Note – this isn’t referring to the actual stories, there are plenty of good stories out there, I’m talking about the visual appeal of the sci-fi shelf in bookstores.
When I was in my teens, if I had a few minutes to spare on my way to catch the bus home from school I’d often drop into one of the bookstores I passed. I wasn’t particularly looking for something to buy, I would simply feast my eyes on the cover art on display. These were the days of Asimov, Heinlein, Doc Smith, Herbert et. al.
The covers were bright, vibrant, thought-provoking, and above all – imaginative. They begged questions – what’s happening here? Who are these people? What would it be like to live there? These images, decades later, still serve as inspiration for my own art.
Recently, I had half an hour to kill waiting for a picture frame to be put together, so I wandered across the road to a bookstore. I walked out a little while later despairing for the future of my chosen genre, because there was nothing inspiring in sight.
Most of the traditionally-published covers on show seemed to fall into one of three common groups.
Stylized to death: Maybe I’m just out of touch, but I can’t forgive what Jim Tierney did to the Dune series. He isn’t alone, though. There were other covers consisting of plain geometric shapes that IMO do nothing to entice a potential reader. Boring and pretentious.
Wishy-washy: While keeping close in appearance to traditional covers, these have had the life sucked out of them as if the artist was afraid to commit to a clear picture. Distant ships and space stations obscured in an airbrushed pastel haze. A kind of Disneyfied view of space – no hard edges or nasty harsh vacuum here!
CGI perfection: Also close to traditional, these go to the other extreme. Ships and assorted space hardware rendered too perfectly to be true. And always against the obligatory backdrop of sun peeping over the horizon of a planet. Boring and sterile.
But my biggest complaint across the board was a lack of imagination. All three groups come across as generic and dull. After the first few in each group, they all blended into each other, nothing unique or distinctive about them.
Am I just imagining it? Am I being too harsh?
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6 comments:
Oh my gosh, I totally agree, especially with those boring geometric covers. They don't make me want to pick up the book!
The cover art is what drew me to science fiction in the first place. The plain, nondescript ones with shapes just don't do it for me.
Hi Ian - I don't read Sci-Fi ... but my latest post is Africanfuturism ... Sci-Fi from a new author to me Nnedi Okorafor, Nigerian American ... the book is titled 'Binti'- with high praise from Neil Gaiman.
Cheers Hilary
Lynda, so glad it's not just me!
Alex, same here, I was drawn in by the artwork in the first place.
Hilary, I intend to read that book soon.
I couldn't comment on sci-fi covers, Ian, as I don't look at them, sorry. I adore thrillers and I think their covers are pretty good. But I like a good tagline to ask that question that you just must read the book to find the answer to. But you're lucky in that you can do the art yourself.
Thanks for visiting my blog. Makes me realize how long since I visited you!
Denise, isn't it interesting how different things draw in people differently? I completely ignore blurbs and taglines. Cover art catches my eye, then it's the first few paragraphs of the book itself that tells me whether or not to entrust a few hours of my time to this author.
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