Rachel Neumeier's Blog, page 205

Nora Roberts is completely right about everything

…At least, everything to do with this plagiarism thing. She’s got multiple posts up about this on her blog now; the most recent addresses comments she’s been getting from people who want her to take a stand against plagiarism, but not a very strong stand.

Blowback’s inevitable when you go public–especially on social media–about any issue.

With this one, I’m finding (unsurprisingly) people who object, complain, or smack at me and others tend to be protecting their own interests.

It’s all, yes! Fix this, fight this, go after the crooks and scammers, make the system fair. But don’t talk about or criticize or upset my personal apple cart…

And then she addresses the sorts of comments she’s been getting.

I think she’s right in exactly 100% of her comments.

She’s really mad, too. Check this out:

To those publishing ‘books’ using these tactics, whether it’s hiring ghosts then slapping your name on a book, whether it’s stealing work someone else sweated over, you’re thieves and liars. Every one of you. And none of you will ever be a writer.

You know who you are.

Enjoy it while it lasts, because it’s now my mission to turn over the rocks you hide under, then stomp you deep in the muck you breed in.

To the black hats who exploit, steal, tutor others to do the same, your day of reckoning’s coming.

I swear I’ll do whatever I can, use whatever resources, connections, clout, megaphone I have to out every damn one of you.

Wow. Good for her, and this would be a great time for RWA to really give Amazon a push. There have to be ways to lock down some of this plagiarism and theft. If TurnItIn could spot this stuff — and it could — then where’s Amazon? Nora Roberts has a high profile and a big following, so maybe she can get somewhere.

Also: I had no idea about ghostfarms. Or clickfarms. Good heavens above, people. I thought book stuffing was the absolute nadir, and I can’t see why Amazon can’t develop an algorithm or two to check for that. Then this hack-and-slash plagiarism that TurnItIn could catch in a heartbeat, but I guess Amazon can’t? And now ghostfarms and clickfarms.

I can’t even imagine what scammers will come up with next.

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Wow, plagiarism scandal

I saw this at Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s blog first:

…this week, historical romance writer and lawyer (who specializes in intellectual property)  Courtney Milan discovered—thanks to some eagle-eyed readers—that some “writer” named Cristiane Serruya plagiarized her novel The Duchess War.

I found out a few days ago, and had to deal with some things in my own life, and by the time I returned to Twitter, I discovered this scandal had mushroomed…

It’s quite something. Serruya apparently hired ghostwriters to churn out books with her name on them, these books involved extensive plagiarism, when this was discovered she blamed the ghostwriters, they say she cobbled together the manuscripts and their job was just to smooth them out … either way, of course, it’s all on Serruya, as she’s the one who put her name on the books.

Tactical tip for plagiarists: it’s not wise to target Courtney Milan or Nora Roberts. The former is a lawyer and the latter has quite a reputation for going after plagiarists with everything she’s got. (And good for her.)

But this is the part that gets me:

Courtney Milan says:

Can I just talk about this for a second? Robert’s yearning for family–and specifically, to be a part of Oliver, his half brother’s, family–is a theme in The Duchess War that stretches across the entire series, up through the point in The Suffragette Scandal when Free ends up on his doorstep thinking that she’s imposing. It is something that meant a lot to me when writing it, and to have someone take this scene–the one where Robert feels he simply just doesn’t get to have anyone love him because of who his father was–and to have them rewrite it, while taking out the bones of what made the scene tick–it just makes me feel awful.

And there you have the emotional problem with plagiarism, aside from financial and moral considerations. This is really terrible for Courtney Milan, and for every other plagiarized author. It would be really terrible even if there were no repercussions other than the emotional ones of seeing someone else take your baby and do this hack-and-slash job on it.

Kristine’s post is mostly about ghostwriting, and when ghostwriting turns into the process of faking books together to game Amazon’s algorithms.

The situation with Serruya’s plagiarism is not really the point of Kristine’s post, but it’s the part with the emotional fallout, so it’s the part that caught my attention. Hard to believe someone would be stupid enough to plagiarize extensively from some of the very best known, best selling romance authors out there. Yet she got away with it long enough to plagiarize dozens of books and authors.

Good post about this at Smart Bitches, Trashy Books:

And then there’s the ridiculousness of lifting so much from so many places to assemble into one book. Imagine the work that goes into creating a new document, then taking portions of others, fitting them into the skeleton of some kind of narrative, and finding others to add in as well. Forget the mathematical calculations of how many tabs that would be in a browser. Why would someone do that? It seems like an astonishing amount of really, really dumb work and, as always, you’ll get caught.

It seems both clever, in a way — all that splicing must take such a lot of effort — and deeply, deeply stupid in a very obvious way; and I don’t understand why Serruya thought she could get away with this kind of massive plagiarism of so many extremely well-known authors. What can possibly be in the mind of someone who does this?

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One of my favorite Cruxshadows songs:

Today seems like a fine day to just mention one of my favorite songs by Cruxshadows, the group that, as you may recall, I fell in love with last year. I love their epic fantasy songs, but I love this one too, which they sing with great passion:

Roll out of bed, look in the mirror, and wonder who you are.
Another year has come and gone.
Today is your birthday, but it might be the last day of your life.
What will you do if tomorrow it’s all gone?

You won’t be young forever, 
It’s only a fraction to the sum.
You won’t be young forever, 
Nor will anyone.

So look at your life: who do you want to be before you die?
Look at your life, and what do you want to do?
So look at your life, who do you want to be before you die?
Look at your life, you haven’t got forever.

And tell me what really matters, is it the money and the fame?
Or how many people might eventually know your name?
But maybe you touch one life, and the world becomes a better place to be.
Maybe you give their dreams another day, another chance to be free.

You won’t be young forever, 
It’s only a fraction to the sum.
You won’t be young forever, 
Nor will anyone.

So look at your life, who do you want to be before you die?
Look at your life, and what do you want to do.
So look at your life, who do you want to be before you die?
Look at your life, it all comes back to you.

Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday!

You won’t be young forever, 
It’s only a fraction to the sum.
You won’t be young forever, 
Nor will anyone.

So look at your life, who do you want to be before you die?
Look at your life, and what do you want to do.
So look at your life, who do you want to be before you die?
Look at your life, it all comes back to you.

Look at your life, who do you want to be before you die?
Look at your life, what do you want to do?
Look at your life, who do you want to be before you die?
Look at your life, you haven’t got forever.

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Books covers that stand out amid the darkling crowd

Just got curious and browsed through a reasonable proportion of the 500+ covers of “2018 fantasy novels” at Goodreads. Huge percentage are dark, as expected, but a handful do stand out for being bright and featuring artwork rather than a clipart kind of look. Here are some that caught my eye:

I rather like it. Kind of a dreamy aura to it, appropriate for the title. I never have tried the Green Rider series. I see the first book is $2.99 for a Kindle copy. You know, why not. Sure, add it to the TBR pile.

Not so much a Tad Williams fan . . . probably I shouldn’t say that because I only ever read one book of his, so how should I know? It was Tailchaser’s Song and it fell flat for me because the cats were too much like furry little humans with claws; not remotely like actual cats as, for example, the rabbits in Watership Down read like actual rabbits.

I’ve never read anything else by him, so what do you all think of his books? Either way, this is a lovely cover.

I love this cover. Still haven’t read the novella, though. I read the first tiny bit and liked it. I wouldn’t mind having this in paper so I could turn it face out on the shelves and admire it. Lovely.

Great cover! I would pick this up in a heartbeat if I saw it in a store, even though it really kind of looks like it might be horror-tinged. Who did this cover? … Ah, it’s from DAW. Well, great job, DAW.

Let me see, here’s the description from Amazon:

The Dictator is dead; long live the Republic.

But whose Republic will it be? Senators, generals, and elemental mages vie for the power to shape the future of the city of Aven. Latona of the Vitelliae, a mage of Spirit and Fire, has suppressed her phenomenal talents for fear they would draw unwanted attention from unscrupulous men. Now that the Dictator who threatened her family is gone, she may have an opportunity to seize a greater destiny as a protector of the people—if only she can find the courage to try.

Her siblings—a widow who conceals a canny political mind in the guise of a frivolous socialite, a young prophetess learning to navigate a treacherous world, and a military tribune leading a dangerous expedition in the province of Iberia—will be her allies as she builds a place for herself in this new world, against the objections of their father, her husband, and the strictures of Aventan society.

Latona’s path intersects with that of Sempronius Tarren, an ambitious senator harboring a dangerous secret. Sacred law dictates that no mage may hold high office, but Sempronius, a Shadow mage who has kept his abilities a life-long secret, intends to do just that. As rebellion brews in the provinces, Sempronius must outwit the ruthless leader of the opposing Senate faction to claim the political and military power he needs to secure a glorious future for Aven and his own place in history.

As politics draw them together and romance blossoms between them, Latona and Sempronius will use wit, charm, and magic to shape Aven’s fate. But when their foes resort to brutal violence and foul sorcery, will their efforts be enough to save the Republic they love?

That’s a very long, detailed description! But certainly I gather this is a novel with the flavors of Classical Rome, and maybe the shattered-tile look of the cover refers to the shattering of Rome itself. I mean Aven. Whatever. Looks like this book is the first in a trilogy.

Hmm, all right, here’s a quote from Kate Elliot: “‘Rome with magic’ turns out to be exactly the novel I wanted to read. The magic cleverly intertwines with religion, politics, and daily life. The characters appeal, especially the loving portrait of three loyal sisters. There are battles (of course), a budding love story of the illicit kind, some remarkably topical political maneuvering, an awareness of diverse layers of class and ethnicity, and a love of place that shines on the page.”

Now, the long description kind of gives me a maybe, maybe not kind of feeling, but this quote from Elliot makes me want to give it a try. I would probably wind up comparing everything about it to Gillian Bradshaw; as far as I’m concerned Bradshaw is the one to beat when it comes to Classical settings.

Okay, Amazon, send me a sample and we’ll see. This is another one I would be tempted to buy in paper so I could see the cover on my shelves.

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Nebula nominees: or, how far behind are you in your reading this year?

I am this far behind: I have not read ANY of the nominees, even though I own three of them. Here are the nominees:

Novel

The Calculating Stars , Mary Robinette Kowal The Poppy War , R.F. Kuang Blackfish City , Sam J. Miller Spinning Silver , Naomi Novik Witchmark , C.L. Polk Trail of Lightning , Rebecca Roanhorse

I have every intention of reading Spinning Silver one of these days. Also The Poppy War. The other one I have on my TBR pile so far is Trail of Lightning.

Who knows, maybe the rest of them, but probably not. Can’t even guarantee I’ll get to the ones on my TBR pile; some titles have literally been on the pile for five years at this point. There is no hope of ever getting close to well-read in current titles, and in general I don’t worry about this, but I really am surprised I haven’t read Spinning Silver yet.

Also these novels are up for the Andre Norton award:

The Andre Norton Award for Outstanding Young Adult Science Fiction or Fantasy Book

Children of Blood and Bone , Tomi Adeyemi Aru Shah and the End of Time , Roshani Chokshi A Light in the Dark , A.K. DuBoff Tess of the Road , Rachel Hartman Dread Nation , Justina Ireland Peasprout Chen: Future Legend of Skate and Sword , Henry Lien

I haven’t read a single one of those, either. Tess of the Road is the only one I’ve heard of, I think.

Beyond novels, let me see . . . Martha Well’s has another Murderbot novella in the Novella category, so good luck to her. That’s “Artificial Condition,” the one that introduces ART, my favorite non-continuing character. Hopefully we’ll see ART again in the Murderbot novel.

My vote for best title among all the nominees, all categories:

“A Witch’s Guide to Escape: A Practical Compendium of Portal Fantasies”, Alix E. Harrow 

Isn’t that a great title? Came out from Apex, you can read it here if you like, maybe I will do that but I haven’t yet, so I can’t either recommend or dis-recommend it.

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It’s raining slush here, and how is your winter going?

Normally we get snow first, THEN slush, but this morning February apparently decided the middleman is not necessary. Thus, I woke up to slush falling out of the sky. Not even sleet. I mean soft, squishy slush that oozes underfoot.

So, fine.

Here is a post from Book Riot: 15 spring poems to help us all get through the rest of the winter.

Here is one that caught my eye:

COME TO ME HERE FROM CRETE

Come to me here from Crete,

To this holy temple, where
Your lovely apple grove stands,
And your altars that flicker
With incense.

And below the apple branches, cold
Clear water sounds, everything shadowed
By roses, and sleep that falls from
Bright shaking leaves.

And a pasture for horses blossoms
With the flowers of spring, and breezes
Are flowing here like honey:
Come to me here,

Here, Cyprian, delicately taking
Nectar in golden cups
Mixed with a festive joy,
And pour.

–Sappho

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Recent Reading: Extracted trilogy by RR Hayward

Okay, who likes time travel?

Not me, particularly. I mean, it’s not a trope I run away
from screaming, but in general I’ve got this little twitch backward: Oh, time travel, really? Insert a little
pause, a bit of foot-dragging, Well, I
guess I’ll try it. Sometimes I do like a time travel story, in fact I
suppose it’s not that rare that I like one, but still there’s that slight
reluctance.

So I’m not sure why I picked up Extracted in the first place. Maybe I didn’t realize it was a time travel novel. Maybe it was recommended by somebody. Maybe it was a BookBub deal or something.

Still, I read Extracted and liked it well enough to go on with the second book, which was GREAT and then the third, which was a tiny bit closer to meh than GREAT. A fourth book would improve the series ending because poof, it wouldn’t be the ending anymore. In the meantime, I actually highly recommend the first two as a duology, while leaving the third for a bit to see if a fourth appears.

Okay, so Extracted and Exploded, the “Duology.” Let me try to tell you about them without important spoilers. I mean, there are going to be some light spoilers for the first book or I couldn’t tell you a single thing about the second book, but I do think nothing here would interfere your reading experience.

So, then. The first book begins with a mysterious and not that
interesting (to me) prologue in which a man about to commit suicide is stopped
by his son, a young savant who, it turns out, invented a time machine so he
could go back and stop his father from the suicide. The father then discovers,
via a little tentative exploration with the time machine, that  there’s a problem in the near future:
something awful happened and everybody is dead, cities left in ruins. To stop
this, he recruits, in quick succession, three people who have, he hopes, the
skills necessary to figure out what happened and stop it from happening.

There, that’s the basic idea.

So the first book offers a tremendous amount of setup. These
three people are extracted from their original timelines at the moments they
would originally have died. I’ll name them here for easy reference: Ben, Safa,
Harry.

However, the guy whose bright idea all this was mishandles
everything and Ben falls into a deep clinical depression. Ninety percent of the
first book takes place with Ben in this state . . . okay, fine, probably not quite that high a percentage. Sixty percent,
say. Thirty? Probably somewhere between twenty and thirty percent of the story,
but it just seems to stretch out and out. Not that this part is completely
uninteresting, but for a long time
Safa is trying to snap Ben out of it and it’s not working.

I’m probably making this book seem unappealing. Actually,
there is quite a bit of excitement. The three extractions. Various other
operations, some of which go wrong. People die. So the rest of the team goes
back to an earlier point and does something else and recovers them before they
die – ah, yes, time travel! Unpredictable consequences ramify outward. It
becomes clear that someone suspects the existence of the time machine, and that
this is a problem. The whole 
world-is-destroyed thing takes a back burner, as everyone tries to stay
one step ahead of everyone else. Sure looks like the bad guys are going to win
–

– and right at the end, someone else appears and takes over
as the officer in charge, pulling everybody out of the fire and back, at least,
into the frying pan. Because time travel! This is the kind of story where wild deus ex machina moments are completely
normal and even expected. Honestly, a lot of the desperate
fighting-for-survival scenes must have been so
much fun to write, it almost makes me want to write a time travel story of
my own.

The second book, Exploded, is the one in which our heroes
are finally in shape to deal with the big issues. We’re done with the setup,
Ben has long since been pulled out of his depression, the team is operating as
a team, goals are clear(-ish) and Miri, the woman now in charge, is a world more competent than the initial
guy who was trying to run things.

So, having read the second book, I can say:

a) I like the
characters.

They’re probably a bit one dimensional, but in a way that
works. I particularly like Ben, who is the kind of really intelligent,
perceptive person who is very difficult to write. Good job by Hayward here. Ben
is really believable even though he’s certainly also a bit over the top.

Safa – I didn’t really get
Safa in the first book. Her interactions with the others in the second book
make her much more understandable as a character. I like her too. She is also a
bit over the top, in a completely different way.

I like Harry. Everyone is going to like Harry. Yes, he is
also a bit over the top.

And then Miri is kind of like Janus in Wexler’s The Thousand Names. You sure hope she’s really a good guy, because if
she’s actually a bad guy in disguise, everyone is so screwed.

b) The story is
really exciting!

A ton of fast-paced action, with many well-placed deus ex moments because, remember, time
travel! Honestly, I’m not sure I’ve seen so many well-deployed plot twists
since Patrick Lee’s The Breach
trilogy, and that’s definitely saying something.

This story was exciting enough that I really must dis-recommend it as bedtime reading. If you’ve been reading this book as bedtime approaches, you may want to set it aside and read something calmer for a while. Or play solitaire. Look at kitten videos on the internet. Something in that general realm.

c) The writing is
good.

But a little annoying because it’s in
third-person-present-tense and my WIP is third-person-past-tense and then the
present-tense thing would get in my head when I was thinking about my upcoming
scenes and, well, that is probably not an issue for most of you, so it’s fine.

I’m sure one might pick stylistic nits with this duology,
depending on your personal pet peeves, but the writing is very clean; none of
the  minor issues that annoy me in a lot
of books, no confusion of may/might, no use of “was” when it should’ve been
“had been” – I guess verb tenses are something you’d better have down cold if
you’re writing a time travel story – nothing like that.

Also, there’s plenty of humor. I paused at a couple of
places and laughed for well over a minute at something thing that had just
happened. The dogs all looked at me like I’d lost my mind. I’m not sure I’ve
ever read a thriller with this much humor in it.

d) The ending is
excellent.

I mean the ending of Exploded.
Which is why you may want to stop there, at the end of the second book, at
least for a while.

e) The third book
does not have a great ending.

The third book, Extinct,
resurrects a concern that should have been finished and done with, something I
dislike intensely. Granted, that kind of you-thought-it-was-over-it’s-not-over
twist makes more sense in a time travel story, but still. I just did not really
believe it. You could call it a gratuitous deus
ex thing, rather than an appropriate deus
ex thing. I mean, it’s the kind that makes the author look manipulative
rather than clever.

Also, I kept wanting to shout JUST SHOOT [REDACTED], WHAT IS YOUR PROBLEM? There were about fifty people in position to do this and no one even tried.

In addition, the third book involves extensive villain pov
chapters. I hate that. I don’t want to spend time with the bad guys, and
besides that, I’m just fine with being surprised by their machinations. I don’t
want to  see the good guys walking into
disaster ahead of time.

But then glimmers of a redemption plotline appeared – I
might have missed early signs because I was just skimming the bad-guy pov
chapters – and 60% of the way through the book, that solidified. I do like
redemption plotlines, so after that I was much more on board with those
chapters.

At the end, there was an ending. Something important got tied up. One might suggest that it got tied up rather too briskly given all the buildup.

But:

1. What the hell happened with Alpha?

2. What the hell, Kate?

3. What DOES the future look like now?

Given these wildly dangling threads, I do think there will
probably be a fourth book. Maybe this year; Extinct
only came out just a year ago. But right now, the endpoint of Exploded is a lot better than the
endpoint of Extinct. My
recommendation is just stop there for now.

I will also mention that all three books are really great
deals as Kindle ebooks right now.

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Whoops, it’s Valentine’s Day, isn’t it?

Sorry, I didn’t think of that far enough ahead to do a themed post.

So I will steal Brandy’s! Here is Random Musings of a Bibliophile, whose post today is on Favorite Couples in SFF.

Plus she links to all the Top Ten Tuesday posts on that theme, in case you want more.

Brandy’s choices:

The queen and king of Attolia. Yep, saw that coming.

Harriet Vane and Lord Peter. That one too.

Oh, this is interesting — Christopher and Millie, from DWJ Chrestomanci books. Good choice!

Plus a handful of others I’m not as familiar with, and

Jaime and Dominique in Florand’s The Chocolate Touch. Yes yes yes. That’s my favorite couple in all of Florand’s romances.

Now, just to prove I can contribute, I’ll add a few of my own:

Cassandra and Kaoren.

Jade and Moon

Tremaine and Ilas.

Kate and Curren

Oh, hey, also —

Cordelia and Aral.

Here’s another from a book I haven’t read for a while —

Gabriel and Rachel

There, that’s ten couples total.

Did I pick one of your favorites?

Is there a literary couple I should’ve thought of but inexplicably forgot?

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Everything is so dark! Book covers today

One of the comments about the books featured in yesterday’s post is that they were all kind of meh. You know why? I hereby diagnose this problem as sheer lack of color and the ongoing tendency to make all book covers monochromatic.

What is this, anyway, a desire to look sophisticated? Look at this list here! Almost every single book — this is titles coming out this year — black black black grey grey grey and occasional very dark blue. I’m exaggerating, of course, but not that much. The only real exception is the first book, The Winter of the Witch. Other than that, very dark covers broken occasionally by paler-colored but monochromatic covers.

Here’s a list from B&N: their 50 most anticipated YA fantasy titles for 2019. Let’s just skim through this list — yep. Virtually ALL the covers are very dark and/or very monochromatic. Those that are red are all red, those that are gold are all gold, there are virtually none that break the all-one-color feel, though certainly the gold and red ones should stand out amid the black-grey-blue palette.

Here is one that is interesting:

BLACK! But with GOLD! I like it, actually. It’s got that thief-assassin vibe going for it — honestly, doesn’t that person just have to be a thief or an assassin? She is, too, or something like that, judging from the description:

… inspired by Hindu mythology and Indian history, the fates of a soldier and a rebel collide, changing the course of their world. Kunal is a duty-bound soldier and nephew to the dangerous General Hotha, who ruthlessly enforces Kunal’s obedience. Esha is the infamous Viper, committing acts of revenge on the wicked and the powerful—and her next target is the general.

Does anything there sound the least bit inspired by Hindu mythology and/or Indian history? Just wondering, cause I’m not seeing that myself, but then this is a very brief description. I do like soldiers and assassins.

Okay, I have now scanned through several different lists of upcoming SFF novels for 2019 and wow, the darkness and monochromatism is just overwhelming. I do notice that Ann Leckie has a fantasy novel coming out this year:

Black cover! I guess it’s impossible to escape from black and monochromatic covers this year.

Let’s by all means step back, take a deep breath, and enjoy some Michael Whelan artwork just for the sheer colorful contrast it provides to virtually all modern cover art:

There. Swirls and swoops of color, plus images that evoke a story. While bright sunlight might get old if every artist did it all at the same time, this year, a brilliantly lit, warm cover with a beautifully rendered dragon would truly stand out.

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US vs UK book covers: fantasy novels

Sarah Zatko commented that it would be possibly more fun to compare US vs UK covers for the kinds of books we all actually read. Totally true! So this morning I went and found a post — not quite as recent, but only a few years old — that does exactly that.

I don’t think I pointed out this post back in 2017 when it was published, so that was a chance missed. On the other hand, it’ll be interesting to have those literary covers in mind when you look at these 14 mostly-SFF covers.

Okay! So, let me take a look, and you can all join me in picking your favorites and least favorites. I wonder if any of these will strike any of us as actually repellent?

1) The Caravel. I like both covers, though not sure the black background strikes me as super enticing. If I have to pick one, I lean toward the US cover. I like the curvy font better than the straight-line explosion type of cover on the UK version.

2) Strange the Dreamer. You know, I still have not even read the sample. I think I find the whole idea of this book sort of intimidating. I feel like I’ll have to really focus on it, which makes me put off starting it; and I think it may be rather tragic? Is that right? Which I have to be truly in the mood for. But as for the covers, definitely the US cover.

3) And I Darken. I have never thought much of that US cover. I think it was ridiculous to hide the “I” in the swordblade. Nothing about piercing a flower with a sword appeals to me, either. I don’t really like the UK cover, but at least you can easily read the title. I have to go with the UK version this time.

4) An Ember in the Ashes. I prefer the US version. This could be because the US version has a fantasy vibe and the UK version a possibly-SF-not-sure vibe, or something.

5) The Hate You Give. Don’t like either one. Thus we see that no, really, literary-style covers are not super appealing to me even when the book is YA.

6) And the Trees Crept In. Wow, what a creepy title. They changed the title as well as the cover for the UK edition. Vastly, vastly prefer both the US cover and title. Not remotely a contest. I am dying to know if UK readers actually somehow prefer their version. I just can’t believe anyone would.

7) Mistborn. Is that also “Mistborn” on the UK side? They’ve given it a different title again. But this time, to my surprise, I believe I prefer the stylized UK cover.

8) Throne of Glass. Not much to choose. Image is the same, just dark background / light background. I go with the light background of the UK version.

9) Heartless. Definitely the US version, but actually I don’t like either cover much at all.

10) My Lady Jane. The UK version. I like every single thing about it better than the US version, but most particularly I like the “not entirely” interpolation on the title, which, if present in the US version, is invisible.

11) Nevernight. Great title! I prefer the US version. I agree with the author of the post that the tagline on the UK version is really great, though I can see why the design people didn’t put a tagline on the US version.

12) Alice. Congratulations, book design teams! You have produced a really repulsive cover that makes me take a biiiiig step back from this book. I don’t like the UK version much, but I loathe the US version. Awful. And I was just beginning to feel safe, too.

13) Daughter of Smoke and Bone. Oh, now, this is a tossup. Unlike the author of the post, I don’t care about story relevance. But I do think perhaps I like the UK version better, even though I like the blue of the US cover better than the muted red of the UK cover.

14) A Darker Shade of Magic. The UK version is all right. The US version is just dead boring. Completely uninteresting.

Okay, let me count … That is only six votes for the US title, six for the UK version. And two where I honestly dislike all the covers, even if not quite equally. This is a much more even split than I would have expected, and yet here we are.

For me, the biggest difference is for Strange the Dreamer. I greatly prefer the US version of that one. Oh, and The Trees Crept In. Ditto for that one, not that I much want to read it, looks too horrific for me.

Okay, how do they look to all of you? And does anybody actually find the US cover of Alice remotely appealing?

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