From: Alastair Reynolds <areynold@estsa2.estec.esa.nl>
Subject: Re: (whorl) BEATING AN EIGHT-LEGGED HORSE
Date: Mon, 04 Sep 2000 13:13:30 +0200

John Clute wrote:
> 
> In-Reply-To: <200009021918.MAA02421@lists1.best.com>
> A couple comments:
>         1) I thought the _New Sun_ covers were abominable. But this made
> no difference.
>         2) I thought the _design_ of the _Short Sun_ covers was
> philistine, and destroyed any virtues the covers might possess.
>         3) I think Jim Burns usually does very well with books he
> illustrates, and that these covers--if the art can be abstracted from the
> design of the whole--are meritorious but failed attempts at doing
> illuminations of a text of quite extraordinary visual difficulty. None of
> us on this list seems really to know what any of the main characters in
> the book look light at any one moment. Fixing this sort of thing into a
> visual representation is something Jim was not able to do. He was probably
> the wrong kind of artist for the job, though he is unusual in the fact he
> actually reads the ms he's illustrating, with great care. But find the
> right artist. The world of _Short Sun_ is immensely less fixable than the
> world of its predecessors, all of which have execrable art. Is there any
> _good_ Gene Wolfe visual?
> 
> Best,
> John C
> 

Do you refer to the Bruce Pennington covers of the New Sun books, John,
as used on the UK editions (paperback at least)? It's strange because
for me these absolutely define how I see the world of the New Sun. 
Neither the Don Maitz (US hardcover editions, I think) or the later
UK covers seemed to hit the right note. Funny things, covers...

Al


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