Timewaster's Guide Archive
Local Authors => Brandon Sanderson => Topic started by: echigo109 on August 29, 2009, 03:06:20 AM
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why are all of the cover art for brandons books so girly. there good books, but as a boy i feel weird/ akward bying a book with a picture of a girl breathing a rainbow.
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To hide, buy online and take the dust jacket off when you read in public.
I really like the art on most of Brandon's books, especially Warbreaker. Besides, covers with girls on them will get you the ladies. Am I right? Ladies? Back me up on this! Please?
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I thought Warbreaker's cover was awesome.
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If more people did judge books by their cover then Warbreaker would be the #1 seller. It's cover art is amazing!
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The first Alcatraz book does not have any girls on it.
I like Brandon's covers. Though I have high hopes that Way of Kings will have his most awesome cover yet.
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http://www.amazon.com/Way-Kings-Brandon-Sanderson/dp/B000WH4TIA/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1251665334&sr=8-1
it already does!!! :P
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I understand what your saying but I also disagree. Warbreakers cover was great and the video showing the guy painting it was crazy. Not only that but the cover art for HoA was also amazing.
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why are all of the cover art for brandons books so girly. there good books, but as a boy i feel weird/ akward bying a book with a picture of a girl breathing a rainbow.
Because girly covers are awesome, duh. :D
And seriously, we as men need to get over our insecurities about being too interested in anything "girly". It's pretty hilarious how averse to pink many men are today given the fact that the gender associations of pink and blue actually swapped in the past- blue used to be considered a passive, feminine colour because it is a "cool" colour, while pink is "warm" and bright which led to its perception as a manly and virile colour. Funny how the more things change the more they stay the same, right?
Besides, she's breathing out a fragment of someone else's soul in order to give commands to an inanimate object. That's like being a magical hacker. It's so cool it shouldn't matter even if there's a unicorn jumping a rainbow in the background. :P
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Unfortunately the background is too dark to see the unicorn.
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i think i both agree and disagree at the same time... somehow. because i have seen the mock up of the other possible cover for this book i was a little disappointed with the one they chose. i think the other one is in the fan art thread somewhere and it showed Vasher instead of "mystery princess", Breathing, Nightblood strapped across his back, silhouetted (i know i most likely spelled that wrong) from behind by a multicolored light. that picture was awesome and i wish they had went with it (maybe for the sequel? please?), but i still like this cover. the mistborn covers r just awesome in my opinion. sure its a girl, but i have no problem with that. they all have the actiony feel to them
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Dan Dos Santos's sketch of Vasher is here: http://www.timewastersguide.com/forum/index.php?topic=5942.msg129894#msg129894
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Considering more females read and buy fantasy than males, I'm not surprised at all. And considering females are the main PoV's of all his novels, it makes perfect sense to me. Also, an attractive looking girl on the cover will make a guy stop an look at the book. Simple marketing. Warbreaker is a beautiful cover, not only in art, but in terms of design as well. I am super stoked for his WoK covers.
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The cover chosen was better than the vasher sketch me thinks... and steve do chix really read more fantasy than guys? Wow that's a shock with the gender ratio on this forum seemingly (to myself atleast) having more males.
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Hon, no offense, but are you like twelve? You're really worried about buying a book because of its cover? On top of that, I don't even know what you're complaining about. Warbreaker's cover is stylish and gorgeous, and the hardcover Mistborn novels are absolutely stunning. Vibrant, unique, gorgeous, they're practically perfect--especially Hero of Ages. I wish more authors could manage such attractive covers, I can't stand the vast majority of fantasy novels that look like they belong on some 80s hair metal album cover, even if the inside content is fantastic.
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The cover chosen was better than the vasher sketch me thinks... and steve do chix really read more fantasy than guys? Wow that's a shock with the gender ratio on this forum seemingly (to myself atleast) having more males.
I talked about this at a meeting of Waldenbooks managers from around the country a while back. We all had the same observation: girls bought more fantasy--and novels in general--than guys.
And judging a book by it's cover? Absolutely. It happens all the time. Almost every person browsing the section of the bookstore will pick up a book based purely on the cover. That's why they have covers. Their sole purpose is to get you to pick up the book and read the back so you will consider buying it. Brandon's covers may be slightly feminine, but they successfully grab a browsers attention. I would argue about Elantris and Well of Ascension being girlie though. They aren't at all. All of his covers, in my opinion, are awesome (Hero of Ages is my least fav. by far though), but don't ever underestimate a fantasy buyers preference of covers. For example, I flat-out refuse to buy the new WoT in the US. The cover ruins the novel. This is why I bought the UK edition. When it comes, it will be the only edition I will recognize as legit.
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The mass market paperback versions of the Mistborn series are all awesome. The hardcovers are hit and miss.
Elantris was his first cover that I saw. It didn't strike me as particularly fantastic at the time, but has grown on me, as has his writing style. The art for Elantris and Mistborn look more run of the mill, while Warbreaker's is elegant and striking without losing any descriptiveness. I wouldn't be surprised to see SF/F covers drifting more toward this style and away from the traditional fantasy art. (SF has been going this way for a while, but Fantasy seems to just be starting the drift.) If I never saw a "scene from the novel" cover again, life could be fantastic. More fantastic than it is now, which is pretty da(r)n fantastic. ;P
Girls are more refined and intelligent than guys. What's so surprising about that? Also, girls seem to be more willing to make time for "non-productive" hobbies like reading. I'll be the first to admit that dudes are uncivilized (in this thread): Dudes are uncivilized. I'll say it twice!
Hmm... I need to watch less Homestar Runner toons.
And qwantz toons.
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When Elantris was released, there were very few covers by that particular artist, and so the cover stood out easily from the rest. Over the past 5 years we have seen a very radical departure in terms of cover art. Artists who previously only did concept art for movies and games began to push themselves into the cover-art world and did us all a huge favor.
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The Elantris paperback's cover, along with the description on the back, got me to read the book. I've been hooked ever since.
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Well, it doesn't have people on horses, but IMO it's less original than the art for Brandon's later books.
Perhaps a parody cover series with people doing everything on horses is in order. Warriors on horseback mounted around a table sipping tea. A magician on horseback raising his staff to the heavens... to knock a book he needs off the annoyingly high shelf of his bookcase. A military rank of horses rearing as one, riders dumped off the back optional.
Wide-angle shots on covers do very little to sell me on a book. Yes, most fantasy worlds have buildings, cities, trees, and people who do things that are interesting to one degree or another. You don't need to show me what's the same. Show what's different about the novel on the cover. If you have magical zombies, show the magical zombies, not a shot of a lady looking at a (admittedly very fancy) city and a dude looking at her.
I love the original Mistborn covers when it comes to originality, but the mass market covers are just so much more accurate to the story that I prefer them overall (despite the pose-y nature of the shots).
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I like the original covers for the Mistborn series and don't really care for the mass paperback ones... art is to depict ideas and emotions... what people want is not cover art but cover illustration... like a key scene right out of the book
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i also don't care much for the massmarket mistborn covers. it is my personal opinion that photorealistic covers don't work for books unless they have already been made into movies and the cover is an actual photo. when a cover is photorealistic it seems like most of the time it clashes too much with what i have in my imagination. when covers are clearly pictures i don't have that problem. does that make any sense?
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Makes perfect sense. I don't understand why mass-market paperbacks don't use the same covers as hardcovers. I'm sure it wouldn't be difficult and the hardcovers are always better.
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In the case of Mistborn, it was because they weren't sure that the hardcover pictures would translate well onto a small mass market paperback. It isn't out of the ordinary for paperback to be a totally different cover than hardback. Happens quite a bit.
Sortitus - once again you have to take into consideration *when* the Elantris cover was made. That particular artist, Stephan Martiniere, was know for his SF concept art. He was one of the first of that group to come over and do a fantasy cover. Most of his covers feature city-scapes on epic scale. He has since done TONS of covers, and is now big-time in the industry. Remember, at the time Elantris was one of the most original covers out there. Do you have any idea how many authors would kill for a Martiniere cover? I actually felt that the Elantris cover was a fantastic representation of the tone of the book. It is still my fav out of all his covers because of how different it was at the time. I can't wait to see Way of Kings...
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That makes sense, thanks.
I agree that Elantris had an amazing cover. One of my favorites. I am patial to the hardcover of HoA but thats just me.
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Agreeing on the Elantris positivity. I don't like it as much as I like the Mistborn hardcovers, but compared to "generic fantasy" art that permeates so many books, Elantris still certainly stands out. I still like it a lot!
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I bought both Elantris and FE because of the covers. Amazing. Also because of a little sticker that B&N put on them that said AUTOGRAPHED COPY. I am a sucker for autographed first edition hardbacks.
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The cover of my Final Empire paperback is pretty atrocious. Matthew Sweet could have done a better job. Alcatraz 2 gets runner-up status for worst cover on one of Brandon's books.
Mistborn 3 (hardcover) was pretty darn good, but Warbreaker blows them all out of the water. More like that, please.
Perhaps a parody cover series with people doing everything on horses is in order. Warriors on horseback mounted around a table sipping tea. A magician on horseback raising his staff to the heavens... to knock a book he needs off the annoyingly high shelf of his bookcase. A military rank of horses rearing as one, riders dumped off the back optional.
Quoted for sheer comedic genius. Epic lulz.
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I somehow missed the comment about women being more intellegent than men earlier but now that i read it here's the truth. More men (percentage wise) are genius, more men are mentally retarded (as in the disorder not the saying) and our IQ's are generally more sporadic where women's tend to be centralized... the overall average is higher in men because our smart people drag us slightly above the centralized point. However, the smartest person on earth is female.
Elantris, i only know of the paperback cover, is better than any of the others asthetically...or so i think
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IQ tests are not a reliable means of measuring intelligence. Like any other test, they can be studied for to improve scores. They're a good way to measure how good someone is at taking an IQ test. Some are better than others, naturally, but for the most part, tests that attempt to measure intelligence are not useful.
Elantris' paperback cover is the same as the hardcover. :) It may be cropped a bit, but it's the same art.
TFE's hardcover is the one I really have a problem with. The others are actually quite good, frilly blouses and purple mistskirts aside. While TFE's cover is very striking, I don't feel that it fits in with the other hardcovers as well as the mass market paperbacks do together. I don't own any of the mass market editions, but I'll probably grab the boxed set when it comes out later this year and put my hardcovers in a safe place.
I'll admit that I like the mass market paperbacks partially because Vin looks close to how I imagined her. Elend, OTOH... yuck. And the mistcloaks look rockin'.
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I just realized that there are two Final Empire paperback covers. One of them is quite beautiful. Somehow, I got stuck with this one (http://www.coverbrowser.com/image/bestselling-sci-fi-fantasy-2007/747-1.jpg). Yuck.
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Ah yes, I was getting that one mixed up with the hardcover art. My apologies. It was the Sanderson book I bought to test out the waters when he was announced as the WoT finisher. Later I got the full set of hardcovers because Brandon's so awesome. Anyway, I was thinking that that cover was TFE's hardcover and TFE's hardcover was WoA's hardcover. Whoops.
So, take my criticisms of the hardcovers as a whole and apply them to TFE, and move my specific criticisms of TFE's cover to the paperback edition. Though now that I'm looking at the three of them next tot each other, WoA looks like the black sheep if anything, though they all are a bit different from each other in interpretation....
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Yeah ryos... i preferred that one... it evokes more emotion and thought than the other
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that's the paperback that i have too, and i have some problems with it (Vin a little too "ugly", the inquisitor just wrong), but i like it more than the newer paperbacks.
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that's the paperback that i have too, and i have some problems with it (Vin a little too "ugly", the inquisitor just wrong), but i like it more than the newer paperbacks.
A little? Until Ookla set me straight, I genuinely thought that was supposed to be Kelsier.
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Makes perfect sense. I don't understand why mass-market paperbacks don't use the same covers as hardcovers. I'm sure it wouldn't be difficult and the hardcovers are always better.
Sorry if I'm a bit behind (I'm just trying to catch up) but I also wanted to add that the reason they changed the covers was because the PB version was sent to all the grocery stores and junk, so they tried to appeal to that crowd (which, you must admit both version are similar to the rest of those novels). If you check the forums enough you'll find where EUOL (I think it was him) explained it in more detail.
However, I agree that if they want it to stand out, they should have left the HB covers.
As for all the comments about (as I call it) the ugly cover, check out the original discussions here (http://www.timewastersguide.com/forum/index.php?topic=5009.0). As you can see, we all hated it from the beginning. I think I know the story behind why it was still used, but I don't want to say something and find out I'm wrong. (Also, if you look at the link that Sprig posted on the end, you'll see a VERY familiar image. I'm kind of glad it didn't become FE PB cover, but also glad it wasn't scrapped... ;))
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I've never seen Brandon's books in a food store or drug store, and I've looked :)
I just realized that there are two Final Empire paperback covers. One of them is quite beautiful. Somehow, I got stuck with this one (http://www.coverbrowser.com/image/bestselling-sci-fi-fantasy-2007/747-1.jpg). Yuck.
I am so glad I lent out my copy of that edition and didn't get it back.
I'll admit that I like the mass market paperbacks partially because Vin looks close to how I imagined her. Elend, OTOH... yuck. And the mistcloaks look rockin'.
The dichotomy between light and darkness, however, I quite liked from the HoA paperback.
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The art on Warbreaker grabbed my attention more than the others. I think it was mostly because of the contrast in colors, but I just found it more visualy appealing than the others.
I am not saying, however that I do not like the others, this was just my favorite. :)
I just realized that there are two Final Empire paperback covers. One of them is quite beautiful. Somehow, I got stuck with this one (http://www.coverbrowser.com/image/bestselling-sci-fi-fantasy-2007/747-1.jpg). Yuck.
I actually didn't see the "yucky" one until later and was like "What is that?" Didn't like that one at all.