Books spotted 10/01/09 at Barnes & Noble (410/San Pedro)
David Anthony Durham
THE OTHER LANDS
Doubleday
Cover art by Mikko Kinnunen
Cover design by Michael J. Windsor
The first time I met David Anthony Durham, we were both guests at the 2007 Elf Fantasy Fair in the Netherlands. At the time, I don’t think too many of those 25,000 attendees knew who he was. Six months later, I couldn’t walk into a major American bookstore without tripping over his new book ACACIA. His days as a relatively unknown name were fading fast, and his publisher, Doubleday, was treating him right. Critics raved about his book. Fast forward to the present and he’s now the 2009 John W. Campbell Award winner for Best New Writer, and his new book THE OTHER LANDS shows that his publisher loves him as much as ever. How can you tell? When they trick out an author’s cover with this much embossing and gloss/matte treatment, that’s when you know. ‘Happy to see this guy succeeding. 
Ben Bova
THE RETURN
Tor
Cover art by Thom Tenery
I dig this cover art because it’s unabashedly and unapologetically abstract. Richard Powers illustrated so many successful abstract science fiction covers for Ballantine in the 1950’s and 60’s. Since then, it seems to me that publishing sales and marketing departments have become increasingly conservative in their art tastes. I think it’s led to abstract illustration being lost as a viable, commercial option. I’m glad to see Tor hasn’t lost sight of it. When I saw this cover on the shelf, it popped off next to its more conservative, more literal and scene-driven neighbors, and it made me want to pick it up.
Bernard Beckett
GENESIS
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Cover design by Michael J. Windsor
Find this book on the shelf and pick it up. Try to resist not opening it. I bet you can’t do it. I couldn’t. Great design work here with the red hair beckoning you to crack the cover. Really smart. It made me read the front end flap text and marked the book in my head as one I’ll probably pick up sometime, whereas without the great design it would have certainly escaped my notice.
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
FRANKENSTEIN
Dark Horse
Cover art & interiors by Bernie Wrightson
With Halloween approaching, it seems only fitting to give a shoutout to the legendary pen-and-ink work of Bernie Wrightson’s FRANKENSTEIN. Dark Horse has re-packaged his adaptation in a striking hardcover. I love this quote from Wrightson: “I’ve always had a thing for Frankenstein, and it was a labor of love. It was not an assignment, it was not a job. I would do the drawings in between paying gigs, when I had enough to be caught up with bills and groceries and what-not. I would take three days here, a week there, to work on the Frankenstein volume. It took about seven years….” As for the cover, what can you say other than iconic and timeless?
