Babel Clash

As I’m always happy to admit, I really don’t know what makes a good cover - not in terms of speaking to and grabbing tons of readers, at least. I do know what I like, and recently there have been a few covers that seem like winners to me. I realized a good way for me to pick out covers that I obviously like is to note which ones I’ve “faced out” on my bookshelves. I like to break up the spines on my shelves with covers facing into the room every now and then, and clearly I gravitate toward images that essentially serve as artwork in my room.

One is Paolo Bacigalupi’s Windup Girl cover. The strangeness of it, the fusion of the ultra-modern with a distressing indication of poverty and decay sparks my interest.

I find the this cover of Cherie Priest’s Boneshaker to be very attractive too. It promises adventure and fun, even though the image is limited to a single character’s face. Maybe it’s because it’s so obvious she’s seeing things that I’m not at the moment, but that I could if I read the book…

In terms of epic fantasy, I rather liked both of Ken Scholes’ covers for Lamentation and Canticle.

In some ways they are traditional to the genre, but they have a look of high-quality to them. Maybe it’s the historical novelist in me, liking that they feel like classic paintings of some distant historical moment.

And I quite like the cover for Kay Kenyon’s City Without End. It’s another one that I have facing out on my bookshelf. I just want to go to this place, to see and feel and smell the atmosphere there. That’s a pretty good thing for a cover to invoke. What about you? Ever use your books as artwork? For interior design?

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