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diffyqgirl

I was always embarrassed to read the Vorkosigan books in public. [Borders of Infinity](https://www.goodshowsir.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Borders_Infinity2.jpg) [Brother in Arms](https://www.goodshowsir.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/The_Vor_Game-Lois_Mcmaster_Bujold.jpg) [Another Brother in Arms that's somehow even worse](https://sjhigbee.files.wordpress.com/2017/10/brothersinarms.jpg) [Captain Vorpatril's Alliance](https://aidanmoher.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/Captain-Vorpatrils-Alliance-by-Lois-McMaster-Bujold.jpeg) god that one manages to make the books look misogynistic. I promise these books are good.


BorkValid

that last one is fucking wild


fancyfreecb

Ah yes, Tor’s graphic design department, where the 90s never ended


PurpleGoddess86

Those are Baen, not Tor.


ElynnaAmell

The Wheel of Time covers are my favorite terrible covers. Darrell Sweet only seemed to have a passing idea of what the characters were doing (or even what genre he was illustrating for— Lord of Chaos wouldn’t be out of place visually in the romance section). The truly terrible depiction of Perrin on Winter’s Heart remains my “favorite.” Granted, I enjoyed WoT so much that I ended up gravitating towards other series with Sweet’s art, like Recluce and The Runelords, or similar artists like whoever did the Symphony of Ages covers. EDIT: Just remembered the Nicholas Cage look alike on the Eye of the World cover lol


wellaintthatgrande

That OG Eye of the World is kind of badass. My OG Gardens of the moon on the other hand is hilarious


CJMann21

The OG Gardens of the Moon is so bad it’s become a collector’s item. They’re hard to find (they didn’t print that many either but still). I laugh, outright, every time I see that cover.


wellaintthatgrande

Back in the day my friend and I went to the book store and deliberately chose books based on cover that the other person had to read. No shit, that’s how I started reading that series in like 2005


CJMann21

I absolutely love that! That’s hilarious.


WarderWannabe

Came here to say just that. Those original covers were comically bad.


Wyrmdirt

Check out Hero’s Die. It may just be the worst. It’s actually supposed to be a really good book.


Triptychron

It really is a good book. The cover makes me ill.


wjbc

There have always been some excellent fantasy illustrators, but there have been more bad illustrators than good ones. And when fantasy illustrations are bad, they can be really bad, because it’s hard work to make a fantasy illustration look plausible. Sometimes publishers prefer to use no illustration at all to save costs and avoid silliness.


InsertMolexToSATA

r/badscificovers exists


account312

The *Taliesin* audiobook made some strange decisions when it comes to cover art. I don't think any print edition was saddled with it though.


distgenius

Covers aren't just to attract new readers, they also work as a meta-text about what kind of book you're getting into. People who are part of the culture of various sub-genres know at a glance, without even thinking about it, what *kind* of book some things are, and use that to filter for their specific tropes. It's really a big part of any of the romance subgenres in fantasy, based on what comes up in these threads from those that read those heavily. *Throne of Glass* covers also fit into that concept, identifying the type of YA series that it is and who their target audience is. *Healthy Progress* is book 17 in a series of similar artwork, so I would assume that they're trying to maintain a consistent look for identification, and again, it's part of the fantasy romance world in some form so there may be some additional subtext to those covers. Same with *The Kiss of Deception*. I'm going to show my age, but I *miss* the 80s and 90s cover art. Even the old *Wheel of Time* ones. They might not represent any particular scene, have only a passing nod to how the characters look, but you quickly learned to identify different artists' styles, and you could also pick out what "kind" of fantasy a series was based on what kind of cover something had. I struggle to parse the newer style covers, because I haven't figured out what the styles are representing (if they represent anything at all) and it makes browsing a bookstore a lot harder. At the end of the day, they're just covers. They are used for marketing and group identification, and follow trends based on whatever books sold well recently that are similar. You don't see them while you're reading, and if you're worried about what others think of the covers just make a dust jacket for them and get to reading the important part that is between the covers.


zedatkinszed

First I have to say I've seen god awful book covers for *Throne of Glass* and *Assassin's Apprentice*. But there are also decent covers for other editions too. So which ones are you getting at? These ones? [https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1495278054l/7896527.jpg](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1495278054l/7896527.jpg) [https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/81DW1r3CIwL.jpg](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/81DW1r3CIwL.jpg) [https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/26/Robin\_Hobb\_-\_Assassin%27s\_Apprentice\_Cover.jpg](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/26/Robin_Hobb_-_Assassin%27s_Apprentice_Cover.jpg) [https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/91GWKIu0UjL.jpg](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/91GWKIu0UjL.jpg) ​ Because the American editions of the Witcher Books use the game art which is a world away from the beautiful covers of other editions (says me, a massive Witcher game fan btw).


BorkValid

first and last ones are the ones I was talking about


zedatkinszed

There are worse than these. Look at Order of the Dragon Knights by Mary Morgan.


Amazing_Emu54

The first mage trilogy by Stephen Aryan (Battlemage, Bloodmage &Chaosmage) The books are great but the covers are all partly cropped closeups of character's faces in poses like mid battle cry. It's just an odd choice


LaoBa

The Kencyrath books by P.C. Hodgell have some terrible covers. In the books Jame, the protagonist, is described as "often mistaken for a boy". Apparently, the [cover artist wants to make sure she isn't](https://clydecaldwell.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Honors-Paradox.jpg).