Become A Robot

I planned to write up a blog post about how science fiction books generally have stranger, less attractive covers than mainstream genre books, and how publishers seem to be taking steps to correct that lately. But then I got sidetracked on how sci-fi books shouldn’t need to have especially skiffy covers, as long as their cover fits some tone of the book.

As you can see from these covers for Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Lathe of Heaven, it’s taken a while for a publisher to use a cover that’s not completely ridiculous (with the exception of the 1st edition, which I find kind of charming and interesting, and the latest edition which would look at home on the front table at Barnes and Noble).

But I’m thinking now that this isn’t an issue special to science fiction and fantasy. Sure, as sci-fi blog IO9’s Charlie Jane Anders illustrates, I’m not alone in thinking “science fiction books should have dignified covers that look less pulpy and skiffy” (but she closed with an unattributed quote “the bottom line…is that a cover should tell distributors and bookstore clerks where to shelve a book”).

But a fair amount of modern sci-fi books are coming out with beautiful cover art that, while certainly regulating them to the sci-fi section in appearance alone, is still dignified or artistic. Vernor Vinge’s A Deepness In The Sky comes to mind.

Am I crazy? Would that Vernor Vinge cover make non-sci-fi readers cringe? Will it seem ugly even to sci-fi fans in 10 years?

Or is this “being a sci-fi problem” all in my head? Do all genres have cover art cycles that suffer the same design/style cycles that make 1st gen iPods and 80’s cars look ugly? Can you think of a favorite book that used to have hideous cover art but now is available in attractive packaging?

Wow, I’m a cover art snob.

UPDATE: There’s a discussion thread on Tor.com about what people are looking for in a book cover (via SF Signal).

I finished Mary Doria Russell’s debut novel, The Sparrow, last night. I’ll say first that I liked the book and enjoyed reading it. As I neared the end over the weekend, I dragged my family to the library with me (arriving only twenty minutes before they were to close) just so I’d have the sequel on hand when I finished. I was enjoying it enough to want to continue with wherever the author might take the story next.

That said, the ending left me somewhat…deflated. The short prologue foreshadows catastrophe, and the first page informs the reader that our protagonist is the lone survivor of a failed interstellar first-contact mission. So I knew not to expect a triumphant closing to the ill-fated flashbacks. But I still expected both a more shocking or climactic series of fatal events, and some kind of poignant observation or redeeming revelation by our protagonist or his associates. Instead, the somewhat abrupt ending (while not necessarily hurried ending) was steeped in irony, futility, and justification for the protagonist’s despair and anger.

At first, I wasn’t sure what to make of the book once I finished. I knew not to expect a happy ending, and yet I still held out hope for something more (even when the Jamaican bobsled team of Cool Runnings loses their climactic race due to sled sabotage, they still carry their sled across the finish line to rounds of applause and cheering from the Olympic crowds).

It took a while for it to sink into my head that this book wasn’t meant to be a roller-coaster ride of climaxes, under-dogs, and heroes. There was no Gandalf to lead the Rohirrim from the east at dawn of the fifth day and turn the tides at Helm’s Deep. Bad things happened, and nothing came about to change or even justify them.

And now I’m reading the sequel. I wasn’t sure I wanted to in the hour or so following my completion of The Sparrow. I didn’t exactly regret reading the book, but I momentarily wondered if I had wasted my time. But I eventually accepted that a book that raises philosophical question but doesn’t force its own answers at you isn’t a bad thing (in fact, in the case of The Sparrow I believe that would have been exactly the wrong thing to do). So trusting Mary Doria Russell to tell a story with characters I care about, events I’m interested in, and questions I feel are good to be asking is all fairly easy to do now that I’ve finished and had a chance to reflect.

I wasn’t planning to write a review today, but I did mean to read some other people’s reviews this morning (not to get ideas for my own review, but simply to find more insight into the book). The first and only review I’ve read so far today is this one by Steven H. Silver. I especially liked that he addressed my biggest problem with the plot (and easily least favorite chapter):

“On [some] levels, the novel does not work as well. Despite the backing of the Society of Jesus, the mission ot Rakhat retains the flavor of a 1950s sf novel in which the characters decide to build a spaceship in their backyard.”

I agree with Silver’s closing enough to want to borrow it here for my own:

“The Sparrow is a novel of ideas and characters. Not the sort of ideas which make the reader gasp and say ‘Wow,’ but the type of ideas which make the reader continue to think about them long after the book has been set aside….If the action occasionally slows to allow more philosophical and religious discussion, it does so in order to make The Sparrow a stronger novel.”

I just finished reading Vernor Vinge’s A Deepness in the Sky (read a short plot introduction from Wikipedia here). What an epic, enthralling, and most SATISFYING read. I’ve read novels worthy of those adjectives before, but never worthy to such an extent as this. It was long (separated in to three parts that easily could have been shorter, individual books of a trilogy), and a bit unfocused at times (some exciting sub-plots seemed unnecessary in the grand scheme of things), but I enjoyed every chapter (at least as best as I can remember).

I checked A Deepness in the Sky out from the library at the same time as another of Vinge’s books, Rainbows End. I chose to read the latter first, as its dust jacket teaser seemed more interesting to me than the other’s. I’m very glad that I chose the order I did. Rainbows End was a good book, and an entertaining read, but it didn’t stand a chance against A Deepness in the Sky. I give Deepness a ten (and to those who’ve read the book, I’m referring to points, not spidery appendages).