Welcome to The Friday Face-Off, a new feature here at Books by Proxy. Join me every Friday as I pit cover against cover, and publisher against publisher, to find the best artwork in our literary universe.
| The Friday Face-Off: The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers |
Welcome to my first post of 2016! I hope you’ve all had a fantastic start. I’m still in the process of compiling my end of year post but for now it’s time to sit back, relax and take in some wonderful cover art.
This week I’m looking at two beautiful covers for what turned out to be one of the highlights of my reading year. Initially a self-published title, The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers, a fun and exciting character driven space opera, was soon snapped up by Hodder & Stoughton in the UK and Harper Voyager in the US. I was at a loss as to who designed each of the covers but take a look and see which you think comes out on top in this week’s Face-Off.
Hodder & Stoughton – UK Cover
Harper Voyager – US Cover
| The Friday Face-Off: Winner |
The winner of this week’s Friday Face-Off is Hodder & Stoughton’s UK cover for The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet. I love the Harper Voyager cover – the typeface, the ship, the planet – it captures so much of the personality and humour which is apparent throughout the book. But that sky. The UK cover might just tip the scale with that alone! The typeface and general design are also beautifully balanced which, as a whole, make it this week’s winner!
Have you read The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet? Which is your favourite cover?
Books by Proxy 
I prefer the UK cover as well. I haven’t read the book but I think the cover design matches the title, especially since I’m scrolling to look at it. It fits what the title says and it’s all around more appealing. The US cover doesn’t appeal to me.
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Each cover gives me such a completely different feel! The US make me think of a major vintage/straight forward sci-fi story, and the UK one… it’s not that it gives more of a “literature” feel – that’w the wrong word – but that I will be getting more of a story in the book; i.e not a basic sci-fi, but that it will have a little something extra, more meaning(?) to it.
So yeah, I pick UK cover too.
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I definitely know what you mean – I suppose the UK cover is more refined and more visually appealing. I think I like the US cover more now that I’ve read the book. There’s something quirky about it that is quite reminiscent of the story.
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The UK cover is nicer to look at, that’s for sure, but the US one immediately made me think of 80s sci-fi comedy (which isn’t necessarily a bad thing!)
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Yes the US cover definitely has that feel to it. Whilst that ties in quite well to the story – for some reason Red Dwarf kept coming into my head whilst reading it – it is a ‘serious’ piece of fiction so all in all the UK cover is probably more suited!
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Definitely the UK one. The US one looks like it was cobbled together really quickly without much art direction, like a self-published novel…which I guess it is 🙂 But love the atmosphere of the UK version 🙂
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The UK definitely has a more professional feel and has a wonderful atmosphere too.. but after reading the novel I kinda like the US one a bit more than when I first saw it.
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