{"id":41458,"date":"2023-09-11T06:30:26","date_gmt":"2023-09-10T18:30:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=41458"},"modified":"2023-09-10T21:03:33","modified_gmt":"2023-09-10T09:03:33","slug":"about-those-book-covers-then","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2023\/09\/11\/about-those-book-covers-then\/","title":{"rendered":"About Those Book Covers, Then…"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last Monday, I crossed to my latest post on Supernatural Underground<\/a>, but also put a question out there, to see if anyone else spotted what I did about the first three covers featured.<\/p>\n

In the absence of takers for that ‘challenge’ (so to speak), I thought I would share m’terribly important thoughts on the matter. \ud83d\ude00<\/p>\n

To get the ball rolling, here are the covers again, in the order posted:<\/p>\n

Gardens of the Moon<\/em><\/strong>, #1 in the the epic fantasy series titled The Malazan Book of the Fallen<\/strong>, by Steven Erikson.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The Way of Kings<\/em><\/strong>, book #1 in The Stormlight Archive<\/strong> series (ongoing), also epic fantasy, by Brandon Sanderson.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The Blue Sword<\/em><\/strong> by Robin McKinley, which I also consider epic fantasy, although in a more YA literature format.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

It was complete chance that I addressed the books in sequence, but I was very much struck by the way all three covers feature a sword raised skyward by a warrior figure with a flaring cloak. Two of the three swords also feature lightning about the blade.<\/p>\n

The books were published between 1982 (The Blue Sword<\/em>), 1999 (Gardens of the Moon<\/em>), and 2010 (The Way of Kings.<\/em>) What intrigues me is how over that thirty year period, certain ideas about the visual depictions that “speak” to epic fantasy stories and their readers have clearly remained constant.<\/p>\n

It was kind of fun, too, seeing them put together like that and noting the theme. \ud83d\ude00<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last Monday, I crossed to my latest post on Supernatural Underground, but also put a question out there, to see if anyone else spotted what I did about the first three covers featured. In the absence of takers for that ‘challenge’ (so to speak), I thought I would share m’terribly important thoughts on the matter. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41458","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-funstuff","category-supernatural-underground"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41458","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=41458"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41458\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41461,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41458\/revisions\/41461"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}