Book Cover Smackdown! ‘The Map of All Things’ vs. ‘The Judging Eye’ vs. ‘Blood of the Mantis’
By John DeNardo |
Sunday, January 24th, 2010 at
12:25 am
Your Mission (should you choose to accept it): Tell us which cover you like best and why.
Books shown here:
- The Map of All Things by Kevin J. Anderson (Artist: Lee Gibbons)
- The Judging Eye by R. Scott Bakker (Artist: Unknown)
- Blood of the Mantis by Adrian Tchaikovsky (Artist: Jon Sullivan, Designer: Jacqueline Cooke)
NOTE: Bigger, better cover art images are available by clicking the images or title links…
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Tagged with: Book Cover Smackdown
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Without a doubt: Blood of the Mantis. Stunningly beautiful, with enough fine detail that I’m glad you provded the larger version.
Blood of the Mantis… is the book as good as the cover?
“Map of all things” cover is by Lee Gibbons, who did the cover for the first book in the series, “Edge of the World,” acc to Anderson’s blog: http://www.wordfire.com/kjablog/?p=431
Blood of the Matis is a beautiful scene, but The Judging Eye is the most compelling cover. It did the best job of grabbing my attention. The Map of All Things is just this side of being that most horrible of things: a collage.
Thanks, Lex. Post updated. Couldn’t fins a website for him, though.
The Map of All Things grabed my attention,but then nautical themes usually do for me.
The Map of All Things. That ship is awesome
And of the 3, it’s the book that I would pick up to read (after reading the first of course). The Judging Eye looks rather plain to me and sort of old. Blood of the Mantis looks edgier and harder but I’d be less likely to read it based on the cover.
The Anderson book has the most attractive cover for me, but based on the three authors, is also the one I’d be least likely to buy.
I think it’s a tie between @TheKJA and Blood of the Mantis. Both are more spectacular, imho, artwise but I can’t choose between them.
~P
@atfmb
“Blood of the Mantis” is definitely out for me…not that the art’s bad, but the lettering is all over the place. Bad design.
It’s a tossup between the other two…good art, nice lettering on both. I think I’m drawn more to “The Judging Eye” because I like the simplicity of the image. So I’ll say that’s my favorite, but admit that the choice is rather subjective.
Another really hard choice. You did a great job of picking three covers that have a similarity in color scheme. Map of All Things is really interesting because it reminds me of those old maps you see with the dragon illustrations and the words, “Here be Monsters”, only in this case the monster is much better rendered.
I love the overall composition of The Judging Eye and it was my sure pick for favorite until I enlarged Blood of the Mantis. Those creatures coming out of the thorn trees are fantastic. That pushed Blood over the edge for me.
Without a doubt “the Map of all Things” – for one because it’s Kevin J. Anderson, but also because the seamonster you see on the cover is finally definite proof Nessie exists – Nessie rules!
Um, you guys know you have the UK version of THE MAP OF ALL THINGS, right? the US one is same art, different layout.
We do now!
I like both Map of all Things (great title) and Judging Eye, would pick both of them up to read the back cover. I would probably rate Judging Eye the better of the 2, it looks a more balanced cover of the pair. Map of All Things just looks a bit sparse and top heavy.
Blood of the Mantis is OK, it just scream ‘Games Workshop’ at me which makes me think it probably trash. The only GW covers I like are the ones for the Horus Heresy novels.