Cover comparison: Ship of Magic | 29th July 2011, 21:20

The Liveship Traders is a sequel trilogy to the Farseer trilogy (Assassin's Apprentice, Royal Assassin and Assassin's Quest), and this is the first novel. Above are the US and UK front cover pictures. Unsurprisingly they are very different. In terms of the text, the US edition is surprisingly light, listing only the title, author, trilogy title and a very tiny line reading 'Author of Assassin's Quest'. The UK edition contains a similar amount of text, although emphasising this book's status as 'The international bestseller' and making it clear that this is 'Book One'. It's interesting that the US edition has chosen to emphasise the title whereas the UK edition has the author's name in larger text, although a quick look at some of the other covers in the series suggests that this was done to maintain consistency, despite the author having become more famous. The UK edition however was published later and is the second set of UK cover design, so had a chance to up the font size. The UK covers are actually a really nice set, although I'm not entirely sure what the relevance is of all the pictures to the plots. The covers are each a different colour and in real life are shiny. My favourite is that for 'Ship of Destiny', because it's a nice blue. But I digress... The US cover image shows a woman (who looks a bit like Michael Jackson) dressed in some rather impractical looking sailing garb holding an I-don't-know-what and looking wistfully off into the distance. Behind her, a handsome long-haired gentleman watches from the background. Beyond him is the Liveship Vivacia, though it's hard to make out the tiny representation of her naked female form on the bowsprit, with strategically placed hair. It's a better illustration that I had expected when I decided to write this comparison, and certainly more realistic than those of other US editions of fantasy novels that I've seen, however it does leave something to be desired. The people don't look real for a start - both are far too attractive, and I can't even tell who the man is meant to be - there were certainly no good-looking men like that aboard the ship that I read about! The clothes are too clean - it's like two people have just dressed up for a photoshoot rather than them actually being sailors, and so the image sits uncomfortably with me. The UK edition in contrast is much more stylised - like most British fantasy covers, as it seems we like that sort of thing more, probably because novels with actual illustrations on the front remind us more of children's books. Again it depicts a liveship, but you have to look really closely to see the woman on the front. Overall, I have to say I prefer the UK cover. It's easy on the eye and creates a really nice row of colour on my shelf with the rest of the series. The ship itself looks realistic despite its simplicity and there's nothing there that contradicts anything said in the text. However it must be said that the US cover is one of the best illustrated covers I've seen in the genre.

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