Nov 02
Click for full imageTom Noir’s Art Direction: That’s a really nice painting you did for the Le Guin cover, but you know what would really sell it? Incorporating this photograph of my nephew and I at the Ren Faire. Don’t be silly, my mod seventies mullet-ponytail combo looks COMPLETELY medieval.
Published 1981 (maybe)
Many thanks to Tom!
(Average: 4.21 out of 10)
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(9.25 out of 10)
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November 2nd, 2010 at 10:11 am
I don’t know whose claws those are at the top… but IMO there’s nothing to dislike about this cover. Well, perhaps the text is overegged.
November 2nd, 2010 at 10:18 am
Yea you’re probably right Herm. Just a slow Tuesday 🙂
But I think you pointed out what kinda is strange about the cover. It’s so.. “wait what is going on?” It’s like they took a full picture and instead of using it all they just zoomed into a little section. It could be that all three of the books form a huge image
The Farthest shore has had a few covers worse than this one though.
Puffins – http://www.tavia.co.uk/earthsea/images/fs.jpg
Simon & Schuster – http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51TV5B1ME3L._SS500_.jpg
November 2nd, 2010 at 12:04 pm
It’s not the embarrassing eyesore of so many coves on this site, but I always found this one to be pretty ugly – something about the muddy colors, the busy text and that dude’s ponytail.
November 2nd, 2010 at 3:33 pm
I love when a publisher advertises something on the cover to the effect of “over three million copies in print.”
2,999,999 are in a warehouse and the author’s mom has a copy.
November 2nd, 2010 at 4:13 pm
‘In the middle of battle, all the Maltesers that Frodo had stuffed into his ears (for safekeeping) fell out, and rained down upon the ground.’
November 2nd, 2010 at 8:40 pm
The kid looks like he’s adjusting his underwear …
November 3rd, 2010 at 1:22 am
Is that clawed thing supposed to be Orm Embar? (Or, perish the thought, Kalessin? The Eldest, reduced to *this*?)
I suppose the tall one is meant to be Ged. Now Ged’s clothing is rarely described, but Arren is wearing ‘seaman’s garb’, as you’d expect of a book almost entirely consisting of sea voyages, so Ged being an old seaman is almost certainly going to be wearing practical stuff to go sailing in as well. Not once in the entire series is he described as wearing either flowing white robes or a judo outfit. It’s not that kind of book.
Ged and Arren are also notable for the nut-brown skin they have not got. Is Ged a Karg now? That puts an interesting light on the first chapter of _A Wizard of Earthsea_ if so.
SI, that Puffin cover is hilariously bad, so bad as to defy description. Sticking a child’s drawing on the front of a work of finely-crafted brilliance like _The Farthest Shore_, well, I’m not sure if it’s genius or madness. The S&S cover is not much worse than this one, though there Ged is actually wearing ludicrous robes *on board ship*, and _Lookfar_ seems to have shrunk to the size of a dinghy. But at least the light is so ambiguous in that one that you can almost convince yourself that they got the skin colours right. And it has the right *atmosphere*, somehow, which the Puffin cover, and this one, utterly fail to have.
(I don’t think the text is over-egged at all.The series *is* magnificent: the first three books in particular are one of the foundation stones of the modern fantasy novel, and one that I wish more people would stand on, rather than turning out yet another sodding cod-Tolkien mashup.)
November 3rd, 2010 at 2:07 pm
Oh man, someone needs to submit that Puffins cover so that we can have fun thinking up what that dragon is saying!
December 13th, 2010 at 9:25 pm
“The cover is toppling over! Quick, hold it up while I get some glue!”
July 3rd, 2015 at 1:08 pm
I wonder what the cover of the Michelangelo biography looks like..
August 28th, 2021 at 9:51 pm
Surprisingly dry looking for the situation they find themselves in.
August 29th, 2021 at 2:50 am
@fred: magical waterproofing? That robe probably isn’t comfy if it gets soggy.
“If you don’t want to be a soggy Wizard, get Ocean-off! Ocean-Off, from School of Wizardry Potions, Charms, and Magical Doohickeys.”