And now to science fiction. Rather than try to sort this lot out, I’ll leave them to speak for themselves, bearing in mind that these are responses to the question ‘What sort of cover puts you off an SF book?’:
Jesper Krogsgaard: Ewoks. Cute and fuzzy. Using conventional pictures doesn’t provide enough mystery unless you twist it. Again, like with fantasy, I like it gritty, dark and dangerous.
Colin Strawbridge: I think the typefaces used are more important than pictures; Gollancz have managed pretty well all these years without resorting to lurid graphics.One thing i find especially disconcerting is when they put celebrity reviewers names in much larger print than the actual author.
Andy Plumbly: Something that seems totally irrelevant to sci-fi. Like an apple. I’m quite happy with a spaceship or planet. Simple mind I guess.
Colin Strawbridge: I love how what on initial inspection seems like a random picture eventually starts to make sense as one gets further into the book.
Peter Nugent: Something original. If it’s the bog standard hero with a smoking gun on an alien landscape that looks suspiciously like a desert i’m usually not interested.
Bob Lock: Squids in spacesuits…
Stuart McMillan: Complicated scenes and complicated fonts. Keep It Simple, Stupid (KISS) principles must apply.
Jon Bodan: On further reflection, I think that if you had the book name in the Tron font, and your name in the mid-80s digital font, it would be ace. Lol
Roger Fourt: Winners: M M Smith, Jeff Noon, Asher (I wouldn’t lie)
Losers: Hamilton, Reynolds, Morgan.
Simple premise: avoid badly painted unfeasibly large spaceships.
Losers: Hamilton, Reynolds, Morgan.
Simple premise: avoid badly painted unfeasibly large spaceships.
Susan Hopkins Carpenter: I agree with Stuart, simple generally works best for me too. What puts me off is something too esoteric, I just know I’m going to be wading through pretentions claptrap.
Zeon D V Kitchiner: Anything with gold embossed lettering and roses.
Dave Wells: I find it’s normally something on the cover that catches my eye which then prompts me to read the synopsis etc rather than anything specific putting me off. Course if it has ASHER on it then I pick it up just to have a look even though I’ve already got all of your books 🙂
Chuck McKenzie: Cartoony spaceships.
Owen Roberts: Depictions of characters.