I don't mean to sound hateful, or anything, but, geez, That's a really ugly Ender, what with the frizzy hair and the sinsister look in his eyes...That, and he didn't have twenty-odd cartoonish machines hooked up to him in the novel...at least I don't remember it that way.
OSC, did anyone ask you for your thumbs up on this book cover, or was it out of your hands?
Posts: 6 | Registered: Nov 2005
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posted
I actually sort of like the U.S. Ender's Game cover. The scene is sufficiently stylized, with those lines of lights running off into the distance, to suggest a space video game, which of course makes sense. (It also implies to the casual browser that the "game" in the title refers in part to video games.)
Posts: 781 | Registered: Apr 2005
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posted
I believe you can often judge a book by its cover, actually. Very often, I find that artists seem to be chosen with an eye to what "subgenre" a book is in, and so I can tell if a work of science fiction is going to be space opera, Star Wars Lite, Robert Asprin Lite, or "hard" sci-fi by looking at the cover. The better cover artists also seem to be put on the better (read: more financially successful) authors. So when I don't have a recommendation to go by, or an existing liking fora writer, then the cover actually is one of the things I look at.
I chose to read Ender's Game all those years ago because I thought the cover looked interesting.
But judging the covers of foreign editions isn't worthwhile (other than for a good laugh) because those covers are drawn for people in a different culture, with possibly different ideas about what is attractive.
Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
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posted
The biggest problem I see with this cover is not the artwork, but "O Jogo de Exterminador". Ender is a NAME! That doesn't mean you translate it literally! Posts: 464 | Registered: Jul 2004
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posted
Gah, me too. I hope he didn't end up with incompetent translators. That would be a shame, Ender's Game losing so much to a bad translation and not gaining an international foothold.
Posts: 1735 | Registered: Oct 2004
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posted
I actually have the Brazilian version. Signed in portuguese by the author.
Despite the title, they still call him Ender in the text. In fact, all the names are the same as in english--even Bean's, which it might have made sense to translate.
Then there's an original essay on Card by a Brazilian author, and an essay on the science of the book.
It's the first book in the "Zenith" collection, which went on to translate a number of cornerstone sci-fi books into portuguese, as well as publish original Brazilian sci-fi. Speaker for the Dead was the third book in the series. Neuromancer was fifth.
I thought the translation was great, but I'm not all that hip to the nuances of Portuguese, so it could be I missed the subtleties.
The cover, however, could be used to frighten small children in any country.
Posts: 1894 | Registered: Aug 2000
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quote:The cover, however, could be used to frighten small children in any country.
-o-
Ender's Game has a pretty good international foothold, actually. I recently joined a sci-fi/fantasy/horror forum in Spain, and they have a whole forum devoted to Card, where they all read him in translation and discuss his works.
Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
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posted
I rarely see covers before they're printed, or even in time to change anything but typoes. I hate many of the covers I've had. But ... I'm philosophical about it. When I publish books by other people, I'm not even interested in their opinions of the book jackets. So why should I be offended when MY publishers treat me the same way? <grin>.
The cover belongs to the publisher. The publisher does whatever he thinks will best sell the book. Only when the author self-publishes should it be his to control.
At the same time, I appreciate it when publishers show me the courtesy of consulting me. I'm not actually an idiot about covers, and on the few occasions when I've been consulted and actually LISTENED TO, I think the results have been excellent. But then, I would, wouldn't I?
Posts: 2005 | Registered: Jul 1999
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posted
Most of his covers have been good, that I've seen. Some wierd one's, though, like one of treason with a man in a spacesuit walking towards a spaceship. ??
Posts: 105 | Registered: Dec 2005
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posted
Still, someone must have been on mind altering drugs when they designed some of the Alvin Maker covers. They're good books and all, but it looks as though the publisher decided to market them as romance novels.
Posts: 2437 | Registered: Apr 2005
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posted
You must not have seen any romance covers lately. There are no clinches. There are no women, if I recall correctly. And the Alvin Makers are among my very favorite covers. Dennis Nolan did a superb job.
But ... no cover can please EVERYBODY. I'm just grateful they didn't have a nondescript spaceship on the cover of the Alvin novels. They seem to do for so many other books that don't have spaceships in them ...
Posts: 2005 | Registered: Jul 1999
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posted
I don't know if this is a repeat of the article linked above, but my understanding is the original US cover art was actually made for a different trilogy and since Ender was also sci-fi, they just used decided to switch it over. Is there a link to the French Speaker cover?
Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
Oooh, I like the French Speaker... sort of. It seems more appropriate than the spaceship covers that the American versions have. But, I kind of like the idea of having my own mental image of what the pequeninos look like!
In that sense, I suppose that the Ender series covers are okay. At least they gave me the chance to form my own ideas about what the characters look like, since the appearance of the spaceships is in no way vital to the story.
BUT... I doubt that I ever would have picked up Ender's Game if it hadn't been a teacher's recommendation, and honestly, if I hadn't been bored. It looked like hard SF, and I'm really not interested.
The Japanese cover, by the way, features boys flying out of a skull, while a man in a suit looks on. Is he supposed to be Graff? Mazer? And since when is there a skull in the story?
I do like the covers for the Shadow Series, though, and really all of OSC's books. The first four Ender books have DECEPTIVE covers, I think. But I don't exactly hate them.
Posts: 5 | Registered: Dec 2005
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posted
I really don't much care for the American versions of Speaker etc. as a cover.
This Christmas, I sent a special package to my High School age niece, paperback versions of "Speaker" "Xenocide" and "Children of the Mind"
I sent her a nice note encouraging her to make the effort to read them, but I think the covers might be a bit off-putting.
Posts: 202 | Registered: Aug 2005
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I really dislike the Alvin Maker series' book covers. The only good one was the first one, IMO. Prentice Alvin's cover is absolutely terrible, it looks like a romance novel but between a buff good looking guy and a stunned child, Alvin Journeyman's cover is terrible- Arthur Stuart looks like the dumbest person in the world. I kind of laughed at the books, really.
Posts: 11 | Registered: Sep 2005
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quote: Prentice Alvin's cover is absolutely terrible, it looks like a romance novel...
I'm going to have to disagree with you. Prentice Alvin was the first Card book (although not the first short story) I ever read, and I picked it up precisely because I thought the cover looked intriguing. Not in a "wow, that shirtless guy is hawt" way, either. Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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for some reason, my favorite OSC books just have the worst covers. If I didn't know what a fantastic writer OSC was, book covers would probably keep me from reading his books. some book covers are just really corny
case in point: a stand alone novel, Lost Boys
Posts: 1 | Registered: Dec 2005
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posted
I understand OSC's not wanting to be too picky about book covers. Whatever sells, works.
But it really ticked me off that my cover of Ender's Shadow shows a very small boy (Bean, presumably) with pale skin and blonde hair. So, of course, that's how I pictured him throughout the Shadow series.
Then, in SoTG, OSC mentions on two occassions (and, I believe, for the first time in the series) that Bean's physical features clearly showcase his African ancestry.
Now, I have to revise all those imagined scenes in my head from FOUR books.
Posts: 187 | Registered: Jul 2003
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posted
that wyrms cover, with the cheesy 70's scifi look, thats the one i have
Posts: 5 | Registered: Nov 2005
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Blayne Bradley
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posted
All the US covers were pretty good, but I've seen a Ender's Shadow with an interesting scene, where you have been and some girl kinda hovering behind bean looking over his shoulder and wtaching him.
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I don't mean to sound hateful, or anything, but, geez, That's a really ugly Ender, what with the frizzy hair and the sinsister look in his eyes...That, and he didn't have twenty-odd cartoonish machines hooked up to him in the novel...at least I don't remember it that way.
I looked at the link before I had read what was posted. I thought the cover was a take on Jane....
Yes yes! I know Jane isn't a human. But the lips and the eyebrows, they just make the face to femanine! Posts: 13 | Registered: Nov 2005
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