Book Cover Smackdown – Horror Edition! ‘Skullcrusher’ vs. ‘Dust & Decay’ vs. ‘Mutated’
They say you shouldn’t judge a book by cover…unless it’s an SF Signal Book Cover Smackdown!
It’s time once again to have your say with some upcoming book covers, this time with a focus on horror titles.
Here are today’s contenders…
Your Mission (should you choose to accept it): Tell us which cover you like best and why.
Books shown here:
- Skullcrusher: Selected Weird Fiction, Volume One by Robert E. Howard (Creation Oneiros)
- Dust & Decay by Jonathan Maberry (Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers)
- Mutated by Joe McKinney (Pinnacle)
NOTE: Bigger, better cover art images are available by clicking the images or title links.
I like Dust & Decay’s cover a lot more than the other two. True, the other two are scary and disgusting, as any zombie book’s cover should be. With that said, the Dust & Decay cover shows the human element to the zombie story. Maberry’s series does a great job showing the horrors of the zombie plague on the human survivors and how living in a world with so much horror and death changes a person. The girl screaming on the front cover conveys that metamorphosis of the human psyche in such a subtle and powerful way.
I’ll go for Dust and Decay as well. I like the off-centeredness of the split photo and the overall aesthetic with the left-justified, transparent lettering.
I don’t like horror and these covers remind me why: they’re stomach-churningly repulsive and gory, but I’m sure that’s part of the attraction for others. If I had to choose one of the three covers, I’d go with Mutated because it’s less immediately confronting than the other two.