Books spotted 12/30/09 at Borders Books at Alamo Quarry

Conrad A. Williams
DECAY INEVITABLE
Solaris
Cover art by Dave McKean

Yay, abstraction! Good to see some abstraction in a genre cover illustration these days. It’s a Dave McKean and does the job well — grabs the eye and says “hey, check this out.”

Solaris is a UK-based publisher and [Read it all...]

Books spotted 12/1/09 at Borders Books at Alamo Quarry

THE DEAD THAT WALK
Edited by Stephen Jones
Ulysses Press
Cover art by Les Edwards

Zombie book covers were all the rage this year, weren’t they? Just when I thought I was well and done with any more zombie covers, Les Edwards does one that makes it all seem fresh [Read it all...]

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 [Read it all...]

Books spotted 8/31/09 at Borders Books at Alamo Quarry

Brom
THE CHILD THIEF
HarperCollins/Eos
Cover illustration & design by Brom

Everyone knows Brom as a preeminent fantasy painter, but the guy can write too. This is a novel-length work with interior illustrations. Brom creates a terrific cover as usual, and I especially love the use of spot gloss on [Read it all...]

Books spotted this month at Borders Books at Alamo Quarry

Actually, this installment should be called “Spinespotting in SA”. As a guy who draws and paints book covers for a living, I love seeing books face-out, but in bookstores, they’re usually not displayed that way. The spine is oh-so-important to the visibility and shelf life [Read it all...]

Books spotted 7/1/09 at Borders Books at Alamo Quarry

Joel Shepherd
BREAKAWAY
Pyr
Cover art by Stephan Martiniere

Love the strong diagonal here. Visually, it’s a tall mass-market paperback (in between the scale of a traditional mmp and a trade paperback) and therefore grabs your attention right away. I hear lots of griping about the price point of tall [Read it all...]

Books spotted 6/2/09 at Borders Books at the Alamo Quarry

China Mieville
THE CITY & THE CITY
Ballantine / Del Rey
Cover by Unknown
I should’ve looked at the flap to see who did this one. Mieville’s a phenomenal writer, and his name stops your eye and sells the book. Mission accomplished by the art/design team. However, if a [Read it all...]