SF&F cover art

[mirrorshard]

I've been wandering through a lot of discussions on the covers of SF&F books in the last few days - the old chestnut about "is this tacky or great?", "Will this put off new readers or will it keep the mundanes out of our genre?", and so on. I may work up a longer ramble on the subject, but I wanted to share my bogglement at one thing with you, O my readers.

Someone posted this image, showing the cover of his book, and asked for honest opinions.



Inexplicably, they didn't eviscerate him. There was not even any pointing and laughing. It's pretty good art, as fantasy art goes, but apparently that isn't a joke title or series name.

Comments

[bob]

why did the put an elf in front of really nice tree.

[thirstypixel.livejournal.com]

Does he hail from the North? Does he bear his father's sword?

[glassstrider.livejournal.com]

Really, what would put me off wouldn't be the picture (Which I think looks a little dull), but the "part x of y" line. That, to me, reads "go away, read three other books, and then you can read this one. And the seventy afterwards". My buy-in to read a story about the Elves having a Revenge has gone from (Say) £7, to £28+, and from however long it takes to read one book, to however long it takes to read four and possibly the time required to find them all.

I guess I'm just not the series type. Not that I'm opposed to the concept, I'm just opposed to really long stories split over multiple books.

[shuripentu.livejournal.com]

Hey, you never know; maybe he used up all his creative powers on the book itself, so was out of ideas when it came to book and series titles. ^_^

I now have this strange urge to read the book(s) to find out...

[mirrorshard.livejournal.com]

He's taking his Revenge on the tree.

With his father's sword.

[mirrorshard.livejournal.com]

I suspect this is entirely possible.

[mirrorshard.livejournal.com]

Could be! To me, Revenge of the Elves sounds like the kind of jolly pisstake fantasy that gets pull quotes like "sidesplitting - Daily Frog" and "this madcap lighthearted romp - the Weekly Illustrated Teacup".

[shuripentu.livejournal.com]

The one he took from his father's body after the tree slew him in cold blood?