New 2017 titles and blurbs - DTI, McCormack DS9, and more!
- Thread starter DarkHorizon
- Start date
It's a problematic cover - and more so, it's unfinished and either Drexler, the editors, CBS or McCormack rejected it. I think it could have been a bit better - however, it's much better, more skillful and more conceptually interesting than 'Garak in headlights badly photoshopped onto [a long-ago destroyed] city'. Your strong reactions are all quite fascinating - and I think it's a shame this wasn't worked upon to a different result. It could have used a few more edits, a rethinking of the children [which must reference an idea in the story? Perhaps they conceptually represent the future of the society, since education is at threat?], and a few changes to Garak's dress and hand - and could be very fine.
Yeah, I think if it had been given a few more passes, it would have been fine, and I honestly find it more visually interesting than the actual cover.
I think part of the problem with that (admittedly unfinished) one is the same that hampers the cover we're getting: both of them are shoddy photo-manipulations. The cover of A Stitch in Time doesn't suffer because the artist drew Garak; a photograph isn't inherently superior to a sketch. Is it markedly more expensive to draw a cover by hand than to whip up a computer-generated image (The Hall of Heroes) or a photo-manipulation (Hearts and Minds)?
I wouldn't want to call Doug Drexler 'shoddy', because it is unfinished. But certain covers (the klingon one you mention) were ineffective. It's weird because DD is very talented. One way I think of them is that they are very aware of their own mediality and aren't meant to be realist - including his Fall covers which I loved but which were very deliberately and overtly CG paintings.
I love DD but I'd have no problem if they went back to hand drawn covers. Photoshopping faces of actors just never works
So why didn't they use a redress of the Batris or the merchant freighter? Or turn a blue-painted Ferengi maurader upside down and backward? They weren't even trying to be Trekky with that cover.
PS: Will there ever be a paperback compilation of the eshorts?
None of those would've even remotely fit the description of the ships in the novella (both of which are more runabout-sized), and it would've been pointless and silly to use a recognizable design for what is explicitly an unfamiliar starship within the story.
And like I said before, a cover with a spaceship and planets and stars is more "Trekky" than most of the previous DTI covers.
I'm sorry, but all three of the Prey covers are awful (especially Hall of Heroes), and I'm not sure how they got approved.
I too wish they would go back to Keith Birdsong or Dru Blair's painted work if they want to show characters on the novel covers.
Clearly one of us is less familiar with Star Trek. Maybe you should watch the show more.
Using a ship that "wouldn't even remotely fit the description", is clearly a cruiser scaled to "runabout-sized", and "pointless and silly...a recognizable design for what is explicitly an unfamiliar starship within the story" is the bread and butter of Trek, a defining feature of Trek's DNA.
Maybe last year. This year is all about the giant close-up faces superimposed over terrain. Or that awkward CGI devil. What was that all about?
Sarcasm?
I wouldn't necessarily call it "sarcasm" although that's in the same ballpark. I would be surprised if anyone other than Christopher read my posts as entirely straightfaced.
Not unrelated to my quip about Star Trek covers/SFX, didn't they use a Klingon ship 200 years out of date on one of the Prey covers?
Are there any plans for other planet guides?
Those are the only Trek ones we know of so far, although there is a Marvel Universe one coming out. That one is by Marc Sumerak and features "notes by the Guardians of the Galaxy". It's based off of the comics, so there is a lot of stuff not in the movies.
