Believe it or not, this cover is so vomit-tastic that Graeme actually refused to post it on his blog. Fortunately, I have a strong stomach (and plenty of sickbags) so decided to take the risk.Can't blame Graeme though. Just staring at this cover makes my stomach churn. I can practically feel my eyeballs melting. I wouldn't be surprised if the publisher receives a flood of compensation claims from enraged readers over loss of vision, after their eyeballs rebelled and imploded from being forced to gaze upon its sheer crapness.
I'll be honest - I find it hard to take urban fantasy seriously anyway, but it's even harder when the genre's novels have covers like this.
Whatever you do, don't laugh at the woman on the cover - she's Death's daughter. No, seriously. Aside from the title, you can tell by the secksy skull pendant she's wearing and by her laughably bad surname: Reaper-Jones (you at the back, I said no laughing!)
What the hell that cute dog in the ridiculous collar is doing is anyone's guess. For a laugh, I was actually going to post the blurb, but it's even worse than the cover.
Crap-o-meter rating: 9.5/10
16 comments:
I agree with 99% of what you said, except that this is worse than 9.5 on the crapometer. This is worse than most UF covers.
Frankly, now I understand why people like Twilight so much --- the books don't have covers like THIS. That explains a lot.
It actually, somewhat, reminds me of this review:
http://www.the-isb.com/?p=980
of a comic. Worth reading.
The review, not the comic, I mean.
Sorry for the 3x spam.
(word verif: flerg. kind of how I feel right now)
It must be one third of cerberus.
At least it's funny. If I look at it for any length of time I just start giggling like a little girl. Maybe that's what is supposed to happen.
(tinspat word verification)
LOL @ doggie's expression! Dejected but faintly quizzical to my mind"
"Woof...?"
TD: I must admit, I almost gave it 10. But even I have a heart, and couldn't quite manage it.
Thanks for the link - that review is very amusing indeed.
Swainson: Maybe you're right - the cover is meant to send people into fits of giggles so that they don't actually realise they've bought the book until it's too late!
Alex: Yeah, the dog's got a classic "Dude, where's my bone?" look on its face.
I don't think the dog was meant to be there. If you look carefully at its expression, I think it just accidentally wondered into the bottom corner of the frame.
I mean, who in their right mind would put the damn thing in?
Whilst the cover is horrendous, I'd actually check out the book. Amber Benson played Tara, one of the better characters on BUFFY, and got so pissed off with Hollywood she quit and became a popular fantasy author instead.
No idea if her books are any good, mind, but I'd give them a shot anyway.
Mark: You're right! It looks like it was just minding its own business and got caught in the shot. It also appears to either have a penchant for S&M or is wildly overcompensating for the fact that it's only a little dog. "Stop calling me Mr Fluffy, I told you my name's Rex. GRR!"
Also, "Calliope Reaper-Jones"?! One would have thought that if were unfortunate enough to have the surname Reaper you'd drop it at the first opportunity rather than hyphenating it. My neighbour Ian Pilkington-Barbarian disagrees however.
"Death's daughter" you say? Is this supposed to be a comedy? Either way it's quite a ripoff from Pratchett really.
"Urban Fantasy" seems to be chock full of ridiculous, hilarious fail
And surely you'd want to remove the "Reaper" bit if you wanted to keep a low profile on the ol' "Death's daughter" front.
Bit of a giveaway, that.
Horrible cover. I particularly like the way she's got mist *clinging* to her legs...she's the reaper, of course...
I actually like urban fantasy for the most part, but man...that dog...and the spiked collar?
The cover seems pretty typical for the UF books aside from how blue it is...which is to say it isn't that great. They all show a sassy lady on the cover anymore, but not many dogs.
Actually the woman on the cover of your highlighted book looks like a dead ringer for the woman on this cover, too.
I tried to read Death's Daughter last month, but had to give up on it.
That's not a dog, it's a shriveled up stingray!
James, what do you think of JQ's latest cover (for
Santa Olivia)?
TD: It's not bad, quite like the colour scheme. I'm a bit tired of seeing so many 'figure' covers, but that's still the craze at the minute. It's quite nice though, this cover.
Death's daughter has a name ... it's Susan Sto-Helit.
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