Are modern science fiction covers tasteless?

[gdoc]

A comment on price. It has never been cheaper to buy original art. Deviantart, a site used by artists, is awash with talented, original artists few of whom are selling anything. Many of them create beautiful, original work which would work well as cover art. Many are science fiction fans too. Most would work for low cost.

My understanding is cover art in publishing houses is dealt with by marketing people. Having worked with them in my own career I can appreciate then why the art and graphics side of things is often an afterthought. Most designers have had this experience; a typical example is a stylish cover with sober, balanced typography being returned to the designer with a note to make the font more science fictiony and a lot bigger etc.

 

[maeda]

a typical example is a stylish cover with sober, balanced typography being returned to the designer with a note to make the font more science fictiony and a lot bigger etc.

Returned only once? that's optimistic

 

[gdoc]

Returned only once? that's optimistic

Simplified for the sake of brevity Constant aggro with philistines questioning every design decision, the nuances of which are lost on them. Perhaps that is closer.

 

[Khuratokh]

The original covers for the Lost Fleet series featured what was probably meant to be the protagonist standing on an alien planet or corridor carrying a huge gun.
This despite the fact he never once touched a gun or left his ship.
But they probably needed something that screamed "Military science fiction"

 

[gdoc]

The original covers for the Lost Fleet series featured what was probably meant to be the protagonist standing on an alien planet or corridor carrying a huge gun.
This despite the fact he never once touched a gun or left his ship.
But they probably needed something that screamed "Military science fiction"

That is one of my pet hates. Generic covers cannot possibly be the product of the author, who will be inclined towards something that reflects the content. Then again, even major authors often complain they have no say over the covers. It is all handled by the publisher's marketing team.

 

[Clockworkbot]

Not sure if it's been mentioned but I feel like the SF masterworks capture the classic feel:

SF Masterworks

 

[gdoc]

Not sure if it's been mentioned but I feel like the SF masterworks capture the classic feel:

SF Masterworks

Yes. It is clear they put in the effort and commission original artwork.

 

[E.Maree]

I really, really enjoy modern sci-fi covers. Modern technology has done wonders for it: more custom art, more fantastic photo-realistic spaceships, gorgeously rendered galaxies, and far better representation of ladies and people of colour. Plus you get some amazing sci-fi novels like ILLUMINAE, with diagrams of the ships and text layouts designed directly to complement the text. (My photos here, photos by the authors here and here. If that final image doesn't blow your mind, phew, I dunno what will.)

None of the covers in the original post work for me. Minimalism is nice, but I like detailed, lovingly rendered art. I'll take a Paul Kidby Discworld cover over those sci-fi covers any day, and I absolutely adore all of the covers in Maeda's post, far more than I love any of the classics in the thread.

 

[WaylanderToo]

I really, really enjoy modern sci-fi covers. Modern technology has done wonders for it: more custom art, more fantastic photo-realistic spaceships, gorgeously rendered galaxies, and far better representation of ladies and people of colour. Plus you get some amazing sci-fi novels like ILLUMINAE, with diagrams of the ships and text layouts designed directly to complement the text. (My photos here, photos by the authors here and here. If that final image doesn't blow your mind, phew, I dunno what will.)

None of the covers in the original post work for me. Minimalism is nice, but I like detailed, lovingly rendered art. I'll take a Paul Kidby Discworld cover over those sci-fi covers any day, and I absolutely adore all of the covers in Maeda's post, far more than I love any of the classics in the thread.

I have to be honest here (and it could be 'coz I'm an old fart) that the Illuminae cover does nothing for me, the 2nd cover is a bit of a mess (and puts me in mind of this http://www.newtrading.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/bedding-comforters-sets-queen-beds.jpg), the 3rd cover is very clever - but I'm not convinced that it works beyond trying to show how clever it is... if that makes sense?

 

[E.Maree]

WaylanderToo, that was completely my fault for not being clear in my post -- the other photos aren't covers, they're all inside pages of the same book. The Illuminae cover is fairly plain but as a total package, it's gorgeous: the entire book has fancy typesetting and type design to complement the story. Very early in the story, there's a disaster onboard the colonisation ships, and you flip through this list of names that feels endless. When a chapter includes spaceship dogfights, the white page turns black and covered in stars, and the text weaves about in the path of the ships. When the AI running the colony ship starts breaking down, you see the glitches very visually, prose becoming garbled code.

It's admittedly a bit gimmicky, but it's the first mainstream novel I've seen that uses such a creative approach. And most importantly, the story is very gripping and powerful, so the visual gimmick doesn't feel like it's bolstering a weak plot.

(The story is more YA sci-fi than adult sci-fi though. I know that isn't every sci-fi fan's cuppa tea.)

This is one of the things I really like about modern sci-fi, the innovation goes beyond the cover. Whether it's maps, cool paragraph break images, fancy fonts, included images, schematics, spot colours or typography, we're at a point where printing technology is allowing some really interesting things to happen to our novels.

It's not all big things like Illuminae. It's little things, the paragraph breaks and chapter headings, the font choices for the first word of a chapter. Pick any bestselling sci-fi novel, and chacnes are it'll have typesetting and layout details that would have blown my mind twenty years ago.

 

[Cayleb]

I don't know how old the average Chroner (if there is such an animal) might be, but I suspect I am older than most of them (actually I'm certain of it). So please keep in mind that the following comments issue from a brain that grew up in a very different age with very different values and has, to a large extent, held on to those old values.

The origin of the cover of a book does not matter, it may feature a Constable or a Picasso, it might show a heap of the dead from Auschwitz or Marylyn Monroe, it doesn't matter for it is purely a marketing decision and the author's desires are irrelevant. But where it does matter is the impact it has on the potential buyer of the work and I will not buy a book which has a front cover that I consider to be vulgar or crass or insulting to something I hold dear, and I fear that more and more book covers now seem to do just that. That, to my mind, is the important thing, does that cover offend me, and if it does, well, I'm sorry Deserving Author, I don't buy your book because I am not going to sit somewhere in public and display a cover which says something with which I do not agree.

 

[toliro]

I think I can answer this one.

Older Sci-fi books have indeed covers in poor taste. Or at least covers that underline sex instead of science fiction. Even the original poster for Star Wars shows Leia and Luke showing skin (Leia her leg, Luke his chest, even though we never actually see any of that in the movie.)

The reason why that was the case is because sci-fi was a very small niche in literature and the average Joe had to be enticed with sex and violence to pick up the book and read it. Best sellers, after all, use explicit sex and violence as a selling point.

But now things have changed. Sci-Fi is a no longer an obscure niche, but a dominant literary genre. Why? Because now geeks have the highest paying jobs and are the consumers with the largest quantity of disposable income. Thus, you can sell sci-fi to a geek without having to rely on sex, like publishers used to. Geeks will ne interested in the sci-fi more than the sex.

In a way this is a good thing: Sci-fi gets its value for the creativity, not for the sex. On the other hand, that means sci-fi is becoming, well, saturated.

 

[Lew Rockwell Fan]

I never tried one before now, but yeah, covers taste like sawdust. Oh, wait a minute. Of course! They're MADE out of sawdust!

I just miss all the scantily clad Frazetta babes.

 

[WaylanderToo]

I think I can answer this one.

Older Sci-fi books have indeed covers in poor taste. Or at least covers that underline sex instead of science fiction. Even the original poster for Star Wars shows Leia and Luke showing skin (Leia her leg, Luke his chest, even though we never actually see any of that in the movie.)

The reason why that was the case is because sci-fi was a very small niche in literature and the average Joe had to be enticed with sex and violence to pick up the book and read it. Best sellers, after all, use explicit sex and violence as a selling point.

But now things have changed. Sci-Fi is a no longer an obscure niche, but a dominant literary genre. Why? Because now geeks have the highest paying jobs and are the consumers with the largest quantity of disposable income. Thus, you can sell sci-fi to a geek without having to rely on sex, like publishers used to. Geeks will ne interested in the sci-fi more than the sex.

In a way this is a good thing: Sci-fi gets its value for the creativity, not for the sex. On the other hand, that means sci-fi is becoming, well, saturated.

the thing is though that if you look at the veritable flood of female authored 'Urban Fantasy' (thankfully it's now being marketed as paranormal romance, though still clogs up the SF/F sections in bookstores and libraries) I'd say nearly 100% of those show 'soft-focus' style art of many chests etc so it still goes on

 

[hardsciencefanagain]

restrained gaughan:

 

[hardsciencefanagain]

the Dillons,of course

 

[hardsciencefanagain]

the incomparable POwers:

 

[hardsciencefanagain]

Paul Lehr:

 

[David M. Kelly]

I also tend to prefer the older covers, but I grew up with them. I think there are numerous reasons for the change, many of which have been outlined. Changing design technology, budget cuts, editorial "influence" and no doubt some laziness in some areas too.

That said I think there are still good covers out there. It's a mixed bag and always has been, we tend to remember the good stuff in the past and forget the bad.

Something that has to be taken in to account now is that covers need to look good at very small sizes on Amazon ("good" as-in distinct and legible) which tends to lead to very large typography for titles/author names etc. This was never a problem earlier because the cover was seen "in full."

It's certainly true that places like DeviantArt have a lot of talented artists and it should therefore be fairly easy to find good art for covers. The question I would have would be do the publishers look that hard though? Or is something less creative that looks "okay" at the size of a postage stamp and costs a lot less going to be the winner?

Also something that publishers do is deliberately publish older books with very different covers to make them look "new". This can be a somewhat deliberately deceptive practice and I'm sure they'd all deny it, but I'm sure it happens more often than they'd like to admit.
Also has some people have pointed out. Traditionally published authors have little to no say over the cover design typically. Self-published authors obviously have more latitude in that respect, but that comes with it's own issues.

 

[BigBadBob141]

On the whole I think the Americans usually have better covers then UK publishers.
And the covers have some context to the books content.
For an example look at the Ballantine "Best Of......" series.
As I've said in the past the UK simply slap a tacky Chris Foss space ship on the cover and have done with it.
No matter what the contents!