Sunday 30 November 2008

Crap fantasy book covers #15

This is the third time the artwork of Darrell K. Sweet has appeared in 'Crap fantasy book covers' and it's certainly not third time lucky. In fact, this is probably the worst cover of the three, even blander than Lord of Chaos and Natural Ordermage (you at the back, stop sniggering at that book title!). 

Cover your eyes...

I don't even feel the need to say why this cover is crap, as it's self-evident. Fortunately, Wert - in his recent review of Knife of Dreams - has done so for us, suggesting that the cover is "possibly one of the worst fantasy covers in history" and "not Darrell K. Sweet's finest hour."

You won't get any disagreement from me.

Crap-o-meter rating: 9/10 

6 comments:

Gabriele Campbell said...

That guy needs some lessons in anatomy and perspective.

I usually don't mind to be caught reading Fantasy, but Jordan's covers are so bad I don't read the books in public. Could as well get me a Fabio. ;)

Anonymous said...

You know, you can't just blame the artist. Covers have to be approved by an art director and editor, so other heads need to be on the block.

James said...

You're absolutely right of course, Mark. I do find it hard to believe that someone actually thought this would make a good cover and gave it the green light.

That said, I do agree with Gabriele that the perspective is somewhat all over the place.

Todd Newton said...

Wow. Hello high school art class.

I like the cover of the first book, but that certainly doesn't mean his art style or perspective was good... rather, it just had a lot going on and was interesting.

In this one, there is actually nothing going on, nothing to catch the eye, and is about the most uninteresting piece of artwork they (collectively, whomever you'd like to blame) could have thrown on the cover.

If our only artwork option is to put nonsense like this on our covers, I say we just go back to words-only instead.

Adam Whitehead said...

KoD actually has a lot of pretty cool scenes. The vast armada of Sea Folk ships in Illian harbour. Mat blasting the living hell out of the Seanchan with his primitive gunpowder artillery. The Battle of Malden. Seanchan in flames. The duel between Galad and Valda. The battle at the farmhouse. So why the hell did they choose a really lame, really boring meeting scene in a tent from the prologue?

James said...

TD: Yeah, for some reason I quite like the artwork from the first book. It has a sense of adventure, at least. Plus it reminds me of being 14. :)

Adam: I have a feeling we'll never find out.