |
Susan from 29 |
Mon |
11:00 PM |
My Favorite Books/Authors |
edrie, MichiganChet |
TUE |
10:00 PM |
Contemporary Fiction Views |
bookgirl |
WED |
7:30 AM |
WAYR? |
plf515 |
WED |
8:00 PM |
Bookflurries: Bookchat |
cfk |
THU |
8:00 PM |
Write On! |
SensibleShoes |
FRI |
8:00 AM |
Books That Changed My Life |
aravir |
SAT |
11:00 AM (fourth of month) |
Windy City Bookworm |
Chitown Kev |
Sat |
9:00 PM |
Books So Bad They're Good |
Ellid |
Appearing Nightly |
Midnight |
Reading Ramblings |
don mikulecky |