Apr 5, 2012

Book Trailers Still Suck


Fresh off this morning's cover debut from Orbit, Gollancz fires back with A RED COUNTRY book trailer.


When are publishers going to stop wasting their time on these?

Not only does it not convey Abercrombie's tone at all (unless A RED COUNTRY represents a significant departure from his style), it just looks awful. There is a static "texture" filter placed over some CGI nonsense cut from a 1997 PC game. And that scream?

Blegh.


Covering Covers: Red Country by Joe Abercrombie

After yesterday's coversplosion, Orbit followed it up by debuting the cover of Joe Abercrombie's Red Country, which happens to be my most anticipated fantasy title of the year - a fact that would still be true even if The Winds of Winter, A Memory of Light, and The Doors of Stone were all due out this year.


Cover Art by Michael Frost, Gene Mollica, and Lauren Panepinto.

Ta Da! Fits nicely with the other US covers of Abercrombie's stand alone novels, although it appears Joe Abercrombie is quickly becoming a "big name" author. Also, love the texture and gritiness of the blood and dirt. It's a character centric cover done well.

And how many fingers does that guy have? 6...7...8...?


I like it even more when it's with it's friends.

If you are looking for more information about everything we know about Red Country so far, jump over A Dribble of Ink's recap post, which includes some spoilerific info previously reported by yours truly (be forewarned, thar be spoilers over yonder).

For those of you with spoiler intolerance, here's the safe summary from Orbit.

Shy South comes home to her farm to find a blackened shell, her brother and sister stolen, and knows she’ll have to go back to bad old ways if she’s ever to see them again. She sets off in pursuit with only her cowardly old step-father Lamb for company. But it turns out he’s hiding a bloody past of his own. None bloodier. Their journey will take them across the lawless plains, to a frontier town gripped by gold fever, through feuds, duels, and massacres, high into unmapped mountains to a reckoning with ancient enemies, and force them into alliance with Nicomo Cosca, infamous soldier of fortune, a man no one should ever have to trust…
Red Country comes out November 20th in the US and October 18th for those who still suffer under the tyrannous rule of Queen Elizabeth II.

Apr 4, 2012

Covering Covers: An Early Look at Orbit Fall/Winter Titles


It's a coverpalooza!!! Over at the Orbit Books Blog, creative mastermind Lauren Panepinto provided an early look at 20 new Orbit covers from their Fall 2012 / Winter 2013 line-up. No sighting on the Joe Abercrombie Red Country cover just yet but there are some gems in the line-up, particulary Robert Jackson Bennett's American Elsewhere and Jesse Bullington's The Folly of the World. I'm also a huge fan of the Cobley and Sapkowski import covers which manage to stand out while hitting all of the core demographic triggers (swords, castles, and dragons for fantasy / spaceships, planets, and stars for SF). Here are a few of my favorites, hop on over to the Orbit site for the full haul. 

 


American Elsewhere design by Kirk Benshoff

 
  

 Michael Cobley illustrations by Steve Stone, design by Kirk Benshoff.



 Sapkowski illustrations by CD Projekt Red & Massive Black, design by Lauren Panepinto

 

 
The Red Knight illustration by Epica Prima, design by Lauren Panepinto

 

 Folly of the World design by Lauren Panepinto


Seven Kings illustration by Richard Anderson, design by Lauren Panepinto.

I think my favorite is either American Elsewhere or The Time of Contempt. I like Folly of the World a lot too but it reminds me a bit too much of Corwin Ericson's Swell for some reason.

What's your favorite?

Apr 3, 2012

A Goddess of Wisdom

From Sofia Samatar's review of M. Rickert's excellent Map of Dreams.

"Again, this is what I call a double-voiced criticism. On the one hand, I'm saying it didn't work for me; on the other I'm saying I'm glad Rickert tried. We need writers who try. We might as well all stop reading if everyone's going to play it safe."


Quoted. For. Truth.

Different isn't always good. But it's rarely more of the same.

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