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?
The current Greg Egan covers
GOOD!
23(79.3%)
BAD!
6(20.7%)
The new Greg Egan covers
GOOD!
2(7.1%)
BAD!
26(92.9%)
