Why are science fiction and fantasy books so crappy?

If they're trying to sell to sci-fans, then it has to look like a sci-fi book? And if they're trying for lit crossover, then it needs to not look like a sci-fi book? (first example that popped in my head of a recent sci-fi book with a decent cover)

Aylett's books all look great, imho. M. John Harrison's stuff gets a nice treatment. Gene Wolfe's serials can be cheesy, but has several collections that are well-designed. In general I think the Brits do it better (Jeff Noon springs to mind). These editions of Pelenev that I just started also look great.

er Pevelin

man I am terrible with Russian names

aarggh Pelevin!

Then there's the Science Fiction Book Club, which aren't Folio Society bindings by any stretch but do allow for something a bit more than the norm.

The author's name is huge b/c that's the main selling point. SF is a genre where a author with a successful book gains a lot of interest in his other books.

I actually perfer the smaller back-pocket size to the $13 TPB.

Also, genre books aren't meant to be collectible to much as just "consumed"(esp. with licensed titles, like all the D&D stuff, e.g.)

OTM on the crappy cover art. I have like 35 Philip K. Dick SF novels and none of them have anything even remotely relevant on the cover.

Depends on when those editions were printed. Remember, cover art changes with design trends. As on the book cover thread, even "Canticle for Leibowitz" went from basic medieval-looking lineart in the early 60s, to the classic ornate painting in 1979, to the Neil Gaiman-looking thing today.

for example:

http://images.barnesandnoble.com/images/11030000/11030048.jpg vs http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/images/n0/n970.jpg

On the other hand, sometimes I'd prefer the cover art NOT to be relevant, like in this edition of Dan Simmons' Hyperion: why do we need some artist's impression of how the Shrike looks? Can't we imagine what he looks like from the descriptions in the book?

http://i13.tinypic.com/646t92o.jpg

I don't even look at the covers any more. Never judge...etc. Especially in sci-fi. I'd have missed out on a whole load of great books if I hadn't picked them up 'cos they had crappy covers.

Having said that the covers on the Gollancz Sci-Fi Masterworks series (there's a few here) are pretty good.

By which I mean the new covers (maybe only on the UK editions?).

http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/I/51DQA2HN9EL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-dp-500-arrow,TopRight,45,-64_OU02_AA240_SH20_.jpghttp://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/I/516%2BhxxwHaL._AA240_.jpg
Same book!

wow. hello, amazon UK

Personally, I'd rather pay I5 than $7 for the same book if it was published in an elegant, spacious edition, but I'm also the guy that argued on ILM against the "value" of CD bonus tracks because they clutter up the distinction or whatever of an album proper.

Well, yes, but bonus tracks and covers are bad comparisons. Either you compare both media (?) for their cover value or bonus chapters/tracks. I didn't say that in the right way but I guess you understand my point.

So why are they so crappy? Well, because there's so much out there, published, which means you just have to wade through it and find the good stuff. Same goes for detectives/thrillers and romance novels. Although I rarely buy the latter.

I recently read Iain M Banks's excellent The Algebraist and was pleased to see the beautiful Cassini image used for it's UK cover; I like all his Culture books too, to differing extents, and they seem to have undergone a similar facelift in more recent editions to make them look less "sci-fi", presumably to draw in readers who would not be seen dead with a book cover showing the kind of spikey fella depicted on the Dan Simmons book above.

I don't agree with pandering to snobbery, but if it sells more good sci-fi then so be it. Quite a good example of compare-and-contrast below too:

http://covers.fwis.com/algebraist

(original image for The Algebraist cover, pretty stunning)
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/jupiterflyby/gallery/gl_pages/PIA02879.html

argh - possessive apostrophe on "its" scuppers my credibility...sorry...

Philip K. Dick's current editions are nice to have and hold

the Vintage (the publisher, not the adjective) editions i have are literally the ugliest books ive ever seen. the covers alone have prevented a close friend/graphic designer from reading them despite my high recommendations.

yeah fuck those things

> Also, genre books aren't meant to be collectible to much as just "consumed"(esp. with licensed titles, like all the D&D stuff, e.g.)

is this true? don't sf fans usually have more than the usual number of books? isn't that the definition of collectible?

last thing i bought that wasn't alastair reynolds (which are the epitome of spacecraft above planets*) was Rogue Moon (http://books.regehr.org/reviews/roguemoon.html) which was great because the design was obviously of its time)

(*that said, they are rather nice. plus they all match)

The Orion SF Masterworks covers are great: http://www.orionbooks.co.uk/browse-results.aspx?subID=7

must read more SF.

I think a lot of peoples notions about SF and Fantasy are stuck in the era of the pulp magazine.
This has a lot to do with the kind of covers books get (though UK covers do tend to be a bit better than US ones).

One of the few good covers awarded to a JG Ballard novel - 1991 edition of The Crystal World:

http://www.rickmcgrath.com/jgballard/jgb_pix/crystal_easton300.jpg

And I like the mid-'70s-ness of the 1975 US edition of High-Rise:

http://www.rickmcgrath.com/jgballard/jgb_pix/highrise250.jpg

.. Especially compared with the god-awful '77 UK edition:

http://www.rickmcgrath.com/jgballard/jgb_pix/highrise_panther250.jpg

b-but... that has everything that the first one does PLUS half nakid woman...

the bookshop in w12 has the sf and fantasy in an alcove at the back alongside the erotica. i can never decide whether that's very stupid or very clever shop design.

That last is such a classic of NEL style covers.

Aha! Now I understand - all of those PKD books I have are from Vintage, indeed. (several xposts)

(is blood music any good?)

the english cover to Pattern Recognition is a favourite of mine btw, was a transparent cd case over a shiny white on matt white page of the london a-z. bought mine from a bookshop on said page of a-z.

http://www.rumble.net/blog/index.cgi/books/index.html?_start=6

(can't make out the map on this one, it was white on white)

the related thread, full of examples: S/D: Freaky/psychedelic pulpy book cover design

best cover ever:

http://www.efanzines.com/EK/eI14/rb309.jpg

if liking "cheesy" sci-fi book covers is wrong then i don't want to be right

and, hey, to people who don't frequent i love books, i am always looking for good tips here:

School Me On Some Sci-Fi My Astral Brothers And Sisters!

and i don't care what the covers look like.

Ha, skot! Just looking at the picture (three posts above) I would never have known who the author was on that one. Actually even looking at the words gave me a hard time figuring out who it was, the name is kind of tiny.

It comes down to what kind of design or iconography a person particularly wants on their cover. Do you need explicit literalism(actual spaceships and actual space people), or would more an iconic abstraction(relevant or not) work?

I recall Ray Bradbury had some nice covers back in the day, maybe because he was a crossover artist, but the ones that come up nowadays on a google image search are kind of cheesy.

My dad had this version of this book, and the cover image haunted me for some reason

http://home.wlv.ac.uk/~in5379/covers/fullsize/ill_man5.jpg

Yeah, that one and I Sing The Body Electric used to haunt me too. (And Camus's The Stranger, with the black and white and red all over theater actors on the cover)

I like how the font used will date a book better than any image.

So why are they so crappy? Well, because there's so much out there, published, which means you just have to wade through it and find the good stuff. Same goes for detectives/thrillers and romance novels. Although I rarely buy the latter.

well, let's narrow down what you mean by crappy. You mean in terms of cover design, the typesetting, or the quality of the paper, printing & binding?

I actually happen to own this version of this particular book
http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/images/c0/c1194.jpg

Which not only has the derivative, crappy and obvious cover typical of the 70s but also appears to be printed on tracing paper and stuck together with spittle.

And don't get me started on the title - I'm fairly sure I detect the hand of an editor who must've thought "If we call it something shitty the geeks'll lap it up in droves."

They were trying to crossover to the all the Charlie Watts fans from the Stylus Best Drummer thread.

it's FIVE TIMES farther away than the Stones! Extreme!

well well well, when did this start?

http://www.avclub.com/content/blog/the_box_of_paperbacks_book_club_1

I don't get why anyone would care what the crap a book's cover looks like, unless it's got a giant golden statue of Moroni on it. Ugly. But if so, what are you doing reading the Book of Mormon, anyway?

I like that Tiptree cover. :(

I do too...I liked all the covers on the trippy book covers thread & even when they have crap covers, who cares.

I love scifi.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/b9/A-Deepness-in-the-Sky-book-cover.jpg

I love this book so much.

i just bought the collected vinge story collection. gonna read it soon.

I'M IN YER FICTION. SPECULATIN'.

http://home.sprynet.com/~dbrukman/Vernor-Vinge-at-1999-Lunacon.jpg

Yeah I got it there for like $2. Brunner wrote like 100 books or something so there is probably more great stuff there. I've got two or three more sitting on shelf (including Stand.)

stand on zanzibar was my favourite book for a period of time as a teenager but i do not want to look at it again because i do not trust said teenager's aesthetics v. much

interesting that the marber grid never really took hold of penguin's SF line.

Ah, apparently Facetti decided all those covers also had to be composed of a pre-existing abstract painting. Hum.

oh, and I'll rep for the first 2 Richard Morgan books, tho I was disappointing he dropped the hard-boiled noir vibe partway thru the first book.

Still, stories involving xenoarcheology are always fun for me, be it Rendezvous w/ Rama or Lucasarts' The Dig.

Can anyone recommend any other xenoarcheology tales? I've already read Ringworld, and some of you protested loudly when I wanted to start a thread on New Wave sci-fi, like when Playboy would run short stories, which of course would feature the intrepid hero ducking some greenskinned Orion slave chick or something.

don't know what everyone's complaining about. fantasy at least is doing just fine. this book http://www.tachyonpublications.com/book/New_Weird.html is amazing (and the cover isn't tacky, nor the spine or type chintzy), especially the stories by steph swainston and alistair rennie. the thread m. john harrison kicked off the vandermeers reprint is like the best ilx one that never happened

Can anyone recommend any other xenoarcheology tales?

My favorite by a million light years is a short story: R.A. Lafferty's "Continued On Next Rock" - it's in one of Damon Knight's Orbit anthologies.

Also, er, At The Mountains Of Madness

Also, er, At The Mountains Of Madness

bah! i'll wait for Guillermo's version

Jack MacDivett (or however you spell his name) has written a series of okay-ish books that are solely (pretty much) about xenoarcheology starting with The Engines of God

Is Fifth Head of Cerberus xenoarchaeology or just xenoanthropology?

"don't know what everyone's complaining about. fantasy at least is doing just fine. this book http://www.tachyonpublications.com/book/New_Weird.html is amazing (and the cover isn't tacky, nor the spine or type chintzy)"
http://www.tachyonpublications.com/images/covers/NW_BookPg2.png

I'm not a graphic designer, so I can't articulate with any authority what's wrong with this cover (it feels representative of a more modern but equally cheesy trend, but I don't have the vocabulary to describe it), except to say that I think most people would be more moved by "Together we could rape the universe."

Graphic designers, weigh in, please.

im not a graphic designer but i am on the internet which makes me an expert, and that design sucks

corny/ugly font

drop shadow on the bug thing but not on the lettering, so the typography feels like it belongs to some kind of different world

reinforcing this: the way that the space created by the ragged ends of the left and right-aligned lists doesn't create any kind of coherent shape

border just a really confusingly pointless choice

also pretty sure m. harrison, m. moorcock, c. barker, c. mieville, p. de filippo don't belong in any kind of movement with 'new' in front of it. (well, the first two did forty years ago, admittedly)

I was about to say, let's not completely forget history here!

"drop shadow on the bug thing but not on the lettering, so the typography feels like it belongs to some kind of different world"

Is this a designer mistake? Wouldn't drop shadow on the lettering put the words on the same plane as the bug, instead of in the background (where it seems like they were intended to go)?

That border is a baaaaaaaaaaaaaadddddd idea because every time that fucking prints the cover is going to be a scootch to the left or right or top or bottom, and that black line is going to get trimmed unevenly (or even completely off) and someone is going to be pissed and it's all the DESIGNER'S FAULT.

"design" is the worst but designers are even worse

xp to kingfish:

Feby. 27, 1933

Dear Morse:---

By the way--since you have such a charitable opinion of my fictional attempts, you may be pleased to hear that my last story--The Dreams in the Witch-House, written exactly a year ago--will appear during the present twelvemonth in Weird Tales. I had become disgusted with the whole business, but Derleth (to whom it was lent) happened to show this story to Editor Wright. The latter asked if he might purchase it for $140.00, and I decided (sorely needing the tangible return) to let him have it--even though it most emphatically fails to satisfy me. Wright asked for radio dramatisation rights, but I set my foot down there. I shall never permit anything bearing my signature to be banalised and vulgarised into the kind of flat infantile twaddle which passes for "horror tales" amongst the radio and cinema audiences!

Yrs. most cordially and sincerely,
HPLovecraft

Clearly he had already seen a version of the Dean Stockwell Dunwich Horror in his nightmares.

pretty sure m. harrison, m. moorcock ... don't belong in any kind of movement with 'new' in front of it

I didn't say they did (don't think anyone else did either).

There is not a lot of good new stuff - my point was that much of the good new books that I consider sci-fi is often not marketed as such, and I listed several authors who fall into that category.

is are

(fwiw M. John Harrison and Moorcock may not be "new" writers but they are still publishing new material)

dude

go back and re-read that post, and the posts above it

"new weird" was coined apparently in 2003/4 according to a discussion kicked off by m. john harrison, who you think would know, recounted in the book. a couple years ago isn't so old. collected in an origins section, old dudes people have heard of are outnumbered by the newbies later on, some of whom are published in this 2008 anthology for the first time. it's not all good, but the good stuff is definitely refreshing -- steph swainston, alastair rennie, and felix gilman especially. but seriously go ahead and talk font

ah sorry I couldn't see the tiny names on that book cover

Can anyone recommend any other xenoarcheology tales?

Algis Budrys: Rogue Moon - fucking ace
Ian Reynolds: Diamond Dogs - pretty good, if a bit pulpy, and explicitly pays tribute to the Budrys

Rogue Moon already have. Sweet idea. Surprised they haven't made a video game from it

Alastair Reynold's Diamond Dogs is pretty much the same idea as the Budrys (he's said as much in interviews and is the reason i bought Rogue Moon off ebay) (and also film The Cube. and the 42 episode of doctor who). the puzzling machine thing crops up a lot in his full length novels as well - the city maze in Revelation Space, the having to vary paths in Pushing Ice...

(that said, the Budrys doesn't spend as much time in the pyramid as i'd like it to. too much talking)

I like that Tiptree cover. :(

M. John Harrison's stuff gets a nice treatment.

i believe the cover of "her smoke rose up forever" is actually a recreation of one of klimt's paintings that was destroyed?

Maybe. Seems like the back cover IS by Klimt. Found something where the front cover illustration is said to be "Reconstructed by Andrew Smith," whatever that means.

Oh yeah, inside back dust jacket (in the copy I have at hand slightly obscured by library security device) it says "The front cover presents Zug der Toten (1903; destroyed in 1945) by Gustav Klimt, in a reconstruction by Andrew Smith; the back cover is Klimt's Tod und Leben (1915)." Thanks for clearing that up, Gott Punch.

I just read Simmons' The Terror and I honestly don't know what to think. Well, I mean, I do. I think that 800 pages was way too long, and even though the myth-y stuff that wraps it up helps, it was honestly a slog to get through hundreds and hundreds of pages of hyper-detailed winter survival stuff with scurvy, and frostbite, and starvation, and cannibalism, and murder, and ice and ice and snow and ice and ... oh yeah, once in a while an indomitable snow monster just shows up with no warning and dismembers people, and then it's immediately back to the scurvy, and military surgery, and frostbite, and starvation, etc.. And yet virtually no one ever discusses the monster, which I thought might be some sort of metaphor, except the book didn't need a metaphor and the monster is not a metaphor and ... I dunno. I guess I'm trying to say that the book would have been OK with no monster at all and didn't really need a monster any more than it needed several verbatim burial services for felled crew. And yet the addition of the monster definitely made it more intriguing, especially in light of the denouement. It was definitely some sort of arduous achievement, regardless, not just for me as a reader but Simmons as a researching and the book as semi-historical fiction.

I am suspicious of the forthcoming TV adaptation. Ultimately the novel probably works best as a read-only-once mood piece and having read it only once, I'm good. (I'm a sucker for Polar literature/explorations as such, so said details intrigue me more than anything else. Personally I still can't get over the fact that the crew really did haul all that seemingly useless stuff with them for no reason.)

Yeah, reminded me of the coffee grinder or whatever in Into Thin Air. "Men, only bring the barest of essentials! So, 100 kegs of rum, 300 gold candlesticks, a phonograph player, one pair of socks, one Welsh cap, 250 sets of silverware ..."

You know one of the problems I had with it, something that wasn't really a problem but sort of was ... a problem? Because we all know the expedition failed and everyone disappeared/died, it became something of a suspense-free endurance test. Like I wrote before, the last 100 pages or whatever brought a fresh vantage to what preceded it, but that almost could have been a different book in its own right, separate from all the survival stuff.

to the original question, there are a handful of books getting prestige editions or rereleases with covers by well-known artists but it's generally works that are decades old

Ted Chiang hated the cover art on the initial release of one of his books enough that he spent his own money to commission art for a cover and the publisher still was a dick about it and wouldn't use it! He eventually was annoyed enough to change publishers
http://withboots.blogspot.com/2005/02/adventures-in-publishing.html
http://www.cityartsmagazine.com/issues/eastside/2010/07/ted-chiang-vs-tor-publishing

the art for William Gibson's recent books makes no sense to me, either, and it's amazing how much better the covers (and sometimes the binding and printing) are on the editions released in other countries. I have at least one UK version because the cover is better.

this is possibly the worst sf cover I have ever seen
https://sciencefictionruminations.files.wordpress.com/2019/12/the-knight-of-kadar.jpg?w=474&h=770

awesome

little n large, the early years

what is going on here
https://sciencefictionruminations.files.wordpress.com/2020/04/the-hand-of-zei-sprague-de-camp-1.jpg?w=768&h=1281

is this like Catchphrase?

"trunk line?"

Samuel Delany's generally entertaining on facebook and he went through a series a few weeks ago about how he feels the newer editions of his work, that tend toward the abstract shapes and colors school of covers, are racist for not portraying main characters, who are mostly people of color in his work

I mean, that's fair! Also kind of a market thing where a lot of science fiction books are tending toward more abstract covers, especially a decade ago during that series of reissues

also wondering right now if the L. Sprague de Camp book above actually features trains with elephant-like creatures instead of locomotives because lol

An author's name has rarely been so apposite.

i could tell you some tales about *my* viagens interplanatarias