Monday 10 November 2008

UK cover art for Rothfuss' 'The Wise Man's Fear'...

...and it's a bit of a stinker in my humble opinion.



UK cover art is usually regarded as being superior to the US equivalents, but this case is definitely an exception. I much prefer the US artwork for this novel.



What do you guys think?

7 comments:

Todd Newton said...

Hmm. The picture in itself isn't wholly bad... but the frilly flowery nonsense doesn't do much for me. Crazy ninja girl/thing seems out of place among the petunias. And the art doesn't fit the title in the slightest. I haven't read the book, but I'd definitely be inclined to agree with you 100% on this.

(ooo, my word verif is "shades" ... spooky)

Adam Whitehead said...

The perspective seems off. It looks like his torso is rotated at around a 45-degree angle to his legs. Very odd.

Iain said...

Yep. It is a bit of a stinker. The US cover os much better, I suppose if you can purchase it on Amazon, you might be able to get that cover.

In a day of bad news for fantasy fans I have just read that Brett (Rush Hour 1,2& 3, X-Men 3 and Beverly Hills Cop 4) Ratner is about to sign on the line to direct the new update of Conan. Now that truly horrifies me. Conan in 1982 was the best film I had ever seen, and that says a lot considering Indiana Jones and Star Wars were doing the rounds at that time, and waas what first got me into fantasy. I love Howard's novels and short stories, the 1970s comic strip, the latest re-imagining by Cary Nord and Kurt Buisek, even the online game isn't that bad. Johm Milius and Oliver Stone gave us a mastepiece of fantasy cinema, with a belting score and Arnie wielding a yard and a half of Atlantean steel. What is Mr Bland Ratner going to give us? I dread to think.

Sorry to go a bit off the thread.

Kendall said...

The figure in the middle looks like bad manga and the title's typography isn't very good. The U.S. cover's much better.

BTw, I don't feel U.K. cover art's usually better; it varies a lot, like the U.S. art does, IMHO. I've seen some awesome U.K. covers, some horrible ones, and plenty of good-but-not-exceptional ones. I think I see the same range in the U.S. Of course, living in the U.S. I see more U.S. cover art than U.K. cover art...

A lot of U.K. covers I've seen have are plain, with some kind of symbol or emblem in the middle of a plain background. This can be cool looking but sometimes it's dull, and it definitely gets old. I don't feel like I see nearly as many of this style cover in the U.S. (But again, I don't see as much U.K. cover art, so maybe I've just seen a poor sampling that happens to have a lot of these weird symbol-on-single-color-background covers.)

Anonymous said...

Oh dear, that's pretty awful. I wholeheartedly agree. Flowers and a ninja contortionist??

Can't wait to read it though :)

RobB said...

While I don't think it's awful, it looks like a red-headed Jedi on Dagobah.

Anonymous said...

True, the middle figure kind of looks wierd and the sword style seems off with the book context, but really i like the UK cover better. I also have the assumption that the leaves (when compared to the first book) has some sort of theme going on. Looks like a change from summer, to autumn, and i'm only guessing there won't be any leaves but only bare branches in the last book.

The US cover ... well it's alright I guess.