Wednesday 18 April 2012

New covers for Mark Charan Newton's LEGENDS OF THE RED SUN series

I'm now convinced that there's some kind of market research going into Mark Charan Newton's Legends of the Red Sun novels, namely just how many bad covers can you give them before they stop selling. Check out the new covers for Nights of Villjamur and City of Ruin:


Well...at least the first guy doesn't have a hood. But that's probably the only good thing that can be said about them. Given the inherent visual possibilities in the cities, the winter-ravaged landscapes and the invading horde of weird monsters, I don't really understand why it's seemingly impossible to give these books good covers. Oh well.

7 comments:

Paul Weimer said...

Well, the thing is Adam, I think the goal is to make them very different than the originals, as a design feature to lure in new readers.

And people-based covers are the new hotness, I've found. Landscapes, not so much.

Ted Cross said...

Ugh, more bad covers. I keep pointing out how lame the covers are that base the art around photos and especially the ones that have the protagonist facing out toward the reader. Far better are the ones that simply show a great scene from the book, such as Alan Lee's covers for McKiernan's Iron Tower trilogy.

Anonymous said...

Are the books themselves any good Adam ?

Kathryn said...

Tell me about it. Mark's a good guy, his books are pretty good, but this run of covers is just embarrassing.

It's a shame they couldn't wait SIX. FLIPPING. MONTHS. to get the fourth book out before ruining it.

Adam Whitehead said...

The books are pretty decent. The third one is probably the weakest so far, but hopefully Mark can bring us a really good conclusion with the final book (which is out in a month or two, I believe).

Joshua Lowe said...

There's something very Bruce Willis about the second one ...

Jebus said...

First guy looks like a lame LARPer wearing a wig, second does indeed look like a cross between Bruce Willis and Peter Mullan.

Poor Mark, these are HORRENDOUS covers. If I picked them up in a book store I'd not take a second glance.