Niall Harrison ([info]coalescent) wrote in [info]instant_fanzine,
2007-09-05 17:29:00
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Gollancz recovers Egan

Greg Egan has a new novel coming out next year. (Hooray!) In honour of this fact, Gollancz are rejacketing Egan's backlist.

Now, I think the current covers for Egan's backlist are great. Here, for example, is Teranesia. Here is Schild's Ladder. Here is Axiomatic; and here is my personal favourite, Luminous. The covers are clean, clear, and classy.

Here is the cover for the new novel, Incandescence:



Now, admittedly I had a negative reaction to the Future Classics editions when I first saw pictures of them, and they turned out to be lovely in person. And equally, I freely admit that the purpose of book covers is to sell books, and I do not know what arcane rules govern what covers sell books. What I do know is that this cover looks like a technothriller. It's putting the author's name in such large letters that does it -- it screams BRAND to me, and FORMULAIC, and SENSATIONALIST, and other adjectives I am not used to associating with Greg Egan.

And at the same time, I find the black/grey/yellow pallette on the dull side. As I mentioned, to go with Incandescence, Gollancz are recovering Egan's backlist, and they're following the same colour scheme throughout:

-- Quarantine
-- Permutation City
-- Diaspora
-- Distress
-- Axiomatic
-- Luminous
-- Teranesia
-- Schild's Ladder

Of those, I quite like Axiomatic, and I quite like Distress. And don't get me wrong, I'm glad Gollancz is keeping the whole lot in print. But, well, am I the only one to be dubious about the covers?

Poll #1050544
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 30

The current Greg Egan covers

View Answers
GOOD!
23 (79.3%)
BAD!
6 (20.7%)

The new Greg Egan covers

View Answers
GOOD!
2 (7.1%)
BAD!
26 (92.9%)

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  • 35 comments

[info]figg

September 5 2007, 16:45:24 UTC 4 years ago

1990 called. It wanted it's awful cyberpunk covers back.


Or, the bbc called. they wanted their stock images for tech articles back.

[info]abigail_n

September 5 2007, 16:48:03 UTC 4 years ago

What I do know is that this cover looks like a technothriller

As do the old covers, though the new ones are obviously worse.

[info]coalescent

September 5 2007, 16:49:35 UTC 4 years ago

Huh, really? They seem too colourful to be technothrillers to me.

[info]bluetyson

September 10 2007, 17:45:59 UTC 4 years ago

Yeah, didn't think that at all.

[info]cpt_buggernuts

September 5 2007, 16:48:09 UTC 4 years ago

The Incandescence cover makes me think of Ben Elton novels. I'm not sure why yet, but I doubt that's a good thing.

[info]coalescent

September 5 2007, 16:50:22 UTC 4 years ago

I was also getting vague Rob Grant vibes from them, and I'm not sure that's a good thing either.

[info]bluetyson

4 years ago

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[info]coalescent

September 5 2007, 16:51:27 UTC 4 years ago

Looking at it some more, I think better fonts would help an awful lot.

[info]andrewducker

4 years ago

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[info]buymeaclue

September 5 2007, 16:50:23 UTC 4 years ago

Based on the description here, I was expecting much better from the old covers and much worse from the new.

There are a few good'uns here and a few genuine clunkers (including Incandescence, which actually had me thinking at first was done up in bubble letters). But really a very dull lot overall, both old and new.

[info]coalescent

September 5 2007, 16:53:12 UTC 4 years ago

I think I like the old ones in part because they stood out so much when they were first released -- so very different to your traditional rocketship covers, there was just this big block of COLOUR on the shelves under E. Now there will be a big block of GREY.

I note that Night Shade are doing the US edition of Incandescence; it'll be interesting to see what they come up with.

[info]buymeaclue

September 5 2007, 16:55:51 UTC 4 years ago

>I note that Night Shade are doing the US edition of Incandescence; it'll be interesting to see what they come up with.

::insert tasteless joke referencing recent drama here::

[info]grahamsleight

4 years ago

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[info]annafdd

4 years ago

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[info]buymeaclue

4 years ago

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[info]truecatachresis

September 5 2007, 16:54:03 UTC 4 years ago

The old Egan covers were distinctly meh as far as I was concerned, but those new ones combine the meh of the images used with OMG VILE of the giant GREG EGAN in whatever horrible font fits the image of the book. Incandescence in particular is awful.

But, new Greg Egan is good.

[info]coalescent

September 5 2007, 16:57:25 UTC 4 years ago

Did you read the description on the back?
A million years from now, the galaxy is divided between the vast, cooperative meta-civilisation known as the Amalgam, and the silent occupiers of the galactic core known as the Aloof. The Aloof have long rejected all attempts by the Amalgam to enter their territory, but have occasionally permitted travellers to take a perilous ride as unencrypted data in their communications network, providing a short-cut across the galaxy's central bulge. When Rakesh encounters a traveller, Lahl, who claims she was woken by the Aloof on such a journey and shown a meteor full of traces of DNA, he accepts her challenge to try to find the uncharted world deep in the Aloof's territory from which the meteor originated. Roi and Zak live inside the Splinter, a world of rock that swims in a sea of light they call the Incandescence. Living on the margins of a rigidly organised society, they seek to decipher the subtle clues that might reveal the true nature of the Splinter. In fact, the Splinter is orbiting a black hole, which is about to capture a neighbouring star, wreaking havoc.As the signs of danger grow, Roi, Zak, and a growing band of recruits struggle to understand and take control of their fate

[info]coalescent

September 5 2007, 16:58:28 UTC 4 years ago

Or on the Amazon page, even.

[info]truecatachresis

September 5 2007, 17:30:37 UTC 4 years ago

That's really not a very good blurb. I'm sure Egan makes it a good book, though.

[info]coalescent

4 years ago

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[info]bluetyson

September 10 2007, 17:47:08 UTC 4 years ago

Sounds like the Riding the Crocodile setting.

[info]coalescent

4 years ago

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[info]grahamsleight

September 5 2007, 17:02:08 UTC 4 years ago

I am not prepared to answer this poll without either a TERRIBLE! or TORCHWOOD! option.

[info]coalescent

September 5 2007, 17:04:07 UTC 4 years ago

For the new covers or the old covers?

[info]grahamsleight

4 years ago

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[info]annafdd

4 years ago

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[info]abrinsky

4 years ago

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[info]despotliz

September 5 2007, 17:54:14 UTC 4 years ago

The new covers suck.

[info]twic.myopenid.com

September 5 2007, 18:20:42 UTC 4 years ago

Okay everyone, dig out your pointy sticks, ropes and kindling, we're having us a lynching.

-- tom

[info]abrinsky

September 5 2007, 18:33:30 UTC 4 years ago

I really don't think I should comment on this... as I'm about to read a book with a bad picture of a dragon on the cover.

[info]wg

September 6 2007, 09:21:39 UTC 4 years ago

You actually made me look up on Amazon my copy of Quarantine, it appears I have the 1993 paperback - which is a bit generically cyberpunky but better than the new ones. Fonts are bad, m'kay.

[info]frogworth

September 7 2007, 08:04:30 UTC 4 years ago

My god, those new covers are AWFUL. How utterly depressing.
I love the old ones, too. Bugger.

[info]zeit

September 8 2007, 21:25:16 UTC 4 years ago

The Gollancz Future Classics edition of Schild's Ladder just appears to be an uninspiring sprinkling of stars - until you turn the lights out and discover that they are luminous.

Indeed, the Future classics seem to have a gimmick for at least some of the titles' covers - Egan's is luminous, Baxter's Evolution is furry, McAuley's Fairyland is holographic, and Morgan's Altered Carbon appears to crinkle like ageing skin (as well as missing forty pages in my copy. Hey ho.)

[info]bluetyson

September 10 2007, 17:48:52 UTC 4 years ago

My Schild's Ladder cover is different to yours there, too.

[info]gdh

December 2 2007, 10:18:47 UTC 4 years ago

I really loved the old ones. My personal favorite is Permutation City:



The bright colours and simple design on that series of covers is great. All the other editions of his books I've seen have been dreadful.

Look at this version of the same book:


Ugh.
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