Apr 30
Rachel J Comments: No, my tagline is not stolen, and yes, my hair does have a life of its own. Now excuse me while I attack forty lens flares, a doorway, a glowing mist and a block of high-rise flats with my trusty katana.
Published 2011
April 30th, 2012 at 9:07 am
There must be a better way to cut your own hair.
April 30th, 2012 at 9:18 am
The poor woman can’t win. If we see her from this side, she gets a TING! tag. If we see her from the other side she’d be landed with a DEVIL’S DUMPLINGS tag. What IS a girl to do?
April 30th, 2012 at 9:39 am
Art direction: “Show me an attractive woman from behind. Make sure her butt is the focal point near the center. She’s not Japanese, but frame her in a torii and give her a katana to make it exotic. She’s facing a pink mist over some buildings or something, but that’s not important. Did I mention her butt?”
April 30th, 2012 at 11:23 am
its possibly the least of her problems – but isn’t her right hand the wrong way round?!
April 30th, 2012 at 11:27 am
Note the lack of shadows to be read on the cover. I fear Kamiko accidentally ended up on this cover by mistake:
http://www.goodshowsir.co.uk/2009/03/goddess-glow-power-gooooooooo/
April 30th, 2012 at 11:45 am
Another back-breakingly improbable pose. Being a woman, of course she has to show her butt and her breasts AT THE SAME TIME, while simultaneously contorting herself to draw a sword from the sheath on her back, AND giving us a smouldering glance looking over her shoulder.
April 30th, 2012 at 12:23 pm
@suzita. I’m not sure what’s up with her hand– I can’t even tell what side her fingers are meant to be on, actually. I’d say there’s a reason the artist put all those streaks and lens flares over it.
And if anyone’s curious, apparently the fair contortionist is an assassin or something to the “Fae Court”. “Shadow reading” comes into it somehow, but the blurb was rather vague on that point.
April 30th, 2012 at 12:30 pm
What you don’t see is what happened next: she fell over trying to get the sword out of the scabbard from that awkward angle.
April 30th, 2012 at 2:00 pm
Aahhhh, Urban Fantasy, the genre of anime-proportioned chicks waving magic swords in picturesquely grungy cities-as-viewed-by-suburbanites.
I can sort of accept the cartoony proportions. It’s not like book covers of the past had realistic women either. But those jeans — if they’re skin-tight, they shouldn’t have all those wrinkles, and if they’re not skin-tight, she’s well past dangerously thin. Her bottom is very prominent, and just the sight of that deep, clingy, intrusive denim gives me the creepy-crawlies.
She’s got her arms in an action pose, but there’s no sense of movement or muscle tension. With her left arm like that, her left shoulder blade and trapezius muscle should be really prominent.
Her katana isn’t even strapped on. She’s just holding it back there, in one of the very worst combat positions ever.
I would be curious to know whether this is based on a photograph of a model (in which case it has been photoshopped past all recognition), or if it is digital art based on photographs or original digital art or (the least likely these days) actual painted illustration.
April 30th, 2012 at 2:53 pm
@Alessandra Kelley– I’d say it’s a doctored photograph, or maybe more than one. Apart from everything already mentioned, you can see where the left leg has been cut-and-pasted. Or, if it is an original, it’s one that’s been hastily photoshopped to change the figure’s pose. (“What do you mean, you didn’t show her holding a katana?! Call yourself an urban fantasy illustrator? Fix it immediately!”)
April 30th, 2012 at 3:01 pm
From watching movies most swords make a TINNGGG! sound when they are unsheathed. This one looks like it starts playing music by some sort of x-factor boy band.
April 30th, 2012 at 4:33 pm
SI, I humbly suggest you are confusing the sound of an unsheathing sword (shhhhhhhhhhTing!) with the Colgate-inspired visual effect of a shiny sword catching the light (TING!)
April 30th, 2012 at 7:07 pm
It’s raining TINGS hallelujah.
April 30th, 2012 at 9:48 pm
Has anyone made a Random Urban Fantasy Cover Generator yet?
Ingredients:
-Random blonde or brunette in tank-top and jeans
-in a spine-twisting pose,
-holding a gun or a sword or both,
-in front of a darkened city-scape,
-with possibly some sort of animal looming out of the darkness.
Airbrush and add lens flare and PRESTO! Generic Urban Fantasy Cover.
May 1st, 2012 at 5:31 am
Make that showing off her breasts AND her butt. They really like to fudge on how much boob would realistically be showing in the various “looking over shoulder while making sure both cheeks are properly displayed” position.
May 1st, 2012 at 5:37 am
Seriously, based on what I can read form the terrible shading, her breasts would need to project sideways, like, in parallel to her torso, from a point originating somewhere in the vicinity of her armpits, to show like that.
May 1st, 2012 at 6:30 am
@Tom Noir, “Has anyone made a Random Urban Fantasy Cover Generator yet?”
You mean, anyone apart from the publishers?
May 1st, 2012 at 9:09 pm
Well, it ain’t a “true” Generic Urban Fantasy cover without a generic “tribal” tattoo pasted on…
May 1st, 2012 at 9:10 pm
“There can only be one MILLION Urban Fantasy titles. It’s her time to choose, without being able to tell one from the other.”
May 1st, 2012 at 9:13 pm
I triedf to holdf my right arm thayt way — anf now I have to type with only my left hand. I’ll sue that *%&¤# publisher11
May 2nd, 2012 at 4:03 pm
@A.R. Yngve: Jim C. Hines, who writes urban fantasy, has to be the most game author ever. He actually tried to replicate the poses of girls on urban fantasy covers!! — and found out in the meantime how painful they are.
Hilarious results can be seen here:
http://www.jimchines.com/2012/01/striking-a-pose/
June 21st, 2012 at 11:44 pm
I’m kinda hoping this is a picture book..
August 1st, 2012 at 1:44 pm
Gene Mollica is the cover artist. I’m pretty sure he just lights and shoots the model the way he wants (props and all) in HDR then does some minor painting over the image taken.
Seems to be the trend in quite a bit of cover art lately, especially in the YA genre. It reminds me of the cheese ball romance novels from the 70/80s, homogenous and booooooring. I can’t stand it personally but hey, the artists have to make a living and that’s what authors and publishers want. Turn around working that way is quick.
March 16th, 2013 at 5:54 am
Update: I saw this again in my local library and this time was unable to restrain my curiosity. So, the answers to all those burning questions that have been keeping everyone awake at night:
– A Shadow Reader is someone who can *read shadows*. This is a very, very special, rare and important talent. Darned if I can work out what it’s *for*, though.
–Since you’re wondering, in a completely unprecedented turn of events the plot *does* largely concern the heroine’s having to choose between two equally hot supernatural males. Decisions, decisions!
–Unless I missed something, she doesn’t actually wield a katana. It’s almost like the cover’s, oh, I don’t know, a totally generic pre-existing one, or something…
–Yes! There *is* an audio version– with a completely different cover! And by “completely different” I mean, “with a different girl posing with a different sword in front of a different glow-y urban background: http://www.tantor.com/BookImage/B0664_ShadowReader_D.jpg
Really, I don’t know how the world can hold such creativity…
March 16th, 2013 at 11:24 am
At least they kept the Ting! on the new cover.
March 16th, 2013 at 1:28 pm
Goodness! If the first one didn’t merit a Sir Mix-a-Lot tag, the second one does! And, I cannot lie!
March 16th, 2013 at 5:59 pm
Has anyone else seen the MST3K version of Space Mutiny?
Lea: ‘Hi there.’
Crow: ‘Did you see my butt?’
May 31st, 2015 at 1:59 pm
Those aren’t buildings! Those are punch cards at back.
Cyberpunk that moves at thousands of calculations per minute!
July 4th, 2015 at 11:34 pm
Of course it’s a trilogy. It seems ‘shadow reading’ allows one to open a TING! to ANOTHER DIMENSION!(tm)
August 27th, 2015 at 1:07 am
The thing that gets me is her broken neck. And, of course, the fact that she’s not drawing the sword properly at all. It’s not even in the right position for it to be drawn properly when worn on the back, given that it’s a katana and therefore curved.
March 6th, 2016 at 6:04 pm
@TagWizard: Why does this cover lack in Sir Mix-a-Lot tag?
March 7th, 2016 at 11:20 am
This turned out surprisingly thematic:
“Don’t hide miss’s splendid butt.” — Urea N. Grain
“It’s Mia’s sexy and fun tush.” — Cum See Narnia G.
THE SHADOWED REAR
Note her enticing caboose there. Monetise all, holy Ace!
Wilmin Lady Ass (My Ain Wild Lass)
Also: DEATH SHOWED REAR
March 7th, 2016 at 4:45 pm
Note that only people with the letter sequence “GUIR” in their names are allowed to write blurbs for this book. That is because *guir* approximates the sound an adolescent male involuntarily makes when gazing at that tush and oddly angled side breast.
guirrrrrrrrrr . . . .