Mike Douton's Stuff and/or Junk

Don’t judge a book by it’s cover. That’s a given. But remember… a picture is worth a thousand words.

The art of our genre has always been a special part of it. The Hugo and Locus Awards have categories for artists alongside the writers. So I decided to pick out my favorite covers from off my shelves. Most of what I ended up with is more modern. Classic fantasy and/or space opera covers get the job done but I’ve seen so many of them over the years, they tend to fade into the background. Case in point, the Honor Harrington books. Great books but the Dramatic Pose and a Ship isn’t unique. So the covers I like the best are usually with books pushing the edges of genre and the art mirrors it. There’s some steampunk, cyberpunk-ish and anti-genre.

Enjoy the art!

6 – Signal to Noise by Eric S Nylund

It doesn’t exactly tell you much of what goes on, but it’s a beautiful cover and has a futuristic feel matching the crazy cyberpunk goodness.

5 – Jennifer Government by Max Berry

It’s simple and very dramatic. The barcode is an actual representation of the main character and some good foreshadowing.

4 – Boneshaker by Cherie Priest

This is the granddaddy of all steampunk books and the cover matches it without being terribly cheesy. Too often steampunk just slaps some gears on things and is done with it. This is steampunk art doing it right by focusing on the character first and gear second.

3 – vN by Madeline Ashby

Back in my post about this book I went out of my way to note that this cover is cool. I find the portrait of the AI sinking into a mass of electronics very haunting.

2 – My Life as a White Trash Zombie by Diana Rowland

The artwork is by Daniel Dos Santos and every bit of it is awesome. Back at Boskone 49 they had the full size four foot high original painting on display. It’s even better life size.

1 – Blackbirds by Chuck Wendig

I’ve been unsuccessful in finding a print of this to hang in my office so I’ve been looking for a shadowbox for the book. It’s that awesome. Joey Hi-Fi is the man. Pull up a high rez version of this and just look at the crazy detail on this.

Honorable Mention – Moxyland by Lauren Beukes and The Sad Tale of the Brothers Grossbart by Jesse Bullington

That’s Joey Hi-Fi again on the Moxyland cover, but HM only because I don’t actually have that. The cover on my copy is pretty cool, but not Joey Hi-Fi cool. Grossbart is hard to see small, but it’s an optical illusion. The skull is made by the brothers robbing graves. HM because I don’t own that anymore as I didn’t actually like the book.