Craptastic covers... what are your pet peeves?

[A.M.Kuska]

I'll say this though, if I'd gone on the cover of Patrica Wrede's Dealing with Dragons I'd never have picked it up. It's a horribly ugly dragon staring down at a princess. I bought it for fifty cents at the library, even though the back cover turned out to be misleading. (It read like a romance novel, I thought my mom would like it.)

Turned out to be a wonderful story about a princess living in a typical fantasy kingdom, who ditches the prince fated to marry her and runs off to volunteer as a dragon's princess. I loved it so much I went out and bought the entire series at the bookstore the next day, and have purchased all of her other books since. She's never failed to impress me with her amazing writing style, friendly stories, or surprising twists.

Now my mother is reading the series to cancer patients on a regular basis, because it's so comfortable and easy to read aloud, and I had to rebuy the series in hardback becaue it's quite worn out. (The reprints have pretty nice covers.)

[Quinnykins]

I read trashy romances like some people drink coca-cola to excess or maybe have one too many take-outs. The covers themselves have a whole series of Tropes attached to them it's fantastic to see them appear.

The main one though is the muscled man with an open shirt which is still tucked in. Either do it up, or un-tuck it. One or the other! I also love the gravity defying clothes on the women, especially on the historical romances. The artist always forgets the multitudes of layers included in some of the dresses.

There is of course the people that just don't even try with their book cover. Really bad 3D renders or badly photoshopped male model poses.

The cover art that really annoys me is on the edition I have of David Eddings' The Elenium and Tamuli trilogies. It doesn't match the description of Sparhawk in the books at all. He's a knight, and is constantly described as wearing heavy, smelly, black enamelled plate armour. I know my armour and what the artist has him wearing on the covers is not the armour Mr. Eddings talks about in the description!

I'm ashamed to say I always judge a book by its cover.

[Heather B]

I hate when a book series randomly changes their cover art halfway through... *Sigh*

I too am with anyone that dislikes covers featuring real people (especially in urban fantasy where they all seem to be bad-ass tattooed chicks holding some kind of magical stick). I also dislike the glossy finish.

One of my favourite authors has been asked about the people on her covers and which characters they are and she couldn't say. She named who she thought would fit but still couldn't say why the guy on her second book had red eyes. It just didn't make sense. At all.
This complete misrepresentation is what REALLY bugs me about cover art.

[gilesth]

I hate Fantasy covers (especially those designed in the last five to eight years) that use hairstyles from the eighties. You know, the guy with the helmet of hair, the girl with the shaggy mullet or poofy bangs...it's like watching season one of Star Trek TNG... or Excalibur. Modern artists shouldn't use THOSE awful haircuts for any reason. I mean, don't we all regret the eighties? Shouldn't we try to forget that era? The hair looked bad then, and it only looks worse now. But that's just me :)