Saturday, July 28, 2018
Dread Empire Covers over the Decades
Dread Empire Covers over the Decades
So Ive triggered a Glen Cook-athon for myself. First I blog about his short stories, now Im preparing to delve into the Dread Empire series (not the two El Murid books. Ive read them in the past five or six years). I might even hit the Black Company books later this year.
So here are the covers of all the Dread Empire books as they were first published and as Night Shade republished them thirty years later. Really not a lot of good stuff except for the two Night Shade omnibuses, A Fortress In Shadow and A Cruel Wind.
Theres definitely a pulpier sensibility to the earlier books. The newer covers, while clearly genre books, have a similarity to the WotC-era D&D stuff and computer game boxes. Theres a certain homogeneity to too much modern "geek culture" products and these feel of a piece with that. Not to my tastes, but the new covers definitely make the books look like theyre of this age and not three decades ago.
The first three are covers Ive griped about before. A Shadow of All Night Falling has characters who look unfinished. Octobers Baby, well, Im just going to say look at it yourself. All Darkness Met isnt that bad. I dont really love the look of Bragi Ragnarson but the princess and the tiger in the background give it a nice pulp feel. Swanlands cover for the A Cruel Wind omnibus is, again, vivid and bold and provides a nice hint of the epic awesomeness of the battles against the Dread Empire.
Well, what can I say? I can say the original covers to the left stink. Theres no excuse for them unless lunatics were in charge of the art department. Now those are by Ken Kelly, artist of some of the best REH covers but here his style is awful and a total disservice to the books.
On the other hand, Swanlands work for the gaming industry comes through loud and clear in his covers on the right and I dont like them either. Theres too much stuff/gear/accoutrements on the characters and I find the armor too busy. Theyre not all that different from the other Dread Empire covers he did but I find myself irritated by these.
These exist only with Swanland covers. Not having read A Path to Coldness of Heart my reaction to this is purely visual. I dont like the big brain guy, nope, I just dont like him. My complaints about Empire are the same as about the previous two Swanland covers - too gamey. Im also pretty sure no image like that ever even occurs in any of the stories.
In the end, I dont buy books based on the cover (oh, that we could). Presumably the arts chosen to help move copies of the book. While Im not a fan of much of the new fantasy cover art Im no expert on what sells and what doesnt. But I can complain, and that Ill keep on doing.
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