I allow myself few nerdrages.
The reasons are myriad: I don’t feel I’d have much to add to the “raving wildly at the camera and/or blog” reviews-as-performance-art that are so in chic, I don’t think it’s entirely becoming to channel your geekish enthusiasm into a frothing, spittle-laden fury, but chiefly, I don’t think pedantry is a particularly useful form of criticism. And I don’t think I’ve ever seen nerdrage that didn’t revolve around pedantry.
I rarely weigh in on the subject of cover art of books for the same reason: it rarely tends to be constructive and more often devolves into a furious flaunting of pedantry. At least, as far as genre book covers go.
In case you hadn’t figured it out, this blog post is going to be super pedantic.
The internet is absolutely choked with complaints about how genre book covers are “embarrassing,” “juvenile,” “adolescent” or any number of adjectives that adequately sum up the statement “I’m an ardent fan of fantasy, just so long as no one knows it.” My own covers have not been immune to this criticism. How could they not? They feature a guy with a big-ass sword.
Except this one, which features a gal with a big-ass sword. And a bunch of purple-skinned monsters. And a giant dragonman.
That’s the French cover to The Skybound Sea by Marc Simonetti and I still think it’s badass. But that’s besides the point.
Proclamations like this don’t really bother me. I’m 6’4″, have an amazing jawline and do what I love for a living. You couldn’t possibly make me feel bad for doing something I enjoy. Thus, I don’t really get emotionally invested in cover art. I enjoy what I enjoy and I don’t presume to tell others what they should or should not like.
I’m certainly not doing that now, even though I’m going to make a statement here.
Harper Voyager UK (who I’m sure is staffed with very lovely people who put out fine quality books, many of which are done by people I respect and admire), has just released a recover for George R.R. Martin’s obscure, little-known fantasy series you probably haven’t heard of, A Song of Ice and Fire.
And, well…
…yeah.
My first impression is that they look very much like they were designed to appeal to a very mainstream crowd. My second impression is that they look a little like travel guides. My third impression is that they look a little like they might actually be a bit like a very safe romantic novel.
But my overall impression is that they don’t look a lot like fantasy novels.
Which is the part that kind of galls me.
I was extremely reluctant to make this blog post, partly because I’m not fond of speaking out against publishers (though I think this hardly counts as that), but mostly because I’m still coming to terms with my inner and outer geek. And I’m still very much not comfortable with getting into the aforementioned pedantry and yet-to-be-mentioned tribalism that goes hand-in-hand with a nerdrage.
But damn it, Mainstream World, these books were ours first.
I’m not about to go calling George R.R. Martin a fake geek (no one would believe me) or launch into a tirade about how Harper Voyager UK has betrayed geeks as though we were all some gang from The Warriors that you either swore allegiance to or waged war against. It’s just…I kind of hoped this would go differently.
When Game of Thrones came out on HBO, I was pretty happy. My friends, who were not geeks, had always been reluctant to get into the same kind of stuff I enjoyed. But watching the show was a lot like polishing the jewel in the crown of nerdery for them. It made them enthusiastic and I thought that’d carry across the world. I thought we’d all be like “see, guys? Fantasy isn’t for weirdos. Or it is, but you can be weird and still be cool! It’s cool to be enthusiastic about this! It’s cool to enjoy this! We have loads more stuff like this over here! Come check it out!”
I’ve always said we in genre should not give as much of a shit what mainstream literature thinks of us. I not only stand by that, I hold up Game of Thrones as proof. This was for us. It was a great story that happened to be fantasy. It was written well, it was awesome, it was compelling and it was just something we enjoyed without having to prove to anyone else about it. It was fantasy that could attract people who were not typically into fantasy and who might find that they maybe liked it.
These covers just seem like they’re trying to erase the notion that these books might be fantasy novels. They’re like turning the fantasy switch low so as not to spook people, rather than flying their flag high and letting people come enjoy it.
I get why Harper Voyager did it. They’re clearly not hurting for sales and they’re trying to corner the market that’s still avoiding the books based on them being fantasy novels in general. That’s fine. Game of Thrones’ word of mouth power is so huge that it could change its covers to an image of George R.R. Martin strangling a man with one hand and beating him with a trout with the words “THIS IS A METAPHOR FOR FINNISH-RUSSIAN RELATIONS” and it’d still sell like mad.
And I’m not trying to paint this as a conflict of the beleaguered geek elite beset by impure outsiders. I think it’s awesome when people read fantasy and enjoy it for the same reason I’m thrilled when a fellow fantasy author does well: there’s no such thing as a reader that reads only one book and it’s tremendous when reading one scratches an itch that someone never knew they had.
I just kind of hoped that it would be non-fantasy fans realizing that fantasy was cool and you could accept it as it was, rather than…well, this.
But I don’t know. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I’m totally overreacting and these are great covers and, despite my best efforts, this is just another pointless nerdrage. You tell me.
But all in all, I think I’m just a little bummed and felt like moping in public.
I think you have a point. In spite of the old “don’t judge a book by its cover” adage, we all do. Covers are a part of marketing, and they should give you a sense of the book. That…looks kinda like a light beach read. I’m not really getting fantasy, or any other kind of (reliable) book content suggestion, from that cover. In its basest terms, that’s a failure of marketing. If people (who somehow have their head in the sand and have never heard of Game of Thrones) pick that up thinking it’s something light or romance-oriented (which is what it suggests to me), they’re not going to be happy with what they get, even if they might have been open to reading the sort of book it actually is.
I expected this post to be about getting being *beyond* scantily clad women on fantasy book covers. Frankly, I always was embarrassed by those covers. Not that I’m arguing for puritanical restraint, but give the poor girl some badass armor like the guys get.
There’s plenty of topics like that elsewhere on the internet, but not this one.
Sorry. I can see how my response came across. Just a gut reaction to years of folding over book covers that made me cringe.
This cover looks like something I’d see at Target, which I guess is what they’re going for. A last ditch effort to lick the plate, so to speak.
I’ll take the glass-half-full stance and liken this to the sacking of Troy. Like the Trojan horse, let’s hope this cover entices those who look down on fantasy to let down their guard. If they enjoy the book, which some will, then that is a victory.
You are right. Those covers invite moping. Strangely this reminds me of a discussion about make-up. The yearning to be accepted by your peers without camouflaging or hiding behind pretty colours.
Thanks for writing.
I definitely disagree that makeup is always about being accepted by peers. I enjoy bright makeup because I enjoy bright colors, so much so that some days I want to wear them on my clothes AND face. I also like my fave without that color, as do many other choosing to wear the stuff.
That being said, agree with the comments on this cover. It’s very… milk toast. Not as interesting as the book deserves.
Dear Lord my phone typing is awful. Apologies to the English language.
It’s not about wearing make-up or not – it’s about confidently stating who you are and ‘revelling in your uniqueness’ (forgive the cheesy term). If you like colours – and they like you – more power to you. If you don’t – that’s alright, too. Ideally, I’d like for people – and books – to have the appearance that suits them best. That does not seem to be the case with above mentioned book cover.
…But what do I know? Maybe the book likes to be bland and blue for a change;-)
Yah, I don’t like that new cover either, it’s very meh. I think it is kind of misleading as has been mentioned. Just doesn’t really fit the book I read anyway. I mean, their should at least be like 9 dead bodies, or a pile of guts and blood or SOMETHING. A sword maybe?! ONE SWORD, IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK….*breathe*
I think my major beef with it is, mostly, that it looks too much like something that is in this world, things I’ve seen on TV and what not. In my mind, fantasy settings are always bigger than life. For me, that’s kinda the point.
Plus, I just like the idea of fantasy artists getting paid to put covers on fantasy books, vs this, which any old artist could do, even without reading it or giving two shits about the story. Maybe that is kinda elitist but I don’t really care. Nerds gotta stick together.
Don’t know why but I associated that George R.R. Martin cover with hand cream and day time television. Must be the soft blue slowly lulling me into a comfortable fugue of domesticity. Not quite the reaction a fantasy novel cover is supposed to inspire.
Meanwhile, your French cover rocks! While I consider myself a feminist, and do not condone the objectification of women, objectification of women only takes place where there is no objectification of men, and most fantasy novels feature as many scantily clad and heavily-muscled men as they do mostly-naked and buxom ladies. There is no double standard at work here. Both genders are equal parts eye-candy and sexual fantasy. So the objections can be written off as a form of Darwinistic selection – these pedants will not and never would buy or read your book if it had blank cover typed out on a typewriter.
I once met a man who told me that he considered Terry Pratchett’s work to be utter filth because one of the covers (I think it was Moving Pictures) featured a women in a Princess Leia outfit. And he’d never read a word of it, and was proud of the fact. Moron.
Fantasy books look a certain way, have a certain colour pallet with lots of diffuse reds and greens, display a certain post-renaissance artistic flourish and do things like Dragon men, warrior princesses and epic landscapes very well. Science Fiction has metallic blues and crisp, modern artwork and a stylish slinky look to the costumes, technology and clean-shaven people. Horror is black with the white of bone or teeth, or the brown of rotting flesh. Crime is similar, but replace the white with a shock of red blood. Romance looks like George R.R. Martin…
These are all just useful flags that help us find the genre we’re looking for and, interestingly, they are all increasingly irrelevant in the age of the eReader. When I was dreaming of becoming an author I used to have a fantasy about sitting on a train and looking across and seeing someone (preferably a beautiful young women… did I say I was a feminist?) so absorbed in my book that they don’t notice I’m watching them, or that I look like the guy on the backcover. If I got a book deal tomorrow it wouldn’t matter – the Kindle has robbed me of that opportunity forever… but at the same time has probably made it more likely that a wider demographic will shamelessly read my book in public!
Don’t just a book by its cover. Nuff said.
Sorry for ranting on another man’s ranting blog post… terribly bad form! Now I’m going to go and watch Babylon 5 and I don’t care who knows it.
You know, I’ve seen this post and another post that takes the reverse tack, calling out literary authors for “slumming in genre”. And in both cases, I’m a bit… miffed.
First, and I suspect as a practically-minded author, you’ll probably agree that WHATEVER SELLS THE BOOK should go on the cover. The de facto thinking in fantasy is that dragons and swords sell covers, so we default to dragons and swords. Fine. But if some marketing/publicity/editorial genius is like, hmm, maybe if we put something besides dragons and swords on covers, that might get a new/larger/different audience…? That’s a good thing. Especially with a book like this one where, let’s face it, everyone that buys dragons+swords has already bought this book. You don’t rejacket an author to sell him to the people that already bought the book.
Second, and probably a broader point, if there’s anything to be learned from the success of GRRM and Lord of the Rings and Avengers and Hunger Games and *stuff*, it is that we really *do* need to grow up and not give a shit what “what mainstream literature thinks of us”. Whether that’s because we are the mainstream OR because people don’t just read in strict categories OR because it is, frankly, *kind of pathetic*. Pick your reason.
(The “literary authors slumming in genre” thing *really* pissed me off on this point, and it isn’t fair to rant about it here. So I’m going to delete a couple paragraphs and stop abruptly.)
That’s kind of my point, though. By diluting the fantasy element, we basically are giving a shit about what mainstream thinks. These covers seem (to me) to be saying “oh, here, check out this book that everyone’s talking about. Fantasy? Whaaaaaaaat? Naw, son. See, there’s mountains and stuff. No dragons. Nope.” When our previous covers were “yeah, it’s fantasy. Deal with it.”
Frankly, I don’t know if a cover relaunch is what’s needed to sell the book at this point.
If you gave only the title of the book to a diverse group of cover artists who had never heard of the book or even read a synopsis, I posit none of them conceptualizing anything remotely like this.
That cover would not ave inspired a purchase in me and provides zero clue of the fantastical contents. What a waste of an opportunity. I’m never sure why they change covers so much. The book was successful BEFORE the TV show and had trad fantasy covers. I’m sure it’s sold bazillions more since the TV show, regardless of the cover (because everyone knows about it) so why change the cover at all. This is the equivalent of visual lobotomy. It’s stripped the book of all it’s character and left only a veil of life behind.
On the other hand, I do hate some genre staple covers – especially paranormal romance. How come they own no clothes?
Good discussion!
shahwharton.com
I wonder if maybe this is less an attempt to fool someone into reading a fantasy novel but more an attempt to cater to the reader who worries about appearances or wants to avoid questions (I know that I will still instinctively dance around what I’m reading if asked by someone I don’t know very well – just don’t want to deal with the blank looks). Maybe they came to the series from the TV show, and who maybe reads on the train or at the office, but doesn’t want people to think they are a Dungeons and Dragons nerd. A generic cover like this might be an intermediary step. A beard for a book. Not gonna fool everybody but might work for some.
Doesn’t matter, after reading Martin some of them will be looking for other options and before long will be reading a book with a big dragonman on the cover, right out in the open.