The Sword and Laser discussion

* not restricted to SFF books

** please post the book cover in the thread instead of the title link

For me, I think that Mistborn has a pretty lovely cover:



And I feel like the cover of The Martian and The Blade Itself have that certain simplistic appeal:

I liked the revised The Gunslinger cover:



And The Way of Kings:

Though pretty much all of Micheal Whelan's stuff is great.

I'm a big fan of the cover of The Girl Who Would Be King. Not so much the book itself though; it was a bit of a mess. Clever concept, poorly executed IMO.

Rob wrote: "Though pretty much all of Micheal Whelan's stuff is great."

Yep. Michael Whelan is great. I love all of his Dark Tower artwork.

The covers from James S.A. Corey's Expanse series are really great. The artist is Daniel Dociu (website).

I liked the original cover to Sarah Rees Brennan's Unspoken:

What I appreciate most in a cover is a design that incorporates the text into the image in a thoughtful way. When the cover is just an illustration with some text laid over it, it generally does not do anything for me.

Dave McKean is a perfect example, although he's more of a comic artist I guess...but holy cow his work is beautiful:



(TBH I'm not 100% sure that second image is McKean -- but it sure looks like him)

I'd also have to include the Dillons:

I'm rather found of the cover illustrated and designed by Todd Cronin for my own novel, "Traveling in Space."

I haven't read the book but I dig the art for Ancillary Justice.

Here's the full wraparound image:

Still my favourite, and bonus points for being designed by the author:

I think all of my favorites are Michael Whelan...(I can't figure out how to do a bigger pic - ed. okay I was adding in the quotation marks lol)

The Snow Queen and The Summer Queen by Joan D. Vinge have my favorite two covers





I also really like this one
Illusion by Paula Volsky

And
The Initiate Brother by Sean Russell

OOH I forgot Thomas Canty, I love his stuff too

Swordspoint


Dandelion Wine


The Nightingale

Michele wrote: "I can't figure out how to do a bigger pic)"

IMG SRC="URL" inside of <>

Oh, someone else has heard of Illusion!

Returning to my Tolkien suggestion, I've always loved the work of John Howe. So you could do a lot worse than his cover for "The Fellowship of the Ring":


But my favourite of his Tolkien covers was probably that of Unfinished Tales:


He also did covers for another of my favourite writers, Robin Hobb. Here's his cover of Assassin's Apprentice:


And his painting (the book has it framed as with the last one) for Assassin's Quest:


But even though I love Howe's work, I also love the artist who replaced him. Here's Jackie Morris' painting for City of Dragons:


And Blood of Dragons:

Because cats and redheads, you know, typical RAH stuff...


I've always preferred this particular Great Gatsby cover...


And I agree with the covers of The Expanse series. The 5th cover is no exception...


A few more SF covers...

I love Bruce Pennington for some great classic illustrations:

The artist doing the covers for Sharon Lee's Carousel series is good, too:









edit - sorry, didn't do the embiggen thing. How do I do that for a book cover link here at GR?

That Harry Harrison one is really striking...

I keep spruiking these books, but this is the first time I've done it for the covers alone: Jonathan Strahan's Engineering Infinity, Edge of Infinity and Reach for Infinity.



The cover image of A Darkling Sea by James Cambias is very evocative of the crushing pressure and darkness of the story.

Wastrel wrote: "That Harry Harrison one is really striking..."

Especially when you remember that it's about an over-populated NYC (and was adapted into the movie Soylent Green). Looking at the city from that particular point of view, puts the story into focus.

oh wow, I just saw these covers for The Dark Tower series and... whoa.

Lindsay wrote: "I'm a big fan of the cover of The Girl Who Would Be King. Not so much the book itself though; it was a bit of a mess. Clever concept, poorly executed IMO.

"

My exact thoughts on this book. Cover is great, idea is great, book was uneven and a bit random and incohesive at times. Hated the very ending too.

I love the original hardcovers of the Mistborn series.


Joey Hi-Fi's covers for Chuck Wendig's is great too. So much detail.

Kameron Hurley has great covers for all her books too:

Dara wrote: "I haven't read the book but I dig the art for Ancillary Justice.

"

What I love mostly about that design, is that all 3 books in the series will have a cover that's part of the same larger painting.

And speaking of Michael Whelan:

Michael Whelan did several amazing covers for the various Pern books by Anne McCaffrey, and wrote a chapter in the tribute book edited by her son, Dragonwriter: A Tribute to Anne McCaffrey and Pern.

Here's a link to Whelan's website, with some full-screen gorgeous cover art: http://www.michaelwhelan.com/gallery/...

The full cover painting for The Soul of the Fire is one of my favorite book cover paintings.


Found a copy of the full painting

Here's a cover I saw yesterday at the bookstore. I don't know anything about it other than I like the cleverness.

Mr. Tall: Stories

I also liked:

I think all the different editions of the Sparrow are beautiful – and I like that they are similar thematically. Also a gorgeous and heartbreaking first contact novel.

Along the lines of simplistic I really enjoyed the artwork on the cover of Thief's Magic



I didn't like the book all that much but I thought the cover was cool

Is my favorite cover for the book but the other one is amazing as well.



Crimson Campaign's cover I really enjoyed as well.

This is the cover that sold me Sabriel.

I saw it in the supermarket, and it was hardback, pure white with only the symbol, the title and the authors name on it. It had a clear plastic dust cover, and no blurb anywhere at all to tell anyone what it was about. My mother and I were intrigued, and liked the weight and feel of it, and buying it felt like a strangely magical thing to do. Never before or since have I bought a book based ONLY on the way it looks, so I guess it was pretty effective.

I also like this



Maybe it is a little gimmicky, but I like the way the image continues onto the second volume. Other books by the same author had a similar style, but I don't have them to hand and can't remember what they are called.

I also tend to like ones that are a little more artistic/abstract:



or



for example.

The cover of Knight Moves has always been a favorite of mine. First of all, the artwork is superb. Then, the cover totally gives you a double fake about the story. I mean, it has a centaur so the book has to be a fantasy, right? Wrong. It is pretty much hard SF. But, that lady centaur is totally in the book. WTF? Read and find out.