New cover art for Joe Abercrombie's THE BLADE ITSELF


This from Abercrombie's website regarding the new cover art for The Blade Itself (Canada, USA, Europe):

So there is to be a new UK Mass-Market Paperback Edition of THE gritty epic fantasy debut of 2006 (obviously excluding Scott Lynch's, Brian Ruckley's, or Tom Lloyd's, and no, Pat Rothfuss was 2007, you cheeky so-and-sos), The Blade Itself , appearing in time for Christmas, and it looks a-little something like this:

[...]

The existing UK Mass-Market paperbacks are B-Format (slightly larger size), these will be A-Format (classic small bookstand size), and hence probably somewhat fatter (so pretty damn fat - 624 pages).

Follow the link for the full story. . .

What do I think? If it ain't broken, don't try to fix it. . .

15 commentaires:

Unknown said...

Don't like it.

:Love: Original UK cover :Love:

Anonymous said...

For some reason i hate cover art with close ups of characters. Books are meant to be about using your imagination to paint the world and characters, with covers like this it seems forced upon you.

Isis said...

Urgh. Who is this meant to appeal to? I don't like covers that are too explicit/literal - they remind me of Mills & Boon. Plus, the covers were SUPER AWESOME on the original version.


Meh

Darkstar said...

Hehe. Looks like a cover for a western novel. Lone Ranger on his way. ;-))

Albertosaurus Rex said...

It's just not as stylish as the original cover. Which reminds me, I still have to read The First Law. *Hangs head in shame* Guess I'll have to get it quickly, before the old edition is gone...

Tom Lloyd said...

Yeah, too Lone Ranger / Strider for me too. I could see the argument for simplifying the original cover, reducing the elements in it and making look a bit more classic, but changing it for something worse and less interesting, meh.

R.J. said...

What the hell? Is this a character from "The Blade Itself"? Who did I miss?
The cover of my version, along with the covers for the rest of the series are among the best covers ever!
Beaten only by "Best Served Cold" ;-)

Unknown said...

Humm not the best, but good news that the work is being pushed to a bigger marketplace...

Unknown said...

To put it in a different perspective, it beats the hell out of the picture of the woman on the cover of the US editions of "Best Served Cold." And as Simon said, it may appeal to a larger market this way.

sbp said...

Uggh-thought UK covers were supposed to be good.

Drell said...

Nope, don't like it. Looks rather like a disenchanted American Indian about to scalp me for a bottle of whiskey.

Anonymous said...

ugly

Anonymous said...

Someone compared it to Billy Ray Cyrus. And I don't like him!

Talisien said...

Ewww. :(

This cover just messes with my preconceived belief that all UK covers looks good.

What were they thinking?

Martien said...

Hmm. Bah, that's not how I imagined the Bloody Nine. Luckily I have the original.