Most Striking Covers

[BrotherBenny]

As much as NF is probably my fave ST lit series, the recent covers are impersonal with inanimate objects / skylines. So, I don't think their covers count, really.

My fave covers are probably the 2 Avatar covers though. They looked great and had me really wanting to read what was inside (which I really enjoyed).


http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/_...ne_cover.jpg/292px-Avatar,_Book_One_cover.jpg
http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/_...wo_cover.jpg/292px-Avatar,_Book_Two_cover.jpg

Except for the fact that they don't merge perfectly from cover to cover like the Terok Nor triptych.

^I love Drexler's Vanguard covers, and the Titan covers too. The covers being done today are in the most part orders of magnitude better than the drek of times past.

 

[Therin of Andor]

But the big name of a talented guy like him still means nothing if the end result looks like something a mildly talented hobbyist could render out on his home PC.

I wanna know, how come all these supposedly "mildly talented hobbyists" aren't churning out their artwork on their home PCs and lugging their portfolios to all the publishers?

Maybe they have trouble following editors' directions, or meeting tight deadlines?

 

[ST-One]

But the big name of a talented guy like him still means nothing if the end result looks like something a mildly talented hobbyist could render out on his home PC.

I wanna know, how come all these supposedly "mildly talented hobbyists" aren't churning out their artwork on their home PCs and lugging their portfolios to all the publishers?

Maybe they have trouble following editors' directions, or meeting tight deadlines?

It's not a hobby if you get paid for it.
But all the hobbyists Drexler features on his blog and gets into the Ships of the Line calendar outshine his own renders.

 

[Therin of Andor]

Except for the fact that they don't merge perfectly from cover to cover like the Terok Nor triptych.

They do on "Twist of Faith", the reprint omnibus.
http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20060905125157/memoryalpha/en/images/7/7c/Twist_of_Faith.jpg

 

[Therin of Andor]

It's not a hobby if you get paid for it.

Who says? I know several people who've turned their hobby into a money-earner.

My grandmother never considered her knitting and crocheting to be more than a hobby, but she made items as gifts and sometimes got paid.

I've sold paintings and drawings in art shows, but I did them as a hobby. Not my fault if people offered me cash.

I write as a hobby, but a few finished pieces have turned into sales.

 

[ST-One]

It's not a hobby if you get paid for it.

Who says? I know several people who've turned their hobby into a money-earner.

My grandmother never considered her knitting and crocheting to be more than a hobby, but she made items as gifts and sometimes got paid.

I've sold paintings and drawings in art shows, but I did them as a hobby. Not my fault if people offered me cash.

I write as a hobby, but a few finished pieces have turned into sales.

Everything's an arguement, isn't it?

 

[Therin of Andor]

Everything's an arguement, isn't it?

Oh, for goodness sake. I thought it was a discussion. On a discussion board.

 

[Christopher]

Except for the fact that they don't merge perfectly from cover to cover like the Terok Nor triptych.

They do on "Twist of Fate", the reprint omnibus.
http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20060905125157/memoryalpha/en/images/7/7c/Twist_of_Faith.jpg

That's right. The individual cover scans posted above are cropped so that part of the middle of the image is missing.

 

[Janos]

As much as NF is probably my fave ST lit series, the recent covers are impersonal with inanimate objects / skylines. So, I don't think their covers count, really.

My fave covers are probably the 2 Avatar covers though. They looked great and had me really wanting to read what was inside (which I really enjoyed).

Except for the fact that they don't merge perfectly from cover to cover like the Terok Nor triptych.

^I love Drexler's Vanguard covers, and the Titan covers too. The covers being done today are in the most part orders of magnitude better than the drek of times past.

You`re right that the covers to the 2 Avatar original books don`t appear to neatly merge. However, I totally forgot that they were collected (which I didn`t get since I have the original 2 seperate novels) with it appears other books (since more names than S.D. Perry appear on the cover). Anyhow, the cover to Twist of Faith has the combined Avatar covers. And it looks great!

http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20110220112850/memoryalpha/en/images/7/7c/Twist_of_Faith.jpg

 

[Sakrysta]

I pretty much love all the DS9 Relaunch covers that aren't part of another series - and even Demons of Air and Darkness is pretty nifty.

When the Mission Gammas came out, we were all thrilled to get a "full cast photo" and they're still big favorites in my book for that.

I LOVE the Typhon Pact covers. All of 'em. Gorgeous.

I have to say that I really like all the most recent releases. I think the updated font for the TNG and multi-series titles is very classic looking. So much better than the 90s rainbow brite stripe on the TNG numbered novels.

 

[OverlordSpock]

The covers being done today are in the most part orders of magnitude better than the drek of times past.

I'm not totally sure about that. Although many of the covers of more modern TrekLit are good, they also have a tendency to be a little sterile—Photochops or 3D Renders. They're nice to look at, but they're missing something.

Although I know it's never going to be par for the course again, I really miss the fully painted covers. Yes, some of them were bad, but there were also some beautiful ones as well, even if they were still floating heads.

I remember Boris's (Boris Vallejo?) work in particular being spectacular: Uhura's Song, Mindshadow, The Wounded Sky, Battlestations!, The Final Reflection and Dwellers in the Crucible (the rendition of which made me fall in love with T'Shael ) are all great to spectacular covers that have a warmth to them that the modern covers just don't have.

(Another good example, that I don't think Boris did, was the cover to Bantam's Vulcan!.)

Again, not that there aren't good modern covers, but they're just not the same...

 

[Christopher]

^Yeah, I really liked Vallejo's rendering of T'Shael on the Dwellers cover. The problem being that the T'Shael described in the text was rather plain with "straight, dark hair cropped at her shoulders" and the one on the cover was gorgeous with wavy golden-brown hair that fell past her shoulders. Her face on the cover also reminded me of a very pretty girl from the high school I was attending at the time.

 

[OverlordSpock]

^ I just conveniently "ignore" her "plain" description in the book and picture her as she is on the cover.

 

[BrotherBenny]

The covers being done today are in the most part orders of magnitude better than the drek of times past.

I'm not totally sure about that. Although many of the covers of more modern TrekLit are good, they also have a tendency to be a little sterile—Photochops or 3D Renders. They're nice to look at, but they're missing something.

Although I know it's never going to be par for the course again, I really miss the fully painted covers. Yes, some of them were bad, but there were also some beautiful ones as well, even if they were still floating heads.

I remember Boris's (Boris Vallejo?) work in particular being spectacular: Uhura's Song, Mindshadow, The Wounded Sky, Battlestations!, The Final Reflection and Dwellers in the Crucible (the rendition of which made me fall in love with T'Shael ) are all great to spectacular covers that have a warmth to them that the modern covers just don't have.

(Another good example, that I don't think Boris did, was the cover to Bantam's Vulcan!.)

Again, not that there aren't good modern covers, but they're just not the same...

^Yeah, I really liked Vallejo's rendering of T'Shael on the Dwellers cover. The problem being that the T'Shael described in the text was rather plain with "straight, dark hair cropped at her shoulders" and the one on the cover was gorgeous with wavy golden-brown hair that fell past her shoulders. Her face on the cover also reminded me of a very pretty girl from the high school I was attending at the time.

^ I just conveniently "ignore" her "plain" description in the book and picture her as she is on the cover.

Vallejo is a fantasy artist and if you look at the vast majority of his work, it consists of scantily clad women (and female aliens etc) with dragons or other such creatures. I personally that kind of thing is out of place in a Trek novel, though that said, I liked the Dwellers' cover too. She was a hottie.

 

[OverlordSpock]

Vallejo is a fantasy artist and if you look at the vast majority of his work, it consists of scantily clad women (and female aliens etc) with dragons or other such creatures. I personally that kind of thing is out of place in a Trek novel, though that said, I liked the Dwellers' cover too. She was a hottie.

True, but my point, despite the T'Shael sidetrack, was not that Vallejo's covers had beautiful women on them (in fact, most of them didn't), but rather that they evoked a feeling rather than just being a picture. And, I just used Vallejo's covers as an example, but not the exclusive example of my point.

 

[Christopher]

Vallejo is a fantasy artist and if you look at the vast majority of his work, it consists of scantily clad women (and female aliens etc)...

Yeah, I know -- which is why I look at it.

 

[Snaploud]

I saw a new non-trek fantasy book in Barnes and Noble yesterday. The cover was purposely made to look stained and dirty. That has to qualify as one of the worst cover designs I've ever seen.

Note to marketers: find another profession if you think making a book look dirty/stained is a good idea.

 

[Therin of Andor]

The cover was purposely made to look stained and dirty. That has to qualify as one of the worst cover designs I've ever seen.

Some of Jasper Fforde's novels are deliberately made to look shelf-worn and tatty.

This ST: SCE omnibus was made to look worn and tatty. Looks great!
http://memory-beta.wikia.com/wiki/Foundations

Note to marketers: find another profession if you think making a book look dirty/stained is a good idea.

Marketers, designers and editors' brief on cover art: Make the book impossible to ignore, and even better, make it something the browser will pick up to read the blurb. The chances of a sale greatly increase if only you can intrigue the browser enough to pick up the book.