{"id":2227,"date":"2010-11-04T06:00:01","date_gmt":"2010-11-03T17:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=2227"},"modified":"2010-11-06T10:54:34","modified_gmt":"2010-11-05T21:54:34","slug":"favourite-cover-art","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2010\/11\/04\/favourite-cover-art\/","title":{"rendered":"Favourite Cover Art"},"content":{"rendered":"

Recently, I did a guest spot on Out of this Eos blog<\/a>, talking about why I loved both my covers for The Heir of Night<\/em> (here<\/a>), and then in the interview on Over the Edge Book<\/a>s, Christine asked me about favourite covers, which got me thinking …<\/p>\n

… a process that was re-sparked today when I saw a trailer for the HBO version of George RR Martin’s A Game of Thrones <\/em>(which you, too, can check out here.<\/a>) It looks great, I have to say, very atmospheric—and includes the chilling catchline that is the motto of the Starks, the central family in Martin’s “A Song of Ice and Fire” series: Winter is Coming!<\/em><\/p>\n

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A Game of Thrones: Steven Youll cover<\/p><\/div>\n

The reason that put me in mind of covers again is because one of my all time favourites is the Del Rey paperback cover by Steven Youll<\/strong> for A Game of Thrones.<\/em><\/strong> I remember the first time I saw it, clear across the room in the (now, sadly, gone) Bag End Books in Dunedin—and the whole look of it just reached out to me and said: “Buy me, I’m your kind of story!” And it really was! The cover both spoke for<\/em> the book and was true to<\/em> the book in a really powerful way.<\/p>\n

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Tigana: Spanish cover<\/p><\/div>\n

The Mel Odom<\/strong> cover for Guy Gavriel Kay’s Tigana<\/strong> <\/em>is quite different: stylised rather than realistic.<\/strong> <\/em>It’s formality reminds me of a Renaissance-era tapestry, which is appropriate for the book, and yet also speaks to what I call the “High Fantasy Romantic” nature of the story. In this case I already knew the author’s work, because I had read and enjoyed The Fionavar Trilogy<\/em><\/strong> previously. Nonetheless, the Mel Odom cover was still a compelling factor in drawing me to Tigana<\/strong><\/em>. I have the US edition, but my favourite version of the Mel Odom cover appears on the Spanish edition, where it was (according to the author’s website, Bright Weavings<\/a>): “incorporated into a new design by V\u00edctor Viano.”<\/p>\n

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Wildwood Dancing: Kinuko Craft cover<\/p><\/div>\n

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Moribito: Kinuko Craft cover<\/p><\/div>\n

As I said in the Over the Edge interview, when it comes to cover art, I love just about anything I’ve ever seen by Kinuko Craft<\/strong>.\u00a0 Particular examples include her Wildwood Dancing<\/strong><\/em> cover for Juliet Marillier; the Japanese-styled cover for Nahoko Uehashi’s Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit<\/strong><\/em>; and her many<\/span> covers for novels by Patricia McKillip—although I think Od Magic<\/em><\/strong> <\/strong>is probably my favourite. <\/span>Anyway, because I love these covers so much, I’m including both Wildwood and Moribito here. These also (imho) highlight the versatility of Craft’s work.<\/p>\n

So how about you—what are your <\/em>favourite book covers? What cover has made<\/em> you buy the book—and did the story live up to the cover’s promise?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Recently, I did a guest spot on Out of this Eos blog, talking about why I loved both my covers for The Heir of Night (here), and then in the interview on Over the Edge Books, Christine asked me about favourite covers, which got me thinking … … a process that was re-sparked today when […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2227","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-other-writers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2227","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2227"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2227\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2261,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2227\/revisions\/2261"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}