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Magic Hate Ball posted:I had to put up with these things: I have never read a Terry Pratchett novel, literally because these covers were so off-putting
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Jul 10, 2016 03:20
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It is crazy how phoned in American covers are. It's like they think Americans are intimidated and frightened by intriguing covers
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Jul 10, 2016 03:27
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Eh, after 4 years as a bookseller, I can tell you Americans sure don't buy books based on quality of what's inside. Twilight, anyone? I do remember the time two books came out using the exact same stock photograph as the cover. I think it was a picture of a rear-view mirror, in the rain, reflecting the image of a girl.
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Jul 10, 2016 04:14
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The Vosgian Beast posted:It is crazy how phoned in American covers are. It's like they think Americans are intimidated and frightened by intriguing covers I think it has more to do with retailers than the actual customers. I know Walmart has (or had) some pretty specific policies about the sorts of books they would sell in their store, and I'm sure there's some kind of threshold for cover art that grocery stores require.
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Jul 10, 2016 04:33
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Not a terrible book (actually a great book) but I think renaming the Rivers of London to Midnight Riot for US market is weird and bad:
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Jul 10, 2016 04:44
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Geokinesis posted:Not a terrible book (actually a great book) but I think renaming the Rivers of London to Midnight Riot for US market is weird and bad: Worth noting also; They made 2 versions of that cover (and the sequel), one where you could see the main characters face, one as you posted with the charactter in silhouette. For both books the US publisher decided to go with the silhouette version. Obviously by sheer coincidence that obscures the fact the main character is black. There was enough of an outcry that the US publisher from book 3 onwards (and with reprints of the first 2) just went with the british cover. Oh, and I agree, they are absolutely worth reading, if you like urban fantasy at all they are definately at the top end of the genre.
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Jul 10, 2016 11:42
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bringmyfishback posted:
Geokinesis posted:Not a terrible book (actually a great book) but I think renaming the Rivers of London to Midnight Riot for US market is weird and bad: Along those lines allegedly not a terrible book (though I've never nerved myself up to read it) and gorgeous cover art but holy crap that title. That tagline. 
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Jul 10, 2016 11:43
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Jerry Cotton posted:*ahem* A potions book having belonged to "Tammi" instead of Snape would have been an interesting read. I read about one Chinese Harry Potter knock off that started off with Dumbledore telling Harry an adventure he had when he was known as Gandalf, and the book then just proceeded to reprint The Hobbit.
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Jul 10, 2016 15:30
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Davros1 posted:A potions book having belonged to "Tammi" instead of Snape would have been an interesting read. I don't know what that means but Tammi is the publisher.
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Jul 10, 2016 16:08
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Davros1 posted:A potions book having belonged to "Tammi" instead of Snape would have been an interesting read. "Leopard Walk Up To Dragon" used the same gimmick but with a more elaborate and much weirder introduction. Harry turns into a Hobbit and is teleported to Middle Earth. By a magic "sweet and sour rain." You can read a translation here: http://www.young-0.com/excerpt quote:Harry did not know how long this bath would take, when he would finally scrub off that oily, sticky layer of cake icing. For someone who had grown into a cultured, polite young man, a layer of sticky filth really made him feel sick. He lay in the high quality porcelain tub ceaselessly wiping his face. In his thoughts there was nothing but Dudley's fat face, fat as his Aunt Petunia's fat rear end. SerialKilldeer has a new favorite as of 20:46 on Jul 10, 2016 |
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Jul 10, 2016 20:38
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canis minor posted:
Guns features a prince of alt-Camelot attacking his usurper brother by finding the only accelerant that works inside that facet of the multiverse and giving an army of extradimensional roughly-humanoid troops assault rifles. His son, the perspective character of the back half of the series, studied computer science in 1970s Berkeley and puts together a sentient AI whose physical machinery is a planet-sized maze of obsidian circuitry. It is hinted that the cosmic force backing the hand of alt-Camelot and empowering its royalty is a much, much more advanced expression of that basic idea. So that cover isn't actually all that unrepresentative of the book's contents is i guess my point 
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Jul 10, 2016 21:00
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Geokinesis posted:Not a terrible book (actually a great book) but I think renaming the Rivers of London to Midnight Riot for US market is weird and bad: My library has the US editions and I kept walking past the books and the cover just didn't look or sound interesting. Saw the UK edition in a bookshop and promptly snapped it up because of the cover. It took a few more visits to the library before I figured out they were one and the same.
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Jul 10, 2016 21:09
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HookedOnChthonics posted:His son, the perspective character of the back half of the series, studied computer science in 1970s Berkeley and puts together a sentient AI whose physical machinery is a planet-sized maze of obsidian circuitry. It is hinted that the cosmic force backing the hand of alt-Camelot and empowering its royalty is a much, much more advanced expression of that basic idea. What, really? I wasn't exactly reading Amber with a critical eye in my teens, but I don't remember that last part. What did I miss?
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Jul 11, 2016 04:29
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mania posted:My library has the US editions and I kept walking past the books and the cover just didn't look or sound interesting. Saw the UK edition in a bookshop and promptly snapped it up because of the cover. It took a few more visits to the library before I figured out they were one and the same. I always thought Rivers of London was nonfiction - the UK cover (and the title) make it sound like it's about Jack the Ripper, or grisly murders in London sewers.
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Jul 11, 2016 08:08
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mania posted:My library has the US editions and I kept walking past the books and the cover just didn't look or sound interesting. Saw the UK edition in a bookshop and promptly snapped it up because of the cover. It took a few more visits to the library before I figured out they were one and the same. So.....you literally judged a book by its cover?
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Jul 12, 2016 04:12
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King of Foolians posted:So.....you literally judged a book by its cover? Despite the popular expression, it's actually a pretty reasonable thing to do. Book covers are designed to give an idea of the contents and appeal to the audience the publisher thinks is likely to want to read them.
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Jul 12, 2016 06:01
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Tiggum posted:Despite the popular expression, it's actually a pretty reasonable thing to do. Book covers are designed to give an idea of the contents and appeal to the audience the publisher thinks is likely to want to read them.
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Jul 12, 2016 07:46
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Tiggum posted:Despite the popular expression, it's actually a pretty reasonable thing to do. Book covers are designed to give an idea of the contents and appeal to the audience the publisher thinks is likely to want to read them. Covers are designed to appeal to as many people as possible regardless of content since people who are actually knowledgeable and in the target audience already know about it and don't need to be sold on it in the store. It's why everything from Oscar bait to direct to video action movies use the exact same motif of floating heads and the biggest celebrity in the movie front and center, why every other videogame cover is a dude in armor front and center walking towards or away from the camera, and why book covers will just shamelessly copy the cover of whatever book is currently a breakout hit like Twilight.
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Jul 14, 2016 11:56
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These are all the same book. JEES! has always been my favourite. (It's not a bad book though.)    
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Jul 14, 2016 12:20
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I made a thread about this book about 10 years ago and I've still got the images, so here you go.     
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Jul 14, 2016 17:49
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Thread has delivered.
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Jul 14, 2016 19:24
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Turns out the way to avoid being raped is to just let the man gently caress you!
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Jul 14, 2016 20:38
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"She shuffled her bottom sinuously as a goading carrot" is a phrase that defies both imagination and explanation.
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Jul 15, 2016 01:39
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So... what is that book nominally about, besides the author's Bad Sex Ideas? I legit can't figure it out.
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Jul 15, 2016 01:44
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Tiggum posted:"She shuffled her bottom sinuously as a goading carrot" is a phrase that defies both imagination and explanation.
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Jul 15, 2016 02:08
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I just finished reading White Noise by Don Delillo and it was one of the most boring books I've ever read. Maybe I'm not ~sophisticated~ enough for it, but it just seemed like a half assed screed against modern life with no real point. Posing as Vonnegut style satire of society and fell so very short. I had to struggle to read it and couldn't figure out what was going on half the time. Also, The Digging Leviathan by James Blaylock. I really enjoyed his Balumnia trilogy for the light hearted Hobbit-esque fun, and then Leviathan was full of disjointed narrative, an immortal poet, and dead mermen. For those mentioning JV Jones earlier in the thread, her stand-alone book The Barbed Coil is one of my favorites. Sorcery by means of illuminated manuscripts! The heroine is kind of lame though.
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Jul 15, 2016 03:39
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kreyla posted:I just finished reading White Noise by Don Delillo and it was one of the most boring books I've ever read. Maybe I'm not ~sophisticated~ enough for it
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Jul 15, 2016 03:50
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kreyla posted:I just finished reading White Noise by Don Delillo and it was one of the most boring books I've ever read. Maybe I'm not ~sophisticated~ enough for it, but it just seemed like a half assed screed against modern life with no real point. Posing as Vonnegut style satire of society and fell so very short. I had to struggle to read it and couldn't figure out what was going on half the time. Yeah, I got about 75 pages into White Noise and was bored/irritated enough to stop. It turns out trying to make a statement about crass emptiness by just being crass and empty isn't really interesting, and it doesn't help that the modern-life references it's taking on have aged incredibly poorly. I dunno, maybe there was a great book past the part I could get through, but man.
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Jul 15, 2016 03:59
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I kept reading to try to get to the point, but there wasn't one. I get it, academia is insular and self-serving, capitalism makes a religion from consumption. Maybe that was the point, the book itself is boring to draw a comparison? Sort of like how Ready Player One is a critique of nerds while being about a nerd? I couldn't get through RPO after the protagonist referred to his school bullies as fascists. American Psycho at least had murders and business cards.
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Jul 15, 2016 04:04
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kreyla posted:Ready Player One is a critique of nerds What?
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Jul 15, 2016 04:08
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Tiggum posted:What? I didn't get past the first 25 pages, so who knows. Maybe it is sublime, it just wasn't for me.
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Jul 15, 2016 04:12
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The Vosgian Beast posted:Good rule of thumb: If you have to say this, you probably are
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Jul 15, 2016 04:31
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kreyla posted:I didn't get past the first 25 pages, so who knows. Maybe it is sublime, it just wasn't for me. I haven't read RPO either, but from pure Internet osmosis, I know that it starts out by being "oh man this guy's life sucks" but then subverts it and pretty much says that it's totally cool to obsess over 80's pop culture and generally be a Goon because the world is going to need it someday.
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Jul 15, 2016 04:33
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kreyla posted:I didn't get past the first 25 pages, so who knows. Maybe it is sublime, it just wasn't for me. I think he's confused because Ready Player One is not a critique of nerds at all. Also it is not sublime it is very bad so you made a wise decision that would only have been more wise if you had stopped after the first 25 words instead.
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Jul 15, 2016 04:36
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Ready Player One is basically a novel about a nerd-dominated dystopia, except it's entirely about how awesome that is. I have had real-life arguments about that book. Don't be me.
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Jul 15, 2016 04:38
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Struck a nerve huh
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Jul 15, 2016 05:36
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The Vosgian Beast posted:Struck a nerve huh no he's he's just like that
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Jul 15, 2016 05:43
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Please elaborate so I can better argue about the movie without having to see it.
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Jul 15, 2016 05:43
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TheChaosPath posted:I have never read a Terry Pratchett novel, literally because these covers were so off-putting Collectively, the worst books I've ever read are fantasy novels that try and ape the Pratchett style but are way too stupid and way too derivative (obviously) to be even halfway entertaining. Put enough footnotes in and obviously your book is going to be funny, right?
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Jul 15, 2016 07:17
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an overdue owl posted:Collectively, the worst books I've ever read are fantasy novels that try and ape the Pratchett style but are way too stupid and way too derivative (obviously) to be even halfway entertaining. Put enough footnotes in and obviously your book is going to be funny, right? Agreed - one of the unfortunate legacies of Pratchett is the wave of imitators. Throw in some zany characters, cod-English decorations, a few puns, something that looks like a Kirby cover and away you go.
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Jul 15, 2016 09:24
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