It's well worth checking out the whole feature over at SFSignal, both for the gorgeous cover art and for people's insights into what makes for a good cover. But here are a few of the covers that people picked which jumped out at us. [SFSignal]

Shrapnel 3, cover by Stephan Martiniere. Writes gaming artistic director and concept designer Sparth, "Perfect sense of composition, perfect balance."

The Dream Of Perpetual Motion by Dexter Palmer (design by Ervin Serrano, Jacket illustration from Isifa/Alamy/Getty) As Orbit Books/Yen Press Creative Director Lauren Panepinto points out, that took a lot of time to put together. And it tells you so much about the book, including the time period and how awesome it is. She points to some other examples of elaborate/brilliant design in the SFSignal mind meld.

Finch by Jeff VanderMeer. Cover art by John Coulthart. Artist John Picacio singles this one out for its brilliant composition, and explains eloquently why the best book covers are about "becoming":

Becoming doesn't spoon-feed and isn't slave to the latest game of "follow the leader". It isn't the path of least resistance. It favors an audience that is active, rather than passive, dynamic of imagination, rather than static with nostalgia. It favors an image that evokes, rather than an image that crams the frame with every literal detail.

A Memory Of Wind, illustration for Rachel Swirsky's story at Tor.com, illustration by Sam Weber. Another one chosen by Picacio.

Picacio's own illustration for Frederik Pohl's Gateway, as chosen by Dave Seeley, who writes, "I loved John Picacio's Gateway, with his hallmark -surprising and clever- montage of figure and stuff (space in this case)."

River Of Gods by Ian McDonald, illustration by Stephan Martiniere. Chosen by self-confessed Martiniere groupie Dave Seeley, an architect turned book illustrator.

Hush Hush by Becca Fitzpatrick: (design by Lucy Ruth Cummins, photo by James Porto). Again, chosen by Panepinto. "I love how the image is so subtly colored towards the top. A really subtle touch. And the pearl paper is so nice. Such a spare design, it really was a breath of fresh air when I saw it."

Sharp Teeth by Toby Barlow: (design by Suzanne Dean, illustration by Natasha Michaels). Another Panepinto selection. Such a cool-looking image, it speaks for itself.

In Gentlemen Broncos, Jemaine Clement plays Ronald Chevalier, a science fiction novelist who steals a book idea from budding fantasy writer Benjamin Purvis (Michael Angarano). It's thereby apropos that the film's credits appropriate the artwork from a ton of real scifi novels. Lorcan McGrane has identified several of these covers, and you can find more cribbed covers at his blog, The Life and Times of Jimmny Homunculus.

Thanks for the tip, Lorcan, and good luck on your rad sounding PhD dissertation, Superheroic Bodies: The Corporealities of Contemporary Film Superheroes.

Gentlemen Broncos is now available on DVD.

The opening sequence of Gentlemen Broncos, complete with Zager and Evans' "In The Year 2525."

Doctored covers from the film.

More doctored covers.

The Fox Searchlight Cover.

The real cover from Analog magazine.

Sam Rockwell's cover.

The original 1989 painting by David Lee Anderson (which looks curiously similar to the Moon star).

Jared Hess' cover.

The original 1955 issue of Astounding Science Fiction.

Says Panepinto of her creative process:

Over 6 hours of my onscreen compositing, retouching, color correction, type obsessing, all condensed down to a slim sexy one minute 55 seconds of cover design. Trust me, no one wants to watch it in real-time…and even then I left out the not-as-riveting-onscreen stages of my cover design process, such as reading the manuscript, sifting through Alexia photoshoot outtakes, background photo research, etc. And since this is a series look that has already been established for Soulless and Changeless, there weren't the usual batches and rounds of versions of different designs that happen with standalone or first-in-a-new-series covers. That would be a weeklong video!

Blameless is the third book in Carriger's Alexia Tarabotti series. The second installment Changeless will be released in April. Blameless is due September 2010.

[via Orbit Books]

Powers illustrated science fiction book covers for several publishers throughout his career, but perhaps his most famous work was his 1953 cover Arthur C. Clarke's Childhood's End. You can find an even larger gallery of his work at The Powers Compendium, and yes, you can purchase collections of his art.

[via Hedonia, The Powers Compendium, and John K Stuff]

These covers - and many more - can be found at Silverini's blog.

[via Tor]

"We Can Build You"

"Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep ?"

"Maze of Death"

"Eye in the Sky"

"Clans of the Alphane Moon"

"The Simulacra"

"Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said"

The image above is the cover of Burning Skies by David J. Williams, with art by the prolific and awesome Stephan Martiniere. Check out the rest over at the link. [Stainless Steel Droppings]

Desolation Road, cover by Stephan Martiniere.

Asimov's Magazine, cover by John Picacio , which absolutely pops with color. He explains his inspirations behind it here, including the work of magazine artist Coles Philips and Lisa Goldstein's story, "Away From Here."

Art from The Bulletin of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, by Les Edwards.

The Wind Up Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi, art by Raphael Lacoste.

Interzone cover by Adam Tredowski.

Cover for Haze by L.E. Modesitt Jr., by Sparth.

Stephan Martiniere again, with The Sunless Countries by Karl Schroeder.

Here's the back-cover copy for Sureblood:

Torn apart by lies and deception...

Five years ago, rival space pirate captains Val Blue and Dake Sureblood stole one incredible night together. But their brief, passionate history ends with the assasination of Val's father and the condemnation of Dake's clan. Now, Val struggles prove her mettle-to herself and to dissenters within her own people. Every successful raid is a boot-heel ground in the burning memory of Dake Sureblood—and their secret son is a constant reminder of their shared past…

Ambushed and captured before he can clear his name, Dake Sureblood returns from hell to expose the true killer of Val's father. But as the identity of their enemy becomes chillingly clear, the former lovers must put aside their mistrust and join forces to protect their clans—and their precious son.

It sounds pretty thrilling, what with the rival space pirate captains and the raids and everything.

As science-fiction romance gains in popularity, the novels have been growing in word count and becoming more epic, emphasizing the sprawling story over the romance part. But publishers are stil hoping to pitch these books to regular romance readers. Thus, according to the always entertaining Galaxy Express blog, there's a constant tension between "man titty" covers like the above one, versus covers that actually depict what goes on in the book.

This discussion has been going on for a while, but it flared up again in response to this latest Harlequin cover. Writes Galaxy Express:

Where are the space pirates promised by the jacket copy? The cover conveys erotic romance to me... Perhaps it's a sign of these difficult economic times that romance publishers are ratcheting up the man titty/erotic romance campaigns. Seems like in order to capture as many sales as possible, they are attempting to appeal to every single romance reader regardless of individual taste (but all readers swoon for man titty cover? Really?). In the end, they will end up pleasing a number that in my totally biased opinion will fall short of potential.

Sexy and romantic covers? Great, awesome-why not a clinch cover for SUREBLOOD, with a starry background, perhaps? A fiercely accessorized, sexy space heroine with generous cleavage would be a great draw for male readers. Why do historical romances get clear historical visual cues and books like these don't? Ghettoization of SFR? Yes, in part, along with the corporate mentality that dictates standardization of art.

Is this cover fiasco another indication that romance publishers think their female readers are idiots when it comes to science fiction romance? Maybe Harlequin thinks the stories are both too science fictional and too exotic for readers to enjoy.

Count this as another vote for novels about space pirates to have covers depicting space pirates... preferably sexy ones. It's also just fascinating to see that every subgenre has its own worries about perceived marginalization. The issues are often the same, even if — as in this case — they're sort of opposite.

We should stress that authors don't customarily get much input into their book covers, so this image is by no means a reflection on the work of science-fiction romance author Jacqueline Lichtenberg. And any novel that features vampires fighting on the Moon, where an alien vampire spaceship has just crashed, automatically meets our criteria for awesomeness. (Somehow, I'd gotten the impression this book was newly published, but after double-checking just now, I realized it's been out in paperback for six years. And it won the Romantic Times Award for best SF novel. Weirdly, Amazon has a version of the book cover where the woman suddenly has long, flowy hair and a more doll-like face.)

Here's a description of her book, from one of the Amazon reviews:

Dr. Titus Shiddehara is a human/vampire hybrid alien from the planet Luren. Titus, an astronomer has been sent to Project Station on the moon the stop his nemesis and vamphyric father, Dr. Abbot Nandoha from contacting the home world of Luren.

Titus is a Resident - a Luren who does not drink blood from the human source. Instead, he drinks a cloned, dried blood mixed with heated water. Abbot, on the other hand, is a Tourist. He feels justified in not only drinking blood from humans, but also in their domination. To Abbot, humans are just like cattle - or orl. If Abbot succeeds in sending his message to Luren, humanity will be doomed.

Abbot and Titus, as vampires, have incredible telepathic powers. They are able to bend others to their will and create believable illusions. Using these skills, Abbot does everything he can to try contact Luren. Titus is forced to struggle to thwart Abbot and stay alive. This power struggle, set against a conflicted Earth, creates a refreshing and fascinating world with unexpected twists and turns.

Here's the full cover art, which I guess is from the 2003 paperback edition. Click to enlarge:

Once again, we got Cyriaque Lamar to track down the most awful covers with the biggest heads. Here are the 20 most horrific selections, with Cyriaque's commentary. And seroiusly, what is with those Italians?

Additional reporting and writing by Cyriaque Lamar.

Our research intern, Cyriaque Lamar, pored over the most wretched and bizarre book covers that ever defaced the bookshelves, and came up with the absolute worst and most inappropriate. Normally, I feel a little trepidation about saying we've collected the cheesiest or wrongest "of all time" — but in this case, it only feels right. So here are Cyriaque's picks, with his erudite commentary.

Cheesiest Book Covers:

Most Inappropriate Book Covers (Maybe NSFW):

Additional reporting by Cyriaque Lamar.

We've collected various book covers from a number of classic science fiction novels to see how different artists have interpreted the same book. The covers are sometimes surprisingly pulpy, others are elegantly minimalist, and still others are variations on the same theme. Some of these are actual covers from various editions of the books, and some are concept designs created by individuals — on spec, for a class project, or just for fun. Bear in mind that a few of the actual book covers may not be work-safe.

1984 by George Orwell:

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley:

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury:

Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham:

The Midwich Cuckoos by John Wyndham:

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick:

A Scanner Darkly by Philip K. Dick:

Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein:

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood:

I, Robot by Isaac Asimov:

John Carter of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs:

Neuromancer by William Gibson:

We by Yevgeny Zamyain:

The Space Merchants by by Frederik Pohl and Cyril M. Kornbluth:

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess:

War of the Worlds by HG Wells:

Schongut is still working, providing illustrations for everything from book covers to the New York Times and children's books. You can see more of his amazing, eye-melting work on his website.

via A Journey Round My Skull

After having just tracked the most popular fantasy book cover art elements, Holman has turned his eye to urban fantasy's rise among speculative book genres. Using sales data from Nielsen/Bookscan, Holman shows that urban fantasy accounts for only 14 percent of the genre's titles — but it claimed 45 percent of SF/F bestsellers.

This chart shows the rise of urban fantasy among fantasy (not SF/fantasy) bestsellers in the last several years:

So if a large number of urban fantasy books are outselling all other science fiction and fantasy books, but publishers are still putting out relatively few urban fantasy books, it doesn't take a marketing whiz to see what comes next. Says Holman:

The rise of urban fantasy has without any doubt been the biggest category shift within the SFF market of the last 10 years in the US...

How does this affect SFF publishers? Naturally, publishers respond to trends (and publishers tend to spend more time and energy trying to follow trends than setting them). If, for example, higher sales can be expected from an urban fantasy debut than a hard-SF debut, more publishers will be more inclined to publish more urban fantasy debuts than hard-SF debuts. More authors being published in one category will generally mean fewer authors being published in another. Particularly when the alpha category starts to dominate bestseller charts...

It's up to individual publishers, of course, to determine the balance of their lists, and thankfully we don't all end up with the same strategy. However, publishers are still likely to reconfigure to some extent when there is a significant category shift in the market. For example, editors with expertise in the urban fantasy field are likely to be in higher demand (others less so). Why hire an editor with a brilliant publishing instinct for hard SF if hard SF only makes up 2% of the publisher's business?

Holman concludes that urban fantasy may not always be on top, and there may be another seismic shift down the line. And his company, Orbit, has made a strategic decision to focus on other types of science fiction and fantasy in addition to urban fantasy. He winds up hopeful that the rise of swords-and-skyscrapers lit is indicative of a surge of interest in speculative fiction generally. Here's hoping that these books are reaching a new audience, and might serve as a "gateway drug" to other kinds of stories that use our world as a departure point for journeys into the fantastical and the bizarre.

Bigger versions of the charts are at the link. [Tim Holman via MediaBistro]

And not surprisingly, swords are pretty much required if you want to let people know that they're about to read a novel set in a fantasy world. Or the present day with fantasy elements. I like that "glowy magic" is a close second to swords - anyone who has ever browsed a fantasy book aisle at the bookstore knows what that is. A blop of photoshopped shininess, often streaming from a sword or from the hands of a nubile creature in flowing robes. Or perhaps enveloping a dragon?

What remains to be done is an economic analysis of these cover elements, charting which ones tend to sell better.

Tim Holman, publisher of Orbit Books, writes:

I wonder if [this chart] will prove that glowy magic, while prevalent, might not guarantee glowy sales? Or if unicorn-lovers represent a vast untapped market? It wouldn't surprise me. More research is clearly needed, but this is an important starting point and I'd be prepared to devote literally minutes to the task if that's what it takes.

via The Publisher Files

According to Orbit, here are the five titles from which the absolute worst will be chosen:

• The Thing with the Glass Buttock
• Rise of the Fallen, Book Seven, The Pre-Antepenultimate Battle
• A Stain Upon The Vastness
• Across a Trembling Sea the Cyborg Fairies Dance
• An Old Dragon, A Dead Witch, and a Fat Guy: The Third Book of Stories that Go Nowhere.

I really hope they don't screw up the Old Dragon, Dead Witch and Fat Guy book — that was one of my favorite series growing up. The winner will go on to have a stunningly terrible cover created for it, and we can't wait to see the end result. Click the link to vote for your favorite. [Orbit Books]

Orbit is seeking suggestions for a title and blurbs, to come up with the worst book cover of all time, and I bet we can help:

Over the next few weeks we'll be asking for your help coming up with the most ridiculously bad high-concept SFF book cover in the universe – think Wyvern II: The Wyverning, or Martian Under the Doormat. (We know you can do better) Once we've settled on the titles we'll work out the reading line, the blurbs, and cover elements. And then, with your help, our fearless Orbit US Creative Director Lauren is going to design a cover for it that will present it in all its mad glory.

I have great faith in the ability of the internet to spawn some truly awful science fiction book ideas. But just in case someone is lacking for inspiration, here are some truly hideous covers to make your eye-sockets bleed:

Commenter PatZ points us to a site, Punk Rock Penguin, with a shrine of hideously awful book covers, many of which come from science fiction or fantasy. They include some classics (two of the original Dune covers? really?) but also some little-known gems. Here are some of the greatest: