Wednesday 28 October 2009

Enough with the hooded figures...

Another day, another 'hooded figure' fantasy book cover...



Is anyone else getting thoroughly sick of these sort of covers? I understand why they're used (for some reason, these covers sell books) but come on, if you have to put some sort of figure on the front of the book, then at least make the cover look decent.

The above cover represents everything that's wrong with this particular trend - it's unoriginal, bland, and poorly executed. It looks for all the world like someone pulled it out of their arse during lunchbreak. As I've said many times before, it's no wonder people think the genre is a load of crap when we have terrible covers like this on the covers of our books.

Thanks to Aidan for the heads-up on this one.

11 comments:

Salt-Man Z said...

Is it just me, or does that look just like it belongs in the "Shadows of the Apt" series?

Gabriele Campbell said...

Lol, try reading some historical fiction - all we get these days is headless women in Renaissance gear. And not only on Tudor novels. ;)

Anonymous said...

Well, we used to have half-naked Warrior-Sorceresses ...

RedEyedGhost said...

Awful, awful cover.

Glad to see the the UK isn't always the best.

ediFanoB said...

Le me add I add one, two, three, four more hooded figures. I agree with you that there is an inflation of covers like these.

Jebus said...

But hoods are cool! In any situation!

James said...

@Salt-Man Z - it's a similar style, but totally inferior to the Apt covers.

@Gabriele C. and Anonymous - headless women and half-naked warrior sorceresses are preferable to this trash. :)

@Jebus - but are hoods cool when, say, you're getting eaten by a huge shark? ;)

RedEyedGhost said...

Two more upcoming books with hooded figures are:
Farlander by Colin Buchanan
The Left Hand of God by Paul Hoffman

James said...

Yeah, I don't mind either of them, they're better examples of this sort of cover. Still a bit dull though.

Cara said...

The cover on amazon.co.uk is very different from this one - no hooded figure, instead it's a sorderess!
See here -> http://www.amazon.co.uk/Spellwright-Blake-Charlton/dp/0765317273/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1257706510&sr=1-1

James said...

Yeah, that's the US cover which is superior (though a little on the cheesy side for me).