Mar 11
Art direction: So let’s have one guy, all white, in the middle of a group of (let’s say) some “darker coloured” elves. Have one of them looking at him very carefully pondering the question, “Is he the pretender?”
(Rating: 6.55 out of 10)
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March 19th, 2009 at 4:39 pm
There’s clearly a twist, the…darker coloured elves… are the real pretenders, but to find out what they are pretending, you’ll have to read the sequels
btw is the white dude meant to be a midget? or is the artist just awful?
March 26th, 2010 at 1:01 am
You obviously dont know your artist as this is a work by donato giancola..look him up and then revise your idiotic statement.
March 26th, 2010 at 9:23 am
Hey Michael, thanks for posting!
You are indeed correct, Donato Giancola has some amazing art work. This cover included. Just in case you misunderstand what we are doing you should have a read of our about section:
“This is simply about the covers that grace them, with their own unique sort of imagination and brilliance. We laugh, yes, but wholeheartedly salute their greatness too.”
We have never wanted to be cruel against any artist and their work here. Like the books themselves they have an amazing creative edge that just isn’t found many places in life.
Hope you can enjoy some of the covers that we’ve had the pleasure of posting here!
March 26th, 2010 at 11:49 am
Its not about them being pieces of art, its the fact they somehow get put on book covers.
In any case, its truely amazing that you think that an artists other work somehow magically makes this cover any better.
You must be looking at something different from me, because i’m seeing a gang of cyberpunk dark elves chillin’ with their angelic halfling friend.
April 21st, 2010 at 6:24 am
The atevi (the black characters) are very large, at least a foot, maybe two feet, taller than the white guy in the picture (Bren Cameron). The artist got it right.
April 21st, 2010 at 10:35 pm
I’m seeing a bunch of people stuck in a meeting. As such this is a very good depiction of the series, which pretty much consists of a very long series of meetings and the setup for same. (Sometimes the setup takes a whole book.)
May 16th, 2010 at 12:43 am
Does fidelity to the story count? It is far from the first book in the sequence and anyone with any exposure to Cherryh’s writing would know what is going on. With the exception of the skin color for the atevi (they should be almost jet black) it does a rather good job of illustrating the contents. The fact that the original commenter hasn’t bothered to find this out is rather lame.
I note that while many of the covers on this site are truly awful, the comments are often not much better, totally missing the point of some of them, as in this case. The whole exercise seems akin to having a 15 year old rock fan write comments on Bach or Corelli.
May 17th, 2010 at 6:03 pm
It may surprise you, but people usually buy books they don’t already own. So they dont know anything about the story before buy it. If i went into a bookshop and saw that cover i wouldnt even bother looking for the first book in the series.
I’ve read a reasonable number of the books featured on this site. Stop being such a fanboy and appriecate the fact you can still enjoy something while acknowledging it cheesy badness.
The Forgotten Realms, Warhammer 40k, Star Trek, Star Wars covers all have fidelity to the story, they still have horrific covers.
May 17th, 2010 at 6:55 pm
Odd to me how some people don’t seem to get the nature of this site. It was my impression that, like all great parody, this site all about poking gentle fun at the eccentricities of this genre that we all love in our hearts. Getting angry at a post on this site would be like getting angry at Pratchett’s early Discworld stuff where he lovingly lampoons Conan, Lord of the Rings, Fafard and the Grey Mouser and many, many more. If we can’t laugh at ourselves then we certainly shouldn’t be allowed to laugh at anyone else.
May 20th, 2010 at 2:13 am
First thought-
It’s the scifi depiction of The Last Supper. See- that’s Judas hanging on The Bright White Jesus.
Seriously though, has noone else noticed the Charlie’s Angels in the back?
June 9th, 2010 at 5:40 pm
I’m SUPER disappointed that a C. J. Cherryh cover doesn’t feature cat people. Could these dark elf guys have been black jaguar people instead? I think there was a real missed opportunity here.