A Tale of More than Two Covers – Contemporary

For this installment of my semi-regular discussion series on cover art, I’m going to cover the more modern/contemporary style that is often used. Generally I like this style more than a traditional one – it just feels better to me. I suspect that my primary reason for liking contemporary covers more is the stigma that I feel is often attached to SFF books and my insecurities about it – or to put it much more simply – I’m often embarrassed to be seen reading a book with a silly looking traditional SFF cover. When I’m reading a book with a more contemporary cover design, these insecurities go away – in fact something of the opposite effect results, possibly due to a perceived or imagined feel of intelligence or coolness associated with such a contemporary book.

To be fair and honest, I’m exaggerating the above emotional responses significantly; however, they are there. It’s simple enough to say that traditional covers often evoke negative feelings of self consciousness while contemporary covers are more likely to evoke positive feelings.

So, after all that rambling, let’s get to a few covers. We’ll start with the main point of this post – a couple of examples of contemporary styled covers that I like a lot.

David Rankine is the cover artist for the hardback publication of R. Scott Bakker’s books in The Prince of Nothing trilogy. Above are the covers for The Darkness That Comes Before and The Warrior Prophet. Both covers are well done in my opinion, but The Warrior Prophet certainly stands apart as the better of the two. The scroll-like script gives the feel of something ancient with a strong hint of the east with the similarity to Arabic, Cyrillic, and Chinese/Japanese. The well-chosen font and other patterns further enhance the feel from the cover, matching perfectly with the feel of the words from the books. This is cover art that works.

Chris Shamwana and Neil Lang created the above cover art for Vellum by Hal Duncan. While the initial glance at the cover is not as appealing as it is for The Warrior Prophet, the cover of Vellum does succeed, and the longer I look at it, the more strongly I believe it. The art is similar to that discussed above, especially with the use of script, but it soon becomes clear how much more is shown. The cover gives a sense of depth, of multiple levels within. The image of the hand and the use of red, orange, and black add a sense of unease, leaving a disturbing feeling – it’s hard to imagine a more appropriate cover for Vellum.

I had originally intended to leave this post as a discussion of only of the contemporary styled covers above, but fate would not allow it. The cover art by Todd Lockwood for the US release of The Bonehunters by Steven Erikson was released this week, and it screams for commentary.

Once again, the art is done very well, as seen in the full jacket cover before any text is added. With the addition of the badly chosen font, the art suffers greatly. The cover looks more like a Western rather than SFF; however the real travesty is matching this cover to The Bonehunters. While this is a recognizable scene within the book, it’s a very poor choice for the cover as it fails to match the book and the Malazan world at all. Do things look magical? Otherworldly? Even Ominous? No, this looks like nothing more than a wrecked stage coach. It’s simply amazing to see Tor appear to blatantly sabotage any chance of success for Erikson’s books.

Vellum by Hal Duncan

Every so often a book comes along that goes beyond entertainment, beyond literary value, and becomes a work inspiring awe. Everything about Vellum does this – the prose foremost, but the construction of the narrative, the amount of research that had to be done, the extraordinary characters and so much more are just as awe inspiring. With a mix of science fiction and fantasy that grows into a kind of magical realism, Vellum transcends typical genre classification. It’s simply amazing that such a complete novel is Duncan’s first.

To describe what this novel is about is not a trivial matter to do in the length of my typical review. This is a story of war, or more correctly the story of a few individuals who are involved, whether they like it or not, in not just any war, but the war we would call the Apocalypse. These individuals are more than human – they are unkin, the angels, demons, and gods of myth, legend, and religion.

The story progresses in a very non-linear fashion, jumping from character to character, through time and worlds, all told in first person narrative with Duncan’s dark, witty, profane, and simply beautiful prose. The construction of this novel could be a barrier, the number of character point of views, use of nicknames, and changing of names through time and space could (and does) become confusing; but the shear talent apparent in the prose makes Vellum a joy to read in a way I’ve never before experienced in a book. I’ll repeat – it’s awe inspiring, transcending, and at times it could blow the mind of Hunter S. Thompson.

Some characters succeed more than others, some hit at a primal level, a punch strait to the gut, an arrow through the heart. Jack Flash is fiery, feisty, engaging, and terrifyingly psychotic, but in a good way. Thomas Messenger, destined to suffer in each and every life, never gives up. The eternal Seamus Finnan runs from war and destiny, from guilt, and always trying to never awake. Phreedom-Anna, as young as she is ancient, vengeful and impetuous, what will she do next?

At times Duncan uses Vellum as a soap box, ranting against war, discrimination, and hate. At times Duncan uses Vellum to extract a karmic revenge against what ills society. At times it’s merely an outlet – of what I can’t precisely say. It never becomes preachy and is always wrapped in his extraordinary prose – Fookin’-A is what I have to say!

Vellum is not for everyone – the buzz around the internet indicates it’s a book that you love or hate, with very little middle ground. My recommendation: read it, tell your friends to read it, tell your relatives. If my enthusiasm is not yet clear, on my 10-point rating scale, Vellum is a 9.5 – folks I don’t rate books higher than that.

Vellum is not whole in and of itself – it is part of a duology. The sequel, Ink, is out in February, 2007, and I can’t wait.

Related Posts: Review of Escape From Hell!, Interview with Hal Duncan