Reactor reviews Suzan Palumbo’s newest, a space-opera retelling of The County of Monte Cristo. Sign me up.
And enjoy their review of an upcoming Netflix “Sci-fi movie with jokes,” It’s What’s Inside.
In honor of the anniversary of Star Trek: The Original Show (in Canada, where it aired first) Chris Barkley shares his 15 favorite episodes. How do they match up with yours?
Next year’s WorldCon, in Seattle, Washington, USA, will feature a film festival. Thanks to File 770 for this item.
According to Deadline, Amazon Studios is delaying Season three of Good Omens, possibly because of the sexual harassment allegations against Neil Gaiman.
I’m probably not going to seek out the book, but I’m posting this review from Nerds of a Feather because of the thoughtful way Roseanne wrestles with her reactions to Asunder, by Kersten Hall.
Space.com wants to be sure you’re ready for the partial lunar eclipse on September 17.
It’s pumpkin spice season! Here is a pumpkin spiced bourbon cocktail (with mocktail directions) for your fall pleasure.https://www.halfbakedharvest.com/bourbon-pumpkin-smash/#wprm-recipe-container-133457
Generally my complaints about trends in genre publishing can be dismissed as the grumbling of a grumpy old person, but apparently many other fans of science fiction, fantasy, and horror are not happy with the quality of book cover art nowadays. A Reddit topic with 200 replies (which I learned about on File 770) asks what is going on: https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/1fc88dh/wtf_happened_to_book_cover_art/
Explanations for why book cover art is so dreary and unimaginative now include, for instance: (1) people only see tiny thumbnails when shopping on Amazon, so why would publishers spend money on quality art; (2) more people are reading genre books than ever, but apparently many of them are embarrassed to be seen holding a book with a cover that screams, “Genre!”; (3) the art styles of graphic novels are strongly influencing the cover art of other genre works; (4) publishers are just saving money, and using clip-art or reusable templates or just a very plain look lets them assign the project to less expensive graphic designers rather than illustrators; (5) the premier illustrators are aging out; and (6) it’s just a normal stylistic change that many (non-old/non-grumpy) book buyers are fine with.
If you gloried in the old (from 15-20 years back) world of covers by John Jude Palencar, Kinuko Y. Craft, Donato Giancola, Stephan Martiniere, et al., the current state of cover art looks rather shoddy. But maybe this is a case of only remembering the best of the past, where comparing averages might not be so excessively different?
Thanks for the recap, I didn’t get a chance to read that article.
Self-published and indie published books don’t have the resources for the great, classic, art-quality covers we used to have. As somebody whose work has been indie published I understand that. I do think the “thumbnail” point is legitimate. Certainly assigning an art department to create a cover using open source art rather than pay a professional illustrator is attractive to the Big 5.
What I notice are the fads in covers. In the fantasy genre; lots of birds and flowers. Don’t get me wrong, I love them, but I sure notice how many covers have them. I understand that for writers like Scalzi, the publisher wants covers that identify him–hence the rather generic similarity to the Old Man’s War series cover. (On the other hand, one of the best covers of last year was Starter Villain’s, in my opinion.)
And then there are the strangely extravagant touches on hardbacks, like the sprayed page ends. Pretty, yes, but… necessary? Value added? Not sure.
Yes, the birds and small animals (often in silhouette) along with flowers, vines or other foliage; the young, attractive person’s face taking up most of the cover; the cartoon style art; the blood dripping from fangs or filling up a wine glass; the ominous caricature of an old house… Older book covers often pretended at least to be illustrating a scene from the book, but that no longer seems to be the case with new books. There was abstract art like the Richard Powers covers, but most covers tried to show something related to the story, either an action scene or some spectacular bit of technology.
Baen still seems to be sticking with its traditional cover art, but that’s the only publisher I can think of that is. And romance novels seem to be moving very slightly away from the bare-chested, muscular male torso cover art, but there’s still a good bit of that.
My opinions are mixed. I liked some of the older book art, I like some of the new art. There are always fashion trends and I enjoy a variety. There are a couple of things I don’t like. For instance, in middle grade books covers are skewing young to me – instead of looking like it’s for a 12-year old, it looks like a 7 year old should be reading it, and I have never liked anime and manga art, just the whole style and how women are portrayed. I know price matters and that physical books have competition that makes it ever more important. I can compromise some for that, but I definitely don’t agree with the thumbnail comments. For one thing, if you click on a book to buy the image is larger anyway, but that completely ignores the fact you’re ordering a physical object that could sit on your shelf for years and that you will read it, not the litle thumbnail image. You should enjoy using a physical object, including a book, and it should be decently made for the purpose, including good spines and paper and type that make it easy to read and make it a pleasure to spend time with, and details of printing and art make a difference in how you experience the book and the quality and how it represents the writing. Life is too short to own crap, and you don’t need ridiculous excess, but decent craftsmanship and thoughtfulness are worthwhile.