What would you rate as the best fantasy books of all time, if you could only judge them by the covers?
In other words, which fantasy books have the best covers of all time, would totally pique your interest if you saw them in a bookshop, or practically form the definition of what a fantasy cover should look like?
So, things you can’t judge by:
The story or the writing
The reputation of the author
Reviews, etc.
I’ll let you take into account the title of the book (or indeed the author’s name) only to the extent that it’s aesthetically pleasing either to read or in typeface. For example, Brad Thor has a great name for an author of American Action Thrillers. [1]
Special or limited editions, etc are all fine to include.
You can include things from all types of fantasy (epic, urban, wainscot, etc) but no science fiction, please. You can use your own judgement on whether retropunk (steampunk, dieselpunk, etc) counts as fantasy or sci-fi based on the individual book cover.
Why am I asking, you ask?
Chatting about books on the internet is fun.
I am woefully ignorant in the fantasy genre, and thought this might be a fun way to get some recommendations
I read an article online about the colour of book covers and it got me thinking.
I don’t have pictures, but the first time I saw “Chronicals of Narnia” as a kid in the library, the cover art got my attention. They were hardback (which I’ve never seen since) and the book for “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe” was exposed. It was a not-relisitic-but-not-childish rendering of the scenes of the discovery of the lamp post, death of Aslan, and the final encourter with the witch. 40+ years later and I still remember it.
While that doesn’t provide you anything new, that’s my story on the impact of cover art on a young mind.
I want to like the art on fantesy stuff, but … meh. It’s either “creepy old man carying that book” or “creepy old man trying to look relavant”. So I stick with bland, Eaton press versions in leather. “Creepy old man reading philosophy.” The book covers make me look smarter than I am.
The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (like @Kinsey ’s the Hobbit) is interesting because the cover has been reinvented so many times over the years to suit different generations, countries, ages and trends. There is probably a good Masters thesis in the covers of that book alone!
Interesting you pick these two, as you’re remarkably close to what if memory serves are two of only three “proper” fantasy books I’ve ever read (The Hobbit, and one of the other Dragonlance books - I forget which one, but I know it was by Weis and Hickman). [1]
That Dragonlance cover in particular strikes me as very archetypal — and could probably serve as the very definition of 1980s fantasy art! [2]
The third being The Alloy of Law by Brandon Sanderson, which I read because I wanted to buy one of his books as a “thank you” for him putting his fascinating University lectures up for free on YouTube. Chosen purely because it was short and had the word “Law” in the title. ↩︎
As an aside, sitting on the back of a dragon with a lance, whilst clearly awesome, is hilarious! “Hello there, giant fire breathing beast of tooth and claw. You are about to go into battle! Would it be helpful if I sort of sat on your back? No? What if I bring a stick and try to poke things as you fly by them?” ↩︎
There’s a definite shift in style with the modern covers. Whilst the titles probably could have come from any era (The [Adjective] [Noun]!), the covers have become much less literal interpretations of scenes from the book. I find myself particularly drawn to The Empress of Salt and Fortune [1] despite telling me very little about the book inside (although I assume as you’re reading the book, the cover makes sense).
So far, we are thwarting expectations for colour palette too, with not much in the way of a trend emerging.
Again, great title in the classic mould. “The Lucky Salty Empress” doesn’t have the same ring! ↩︎
I don’t know how to quote footnotes, but that point about lances made me laugh Most fantasy tends to fall apart under scrutiny so I’ve always tried to go with the flow. (Within reason, there is some terrible stuff out there.) Although it’s not a novel, the HeroQuest board game cover art (1988 I think) by Les Edwards is a good example of 80s fantasy style. Made me want to play it immediately
The trouble here is that we are all imprinted with the particular cover our copy had when we read it. Whatever cover The Hobbit had when you read it, will seem to you the very best or most suitable, the just-right one. Others may be cool or nicely designed, but they are not the One. So our testimony doesn’t quite attest in the way one might hope.
Maybe a better test is to pitch a book with many covers and ask people who haven’t read the book which cover would fetch them out.
I just pulled up covers for Anne McCaffrey’s Dragonsong on Google Image. A pretty good example of surprising variety.
(A curious cover art case is Russell Hoban’s Riddley Walker which nobody seems to know quite what to do with.)
Most fantasy tends to fall apart under scrutiny so I’ve always tried to go with the flow. (Within reason, there is some terrible stuff out there.) Although it’s not a novel, the HeroQuest board game cover art (1988 I think) by Les Edwards is a good example of 80s fantasy style. Made me want to play it immediately
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