New American Reissue Bookcovers

[Nerdanel]

It looks like someone has outdone Darrell K. Sweet in bad cover art. The new reissues of Chronicles are quite awful in my opinion. They look like chick lit or something. The covers themselves are simple. They all have a big ring on the cover on different colored backgrounds, and all the colors are really warm and soft. I feel they really misrepresent the feel of the books.

But worst of all, the prominent ring on the cover is made of yellow gold.

How can a cover artist go that far wrong?

[duchess of malfi]

Yeah, those covers are truly awful. The new cover of Daughter of Regals is also pretty bad, IMO.

[Nerdanel]

That too. The old one with the girl and the stained glass window made by Michael Whelan was particularly magnificent. I think the Daughter of Regals cover actually suffered proportionally the most., even though it didn't contradict important story elements in the same way. :(

Americans always seem to get the worst covers. But I think this set of covers would have been seriously better if they were those cliché fantasy covers like Gardens of the Moon ended up with. Even if a cover featured a hunky Thomas Covenant in plate mail it would be better than this...

[duchess of malfi]

I dunno. That cover of Gardens of the Moon is pretty terrible. I mean that girl's armor -- open in such vulnerable places. Is she hoping to distract her opponents by flashing her cleavage at them??

I loved the Daughter of Regals cover with the girl and the stained glass window. The new one is boring, bland, and looks like something that would be on the cover of a really lame romance novel entitled something like Countess in Love.

[dlbpharmd]

I despise those covers. Don't get me started on them.

[Furls Fire]

The "yellow gold" was a marketing ploy to cash in on the success of the LOTR movies. Pretty lame if you ask me.

[Myste]

When this subject first came up (there's a thread about it around here someplace) I emailed the publishers, who said that SRD was "delighted." A patently false statement, as he commented on them much less enthusiastically in the GI. They're hateful. I haven't seen the new DoR, but it's a shame they changed it. I don't like the new trade size MN covers either. Grrr.