Today's "Magritte Monday" entry is, like most of these, based on the surrealist painter's famous "Le Château des Pyrénées" floating rock painting.To the right is the cover art for The Covenant Rising: Book One of The Dreamtime by Stan Nicholls. The art itself is by Matthew Stawicki. Looking at it, I wonder if it is somewhat computer-generated. In this age when computer books encroach inevitably on paper-books, computer graphics are found in more and more book covers that uses to be designed using real paint.
I do own this book, and yes, I bought it for its cover. But I love epic fantasy anyway. I've not read it yet. It is on my "to be read" stack.
"Covenant" is found in the title of other fantasy books: the "Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever" by Stephen R. Donaldson. In these books, the covenant is not a concept of an agreement, but is instead the surname of the main character, who is a rather dislikable fellow. I like these books, despite the hero, and feel that the latest one I read is the best yet.
Today's independent bookstore is the Book Peddler in West Yellowstone, Montana. When I was there years ago, they were trying to get me to buy books by a a local writer, a kid, who was going to be a very famous author. His name was Christopher Paolini, and he did become very famous, as the writer of the "Eragon" young adult fantasy novels about dragons and dragon riders. The postcard below is a "Large Letter" postcard from the mid 20th century:
And below is a set of relevant Amazon.com links:
9 comments:
I was a fan of the Thomas Covenant series. It had the best giant I've found in a story named Foamfollower.
I do not know this book or series. The cover is very interesting. I am also guilty of buying a book because of the cover art... and I have found some great reads that way.
I pick up books based on cover art as well :)
Oh my...the kids love Christopher Paolini!
Silly: The latest series has a lot of "Back to the Future" type stuff with the main characters running around all over time in and around the events of the past, such as the "Breaking of the Land".
The first one in recent 4 book series was so-so, but I thought the 2nd one was 'wow'. I've not read the third one yet.
I really like cover artwork... be it for albums, books or movies. Come to think of it, postcards are very much like that too, in their own way.
My favorite book cover artists are the Brothers Hildebrant. They use that lovely light thing that I associate with Maxfield Parish.
I think its a smart publisher that invests in good cover art work.
Sometimes they don't bother though. Such as with Lee Child's "Jack Reacher" novels. Big bestsellers, but nto a lot in the way of good cover art.
True. =:]
Well? Well? Did you take the Christopher Paolini recommendation, or are you kicking yourself today for not trusting that indie bookseller?
Well, no, PJ. I did not. When you fly in and out of one place, it is hard to fly back with a bunch of books.
Well, I Checked Out this Blog Post because of the Cover Art. It's Really a Cool Picture.
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