I first stumbled upon Echo City when I ran across the wonderful cover for the US edition, published by Bantam Spectra. I didn’t know anything about the novel, I’d never read anything by Lebbon, but I was instantly drawn to the obviously post-apocalyptic image.

When I heard that the UK edition, published by Orbit Books was going to sport a different cover, I was a little dismayed. Why would they mess with a good thing? My fears were proved unnecessary when I finally got a glimpse of the UK cover and found it to be, if not better, equally bold and attractive. Both feature similar aspects, but the swapped colour palettes both lend a different feel to the post-apocalyptic world. It’s rare that a novel will change covers between regions and manage to be effective in both cases. Lebbon lucked out, big time.

Via The Wertzone:

On the heels of yesterday’s lovely cover for the eBook edition of Sanderson’s The Mistborn Trilogy comes the UK cover for Elantris. It’s his older debut novel, first hitting North American shelves in 2005, but is only now being released in the United Kingdom.

Gollancz has really nailed a brand for Sanderson, playing off the previous covers for The Mistborn Trilogy and The Way of Kings. Like the cover for The Final Empire, there’s a wonderful sense of balance between the charcoal grey and the green mist. It’s perhaps not quite as suitable an image for Elantris as it was for The Mistborn Trilogy, but it’s still haunting and eye-catching. Brandon Sanderson’s lucked out big time and manage great covers on his novels in both of the major English-speaking regions.