Superficial me

Appearance matters. No exceptions. If appearances didn't matter, then we'd all be blind. And yet the old cliché persists: don't judge a book by its cover. Obviously, there are times when that saying is relevant and full of wisdom. When it's talking about an actual book though, I'd say it is completely wrong.

I always judge a book by its cover. The cover is the first thing you see with a book! It has to be eye-catching, or at the very least interesting. How I choose which books are for me is simple: if the cover interest me, I pick it up. I read the blurb. If I'm still interested, I read the first page. If I'm still reading by page two, I know to get the book. Alternatively, if I'm buying the book online, I'm usually prompted by somebody's recommendation, be they known or anonymous. If the cover is interesting I click on it, read the description, skim the extract/intro pages etc.

This system works for me. There have been a few times when it failed me - it's not exactly perfect - and I end up with a pretty-looking book with an engaging first page and flat storyline. It happens. I don't let it get me down though, because the system usually pulls through for me. It's how I got into The Wee Free Men (Terry Pratchett). I'm lucky in the sense that all of the books on my shelf currently re-readable. But just recently, it has come to my attention that some books have alternative covers. What would be on my shelf if I had seen the other cover?

For one thing, The Wee Free Men and its subsequent sequels would not feature in my room. Compare the cover I never knew existed until today:

Cover 1

And the cover that hooked me in:

Cover 2

Cover 1 looks a bit bland, despite the witch and tiny soldiers hanging about in the snow. If I saw that cover, I would have probably turned my nose up at it. Especially because at the time, I had plenty of books that involved witches in black. And for the record, the witchy woman isn't even in the story that much. The little girl with the frying pan is the main character, Tiffany Aching.

Cover 2 shows a lot more promise. The pictsies are front and centre, in all their blue-faced kilted glory. They actually look like they're ready to go to war, which they always are in the book. Tiffany isn't on the cover, but that's okay because there's nothing particularly gripping about her appearance in terms of catching my eye. Cover 2 offers a more dynamic cover. There's no hint of witches - which is good because the ones in the book aren't proper witches, just women with more common sense than most.

The pretty cover hiding a flat storyline I alluded to a few paragraphs ago was recently (and by recently, I mean early 2012) summed up by this eye-catcher:

Cover I

I mean, could it get any more badass? In Cover I, there's a wolf on the bottom and two girls above it in a sort of picture illusion where there are two images. At first, I thought the two girls were just a reflection of each other. Until I read the book and realised they were the two main characters - sisters, not twins. And one of them has a side fringe that covers half her face because she only has one eye. I remember reading it and thinking that no matter how much the plot let me down, the one-eyed wolf killer was the coolest woman I had read about. Back then, anyway.

As for the alternative:

Cover II

Yeah Cover II is actually not that bad, but I think if I saw it first on Amazon and not Cover I, I probably wouldn't have bought the book. And that wouldn't have been such a great loss, between you and me. Even if the main character was amazingly cool with her hatchet and an eye patch...

I think the book that had the most shocking alternative cover (and frankly inspired this post) has got to be Laurie J. Marks's Fire Logic. This is the cover I have:

Cover A

And this is the cover WHSmith offers:

Cover B

My brain has a hard time trying to understand that it is the same story. Like, seriously. I have no idea what the relevance of the girl with the swords running on a branch has in Cover B. On closer inspection, I suppose it could be the main character, Zanja, who spends absolutely no time whatsoever in a tree. At all. The raven I understand, because it is a symbol of many things within the context of the story. But the image as a whole in Cover B looks like it was drawn by Quentin Blake, who I associate strongly with Roald Dahl, legendary writer of children's stories.

Fire Logic is definitely NOT a children's book! It's about a war in a fantasy world. Cover A highlights the gritty nature of the book with Karis's ripped cape and battered sword. The scenery is bleak and tough, which is also a reflection of the story. Unlike in Cover B which makes the book look like it could be about a girl dancing in the trees, Cover A is more true to the story.

Cover B is an abomination and I wish I had never seen it.