Blurred Line

So, I received a book from Bookmooch today -- Jon Courtenay Grimwood's Pashazade. And it made me remember that part of the awesomeness of Bookmooch is the fact that I can get British editions of books. Why is this a good thing? Well, first of all, they spell colour with a "u". Seeing it without one still weirds me out. Also, British SF books almost always have cooler covers. Examples:

Pashazade. See the outlandishly bright American cover to the left. I mean, there's nothing terribly wrong with it, but it's as if the cover designers have no idea what the word "subtle" means. On the other hand, we've got the understated British edition. I love it. The idea behind the book is that the Ottoman Empire is still massively powerful, so instead of sticking on a random Middle Eastern skyline, we've just got some text. I think it works a lot better.

Ender's Game. OK, first off the cover of the new America version is just mind-bogglingly horrible. Like, unbelievably, "holy crap I would never pick this book up in a million years" horrible. I mean, it's got the mass-market SF feel to it, which is fine, but this is really a book that would appeal to a wider crowd and the cover should reflect that. The British version isn't amazing or anything, but in my opinion it's an artistic masterpiece compared to the American.

Air. If you haven't read it yet, by the way, Geoff Ryman's novel showcases the best of the Mundane SF movement. The American version isn't terrible, but it's got a lot going on. I'm not sure all the dots and stuff really do much of anything. I mean, I know what they represent in the book, but I'm not sure it makes a great cover. The British cover has the same idea to it, but it looks like they just stuck with a simple motif. And, to my mind, it has way more impact.

Who knows, though. Maybe I just like my book covers simple.

Keyword of the day: The best of the bunch today was "when does the line get blurred out". Well, you see, whatcha have to do is take the square root of pi, divide it along the hypotenuse of x (x being the constant established by the multiplying the width of the line by the distance to the observer). No, but seriously...it's somewhere between the sixth and seventh drink.


Profile Editor. Writer. 9-5er. Lord of the Dance. Blurredline.com Apodis Publishing Fusion Fragment cterrill(at)blurredline.com Buy Goodbye, Darwin Amazon.com Amazon.ca Chapters.ca Barnes&Noble.com Read it free in PDF Format Buy Blurred Line Amazon.com Amazon.ca Chapters.ca Barnes&Noble.com Read it free in PDF Format The Short Stuff "Learning Magic From Mint" - published May 2007 in Atomjack "Between Eternities" - published October 2005 at Speculative.ca "Smoke and Mirrors" - published June 2005 in Byzarium Submissions Log Total Subs: 25 Acceptances: 3 Rejections: 17 Withdrawals: 3 Subs Out: 2 Quality Blogs Scalzi's Whatever Dave's Blogography Bookslut The Struggling Writer SF Signal the0phrastus Paperback Writer Scribe's Writing Desk Nathan Bransford Lyons Literary LLC The World in the Satin Bag Book In The Oven The Word Perhaps We Learned Something... Words, etc. Archives March 2005 April 2005 May 2005 June 2005 July 2005 August 2005 September 2005 October 2005 November 2005 December 2005 January 2006 February 2006 March 2006 April 2006 May 2006 June 2006 July 2006 August 2006 September 2006 October 2006 November 2006 December 2006 January 2007 February 2007 March 2007 April 2007 May 2007 June 2007 July 2007 August 2007 September 2007 October 2007 November 2007 November 2008 December 2008 January 2009 February 2009 March 2009 Et Cetera Cavan @ Last.fm Cavan @ LibraryThing Feeds Atom Feed RSS Feed	Thursday, December 11, 2008 - Cover comparisons; Blurred lines So, I received a book from Bookmooch today -- Jon Courtenay Grimwood's Pashazade. And it made me remember that part of the awesomeness of Bookmooch is the fact that I can get British editions of books. Why is this a good thing? Well, first of all, they spell colour with a "u". Seeing it without one still weirds me out. Also, British SF books almost always have cooler covers. Examples: Pashazade. See the outlandishly bright American cover to the left. I mean, there's nothing terribly wrong with it, but it's as if the cover designers have no idea what the word "subtle" means. On the other hand, we've got the understated British edition. I love it. The idea behind the book is that the Ottoman Empire is still massively powerful, so instead of sticking on a random Middle Eastern skyline, we've just got some text. I think it works a lot better. Ender's Game. OK, first off the cover of the new America version is just mind-bogglingly horrible. Like, unbelievably, "holy crap I would never pick this book up in a million years" horrible. I mean, it's got the mass-market SF feel to it, which is fine, but this is really a book that would appeal to a wider crowd and the cover should reflect that. The British version isn't amazing or anything, but in my opinion it's an artistic masterpiece compared to the American. Air. If you haven't read it yet, by the way, Geoff Ryman's novel showcases the best of the Mundane SF movement. The American version isn't terrible, but it's got a lot going on. I'm not sure all the dots and stuff really do much of anything. I mean, I know what they represent in the book, but I'm not sure it makes a great cover. The British cover has the same idea to it, but it looks like they just stuck with a simple motif. And, to my mind, it has way more impact. Who knows, though. Maybe I just like my book covers simple. Keyword of the day: The best of the bunch today was "when does the line get blurred out". Well, you see, whatcha have to do is take the square root of pi, divide it along the hypotenuse of x (x being the constant established by the multiplying the width of the line by the distance to the observer). No, but seriously...it's somewhere between the sixth and seventh drink. Cavan blogged at 8:12 PM \| 0 comments	Progress Zilch! 0/0 Listening A.J. Croce - "Maybe I'm Amazed" My Music Reading Bright Lights, Big City - Jay McInerney My Library Watching Black Book: B Sweet and Lowdown: C Breakfast on Pluto: B Wishlist Bridge of Sighs - Richard Russo Rachael Yamagata - Elephants...Teeth Sinking Into Heart