Book Cover Smackdown! ‘Fenrir’ vs. ‘The Goblin Corps.’ vs. ‘Finch’
By AidanMoher |
Sunday, December 5th, 2010 at
12:20 am
Grab your swordbreaker, folk! It’s time for another Book Cover Smackdown!
Here are the contenders…
Your Mission (should you choose to accept it): Tell us which cover you like best and why.
Books shown here:
- Fenrir by M D Lachlan (Artist: Paul Young)
- The Goblin Corps. by Ari Marmell (Artist: Lucas Graciano)
- Finch by Jeff Vandermeer (Artist: Tomasz Maroński)
NOTE: Bigger, better cover art images are available by clicking the images or title links.
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- Book Cover Smackdown! ‘Spellbound’ vs. ‘The Heir of Night’ vs. ‘Wild Cards I’
- Book Cover Smackdown! ‘Pegasus’ vs. ‘The Unremembered’ vs. ‘The River of Shadows’
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Tagged with: Book Cover Smackdown • Cover Art • fantasy
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This is a toughie, I like all 3 covers but think they are each flawed for different reasons-
Fenrir – great concept, but I just don’t think its been pulled off properly. The art work is too top heavy for me and something about the wolf just looks off, not sure if its a trick of perspective or the fact that we get to see the shoulders of the wolf… maybe just doing a wlaf’s head would look better, or having the wolf’s head come out of the smoke of the burning town. I also feel that textually the cover is lacking something, with such a bold typeface and being central to the book.
The Goblin Corps – gives me a direct expectation of the novel… Mary Gentle’s Grunts and Stan Nichols Orcs, which after a little googling is what it is, a tale from the ‘bad guys’. The artwork to me is a bit hit n miss, I like the main character (orc) the little guy in front of him (kobold) the giant and goblin on his shoulder look fairly cool, the Gnoll is passable but I don’t like the other two… the gorilla (not a clue off the top of my head) and the alien (doppleganger?). The text and placing all works well.
Finch – puts me in mind of Sleepy Hollow. A quick look at Amazon and I am left scratching my head about this cover as it seems to have nothing in specific to do with what the novel is about (although the book description means I will be checking out the 1st in the series). The artwork is intreguing but appears too dark to make out any real detail (that could be something that is different with the actual book in hand) but gives the impression of creepy and grimey… Interesting but just leaves me a bit bemused.
Well still not sure which of the 3 I rate best… probably Fenrir because I like the concept best.
Tomasz Maroński is the author of the “Finch” illustrations.
The Gobline Corps by Ari Marmel gets my vote (as well as my dollars). Marmel is a very amusing author. I look forward to this novel.
Didn’t like the cover of Fenrir. Is a weak composition and the blur, the shadows and highlights of the title make it looks cheap.
The illustration of The Goblin Corps is really nice, but again, the type of the cover doesn’t stand very well.
And, doesn’t know who this Thomas Maronski is but that’s no reason to yell at us, geez!
I like the Finch cover the best. the image itself doesn’t have anything to do with the story, but it does look creepy and surreal, and it’s a creepy and surreal book.
my bias towards covers that show inanimate objects is definitely showing!
I’m really jeallous about the english science fiction community! There is so much stoff to read there, good stuff!
I’m always reminded to read more english written science fiction novels!
The cover for FINCH would be great if not for the horrible gradient-ed text boxes with the drop shadows. It looks like stole a cool picture off of the internet and finished the cover in MS Word.
The FENRIR cover has great typography, but the illustrations (shore and wolf) are very “meh”.
THE GOBLIN CORPS has the best overall production value, but it’s not something I’d be interested based on the cover alone.
I prefer Fenrir. On the screen the Globlin Corps is a bit too busy for me. Finch is so dark that the details, other than the fans of the windmill, are indistinct.
Fenrir has a focal point that draws the eye, the wolf. The colours are urgent, striking.
I like the illustration for the cover of Finch, but not as a representation of the book. Of all three I think this is the most interesting and well-rendered illustration. I agree with the Sleepy Hollow comments. Other than the green cast, which reminds me of the story, I’m not sure about how this represents the book. The US trade cover for Finch is phenomenal, and is a great representation of story elements from the book.
The author is Tomasz Maronski, here you can see the original illustration: http://maronski.cgsociety.org/gallery/400258/