Two covers for Zoo City, the latest novel from South African writer Lauren Beukes. Oddly, both of of the covers are being published by Angry Robot Books, highlighting very clearly the difference in the approach to cover art in the different regions. Though I’m a big fan of John Picacio, something about the North American cover never really hit the mark with me, likely the floating heads, the strange angles or the yellow/purple colour palette. The UK cover, on the other hand, is a sight to behold – literary, bold and sophisticated, it attracts me for all the reasons the cartoony North American cover turns me off.

The book itself sounds great. It strikes me as a Dresdenesque yarn with good voice and enough to set it apart from the rest of the Urban Fantasy crowd.

It appears that Angry Robot Books is positioning and marketing the novel to a completely different crowd in each region, though the book behind the cover is exactly the same. If you saw the two novels on the shelf, which would you be compelled to pick up and read?

Cherie Priest‘s Boneshaker had one of the coolest covers last year, and the follow-up, Dreadnought, lives up, and surpasses it in sheer impact. Jon Foster (who’s portfolio is absolutely amazing, if you’re not familiar with him), takes the tone he established with Boneshaker and adds a nice element of action and tension this time around. It remains to be seen if Dreadnought will live up to Boneshaker, a Hugo nominated novel which I really need to get a hold of and read!

If interested, you can also read an excerpt from Dreadnought.

From Tor.com:

Hmm. I’m not sure I love this one as much as I have some of the past covers. I like the style of Scott Fischer‘s art, and the balance between red and blue, but the image itself sits poorly with me. Is it a small guy looking up at a giant? Or a normal-sized guy sitting in front of a statue? Knowing the context of the scene, I can answer this question, but it’s still a little jarring.

I think this is more an issue with the final crop, rather than the art itself. The pulled back perspective of the full piece of painting works much, much better than the clipped image used on the cover.

Not much to say. It’s par for the course, and will sit nicely alongside Butcher’s other Dresden Files novels, which all feature decent artwork by Chris McGrath. Curious to see Harry Dresden’s name on the tombstone, though I can’t quite make out what’s written below it:

Hmm.

A good companion to the previous UK covers, and nice overall colouring and tone. Still, I find the digital painting to feel too unnatural for the series, and prefer the Todd Lockwood art featured on the North American versions (though it’s also digitally created, it captures the feel of the series in a much more organic nature.) Interesting to see that both the North American and UK covers feature a predominantly black and red colour scheme; I wonder if this will tie into the novel at all, or whether it’s just coincidence.