“Be true, unbeliever.”
Stephen Donaldson
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I, Robot – Isaac Asimov. Oh, vintage SF novel, how terrible you always look. I couldn’t find the right edition, but it looks a bit like this, except worse.
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Complete Works – Thomas Malory. This book has knights and magic and quests and actual King Arthur in it, and this is what you come up with? Really? I know it’s supposed to be a scholarly edition, but…
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The Colour of Magic – Terry Pratchett. Standing in for all of those horrible photographic covers from Corgi which replaced the old cartoony covers. Who thought Discworld should look like a piece of grimdark fantasy? Clearly someone who HAD NEVER READ IT.
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Redwall – Brian Jacques. The new editions with the weird swirly covers and the evil mice and this is a children’s book, what were you thinking? Also Redwall looks like a prison.
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Rebecca – Daphne du Maurier. Because this Atom edition looks like a horrible 1950s romance and no.
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The Mysteries of Udolpho – Ann Radcliffe. Again, I get that scholarly editions don’t prioritise attractiveness, but this cover makes Radcliffe’s strange, rich, hypnotic novel look like Jane Austen, which is unfair to both authors.
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The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant – Stephen Donaldson. I love these books, but the covers are very, very iffy indeed. They look like vastly substandard high fantasy when actually they’re among the best the genre has to offer. I prefer the look of the Third Chronicles, but they don’t go with my older editions…decisions, decisions.
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The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao – Junot Diaz. What this cover has to do with the actual book is beyond me. Also, I don’t like people on my covers.
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Schrodinger’s Kittens – John Gribbin. The picture of the kittens is just not big enough. MORE KITTENS, PLEASE.
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Mostly Harmless – Douglas Adams. This cover in no way accurately represents the goofy craziness of Douglas Adams, even at his worst.
(The theme for this post was suggested by the Broke and the Bookish’s weekly meme Top Ten Tuesday.)
The English Student 