Reading is not just for dorks and four-eyes. Many people can enjoy it, especially those who, say, have never been near a TV. There are countless benefits to being literate as well. Archeologists know that opening a sarcophagus marked "Curse of Hemorrhoids" is probably a bad idea. Men know that any girl with a tramp stamp that says "sure thing" and an arrow pointed downwards is probably worth double-bagging it. Reading is also a useful skill if you want to delve into the wide, wonderful world of books. Books are tomes of knowledge that contain information on subjects of the author's choosing. Some books will guide you safely through a zombie apocalypse. Others are written by Jane Austen and were not intended to have zombies in them at all. Some books are useful. Others have pictures of boobs. As I said, useful. Others can be of no use at all. Math books, dragon porn, and James Joyce fall into the latter category. But of all the books in the world that attempt to teach you valuable information, fantasy novels are among the least effective. They take place in magical realms named Glamorgschlia and Squbboobussiblesssssss. They have characters that carry impossibly large swords and messiah complexes to match. More importantly, some have hot elf chicks. Many of these books are very, very shitty...
But a large percentage of fantasy books are not shitty Quite a few authors are very accomplished storytellers who can take the reader on incredible journeys. Some examples of quality fantasy novels are: George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series, Raymond Fiest's Riftwar Saga, Robin Hobb's novels, or the first three (arguably six) books of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time encyclopedia. All of these publications have gone on to make more money than a dancing unicorn who radiates orgasms and poops mints, so they are obviously doing something right. However, I feel like a large portion of the fantasy genre has had it's image totally screwed over by the one thing that will give a prospective reader their first impression of the story: the cover.
Let's take a look at a few fantasy book covers...
This book is about: A hero finally stops whining about his fate and begins to realize his destiny as the savior of the world. And they fight evil hounds and the women are, like, dry ice cold.
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| This cover says the books is about: Evil Arab pays two loggers to stop d'Artagnan from accepting the anti-Christ as his lord and savior. |
This book is about: The up and coming savior of the world forces some of his most powerful opponents to be his servants, and there's a big battle, oh and he's in love with three girls at once.
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| This cover says the book is about: A torrid, sensual affair that forces the disco king to choose between the love or his mistress and his love for Batman. |
This book is about: A single family tied up in a conflict between a charismatic pirate, sentient boats made of mutilated dragon cocoon, actual dragons that are kinda pissy. Complex relationships are worked out, and a character from Hobb's first trilogy continues to be awesome.
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| This cover says the book is about: A ship's navigator can't get a good reading on the sun because a dragon is in the way. And she's also in love with that other ship, and something something pink sunsets and HOLY SHIT what does she need those gloves for?! |
So these kind of covers might work perfectly well when you're selling a book about "thrusting your purple-headed warrior into her quivering mound of love pudding" (thanks Naked Gun 2 1/2), but this is the kind of art publishers are using to sell books that have wildly different tones than the covers that represent them! Really, Robin Hobb is a super freaking sweet writer (although her parents missed out on a great opportunity by not naming her Robbit Hobbit). Her stories are incredibly detailed, engrossing, and adventurous. They have a fantastic sense of pacing and a way to draw a minute story thread across three books and build it into the central theme of the climactic final book. You care for her characters and you REALLY want to kill her villains. Books as good as these should have covers on them that warn you what will happen if you DON'T buy them.
Like this:
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| Or something that actually represents the book... |
The other problem an misleading book cover brings up is the image of the reader. As an example, here's what happened to me on the subway the other day:
There I was, riding the train amidst my fellow commuters, and I started to get bored. I whipped out my book and started reading. I got about two pages turned when I realized that I was sitting in a position that left the book cover exposed, and the people across from me could see the painted sunset cover with the exotic looking sea lady, the dragon, and the pink (PINK!!!) sky that stretched from the front cover onto the back (and those fucking red gloves. Seriously, what are those for?). Immediately I glanced up and caught not one, but THREE commuters staring at me with the look. Unmistakable, dismissive, a look I've seen too many times before. To them, I was that kid in junior high who had a fuzz mustache, moobs, a fanny pack, Cheetos breath, and loved -- LOVED -- Star Trek TNG. And, of course, the poorly written pulp of a third rate fantasy/ romance novel. To them, I was the kid that fantasized about elf chicks and that bird-riding woman from Heavy Metal. To them, I was good for two things: Fixing their computers, and standing frozen with fear as they de-pants me in public. Oh, three things, the third being this:
Walking out of the subway, I reflected on what had happened. It seems so easy for people to judge a book by its cover, but can you really blame them? Without any other information about the book in question, what else do you have to base your opinion off of? And if advertising a book is as calculated a move as any other form of advertising, how does a cover like that make it onto the final product? Do they contract the artist and say "make this look like it's about a prostitute humping a boat at dusk?" Is that really what the author intended? Does the publisher think that its readers like shit like that? Do the readers actually like this like that? Why is the room spinning? (Cuz I'm drunk).
As a personal rule, I won't try out a fresh author unless I've talked to a few of my friends first, especially if the cover looks fishy or pink (some literary categories excluded, like porn). Even though I write a blog, not even I have enough time to force myself through another pathetically composed, flaccid re-imagining of the hero with a thousand faces who putzes around the whole book before all of a sudden learning magic Hadouken kung-fu and defeating the evil wizard because it's his "destiny." I need to know that an author is worth it. But in following this rule, I can't help but wonder how many good books I've passed over because I look at the cover and shart myself in fear at the thought of actually bringing the novel up to the cute hipster girl at the cash register. So, here's my new rule: Only read books that have terrible looking covers, because the material inside will be... fantastic. (Get it? Fantastic? Fantasy novel? Fantastic? Get it? ??? Eh? Nevermind.)
-Barney
P.S. Contrary to the tone of this whole post, I feel the need to hang out some props to John Howe and Darrell K. Sweet, the cover artists whose work I used as my examples. While I feel these covers fail at properly distilling the essence of the book in an accurate way, I can't find any fault with the art itself. The room's spinning again! Did I just do a 180º?
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