Hell's Foundations Quiver Cover and Synopsis

Actually, that's not implausible - it had occurred to me that the cover scene for LAMA wouldn't actually have happened either. No point to doing it that way, given their tech support.

phillies wrote:Pethaps they are inside a computer projection, as on the last book.

SWM wrote:
Actually, it is unlikely that the artist has read the draft. Artists usually are not given the draft to read. Usually they just have a description of a single scene, or of elements that should go into the picture.

Really? No wonder we get such ridiculous covers on books. What's that about? The publishers saving money by not having to pay for the artists' time while they are reading the book or at least the plot synopsis?

Randomiser wrote:

SWM wrote:
Actually, it is unlikely that the artist has read the draft. Artists usually are not given the draft to read. Usually they just have a description of a single scene, or of elements that should go into the picture.

Really? No wonder we get such ridiculous covers on books. What's that about? The publishers saving money by not having to pay for the artists' time while they are reading the book or at least the plot synopsis?

Actually, when you think about the Honorverse series, you can see that the cover art is just as inaccurate. Of the newer covers of books 1-5 from David Mattingly only the cover of "Flag in Exile" reflects an actual scene from the book (as described). The rest all present generic scenes that might have occurred in the book (at best - Field of Dishonor's cover doesn't actually have a scene like that). The cover of books 6-8 inaccurately portray the shape of warships in the Honorverse while book 9-10 accurately show the warship but have only generic scenes of warfare. Books 11-12 show actual scenes with artistic transpositions of either Honor or a war scene and A Rising Thunder and Shadow of Freedom go back to generic scenes that might have been. The Saganami Island series only has generic scenes. And only the Star Kingdom, the Manticore Ascendant and Wages of Sin series depict actual scenes (minus Cauldron of Ghosts, which was more of an artistic depiction). So in general it leans toward artistic license and less towards revealing anything in the book. Interestingly, the French translations of the novels do have more accurate scenes from the novels themselves.

It's about selling books

The object of the exercise is to produce a cover that reflects the 'feel' of the book and catches the attention of buyers in the target audience - while not repelling others who might appreciate it even if it wasn't what they were originally looking for. It's all very well to stand there saying 'This cover is ridiculous!', but if it got you to pick up the book it did its job, didn't it? It's actually rather unusual for that to be achieved by an accurate depiction of a specific scene, since there's no single scene in the book that serves as an accurate summary. One of the art director's jobs is determine what that 'feel' is and provide the summary the artist needs to depict it. It can be a rather subjective process, and it's definitely one not concerned over offending long-term readers - they're not really part of the target audience [would you refuse to read HFQ because the cover is 'off'? you're more likely to come here and whinge about it instead]. It does tend to be heavily influenced by two things, though: the tastes of the publisher and art director, and the perceptions of the book-store buyers who are their true customers about what's going to sell a book.

Two final thoughts, then I'll shut up:

First, cover art is commissioned very early in the publishing cycle. Sometimes, even before the manuscript is turned in. All those details that we look at and go 'they could at least have got _that_ right!' may well not have been determined at that point, or have been subjected to change during editing - and edits can, on occasion, be massive. So even if the artist faithfully painted what he was given by the author, the cover could still not match the printed book.

Second, as alluded to earlier, many readers labour under the delusion that they are the publishers' customers. They aren't, the bookstores are. Jim Baen would make this point over and over: much as he valued our comments, not once in the last twenty years of his career did he sell a book to a reader. [and not often before that - direct sales weren't profitable because of the cost of filling the orders] Everything a publisher does is aimed at pushing the book to the big chains and distributors; it's their job to sell to us. Unfortunately, they're lazy buggers who would much rather sell us more of what we bought last week.

Randomiser wrote:

SWM wrote:
Actually, it is unlikely that the artist has read the draft. Artists usually are not given the draft to read. Usually they just have a description of a single scene, or of elements that should go into the picture.

Really? No wonder we get such ridiculous covers on books. What's that about? The publishers saving money by not having to pay for the artists' time while they are reading the book or at least the plot synopsis?

One of the book series I read, The Lost Fleet by Jack Campbell, has the main character of the book series on the cover in Marine armor with a gun on every book. Except he is a Naval Captain and acting admiral, he has never even put on Marine armor, or carried a gun in the entire series. The character even comments on it in the book, about being portrayed that way on a cheesey holo drama.

So yea, morale of the story, don't expect to much from covers other then to look flashy. They aren't meant for us, the dedicated readers, but for the poor souls that have never picked up a Safehold book before.

=2015/02/21=

Book covers are designed to attract the attention of potential buyers of the book and DO NOT NECESSARILY represent any part of the story.

R
.

Randomiser wrote:

SWM wrote:
Actually, it is unlikely that the artist has read the draft. Artists usually are not given the draft to read. Usually they just have a description of a single scene, or of elements that should go into the picture.

Really? No wonder we get such ridiculous covers on books. What's that about? The publishers saving money by not having to pay for the artists' time while they are reading the book or at least the plot synopsis?

Direwolf18 wrote:One of the book series I read, The Lost Fleet by Jack Campbell, has the main character of the book series on the cover in Marine armor with a gun on every book. Except he is a Naval Captain and acting admiral, he has never even put on Marine armor, or carried a gun in the entire series. The character even comments on it in the book, about being portrayed that way on a cheesey holo drama.

So yea, morale of the story, don't expect to much from covers other then to look flashy. They aren't meant for us, the dedicated readers, but for the poor souls that have never picked up a Safehold book before.

I do hope it's an intentional inside joke, since it is kind of funny.

Look at the cover of MT&T. It seems that the same (advanced) craft has an ancestor...

We know the desnair army suffered the greatest, so what if the church attempts to force them to build a more modern army, and with the death of their commisioned officers, will either force a vast legion of nobles into conflict, or force them to promote commoners in their place. Either option will make them furious, also since it is officially a holy war now, could desnair attempt to force the church to pay and support the troops instead.

SOmething similar would be happening in dohlar.

In harchong, they are simply not going to allow their army to return which will cause huge proplems. THe church could reward the harchogn soldiers with lands in the republic in reward for service.

It is possible, they might try to force both dohlar and desnair to accept harchong replacements, to bolster their armies quickly. No one ever wants someoneelse's army in their lands, and they would be forced to arm and train those men themselves to ensure quality.

The whole project will strain their already over loaded logistical system.

I doubt the harchong nobility will defy the church just cause trouble, but ia mbetting the armed serfs/slaves are sure to be a huge problem. Desnair and dohlar will be potentially very big issue. Due to distance and location, the church would be limited in forcing them into line. THere will be alot of pressure and back room deals and negotiations.

phillies wrote:Mindful of alternative artistic creations, perhaps the error is that the young lady, wearing a frilly dress with chain weave and silk sleeves. has incorrectly been given a sword, so that Nimue is flying the airplane.

That wouldn't be necessary, since OWL is perfectly capable of operating skimmers by remote control; as he/she/it has done several times in the past. I suspect that such control extends to the armament of *armed* skimmers as well. Just like the predator drones we have today.

As others have noted, we haven't had access to read the entire book/ARC as yet, so we don't even know if this scene occurs in the narrative somewhere. However, I could (possibly) see some sort of scenario where some of the guiding forces of the Empire of Charis might get caught unawares by a raiding force; since they tend to mostly cover the opposition hierarchy and other locations of interest rather than constant monitoring of the oceans at large. Possibly on something similar to one of the Archbishop's "pastoral journeys"; where only one, or possibly just a few, ships travel together. Remember, in LAMA, some of the mainland domains have now fielded at least some commerce raiders. Some could have gotten together and tried a bit of raiding closer to Charis, and stumbled over such a convoy; necessitating an emergency response that otherwise would not have been utilized.