{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/560",
    "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it.  Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.",
    "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'"
  },
  "archive": "urth",
  "thread": {
    "id": 560,
    "subject": "cover artists",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "1998-05-05T15:07:09+00:00",
    "last": "1998-05-05T15:07:09+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0010-0088@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Dan Parmenter",
        "address": "dan at lec.com"
      },
      "date": "1998-05-05T15:07:09+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) cover artists",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Speaking of Don Maitz and the covers, isn't there also a series of\ncovers for the British versions that are by someone else?  I saw them\nonce at an SF convention, and the only one that stuck out in my mind\nvividly was CLAW, which was, I believe, a depiction of Severian above\nthe mines of Saltus, with all manner of archeological junk surrounding\nhim.\n\nDoes anyone have scans of the British covers?  I remember them being\nquite good, but I'm disinclined to buy new copies just to see 'em\nagain.\n\nI still think that Maitz could have done a better job depicting\nfuligin.  Perhaps as an artist he preferred the challenge of depicting\na black cloak under different lighting conditions (the four covers\ndepict light growing brighter) to simply showing a blackness the color\nof soot.\n\nThe Maitz covers certainly fail to convey to the casual reader just\nwhat they're in for.  It's pretty difficult to explain to someone that\none of your favorite books looks (on the surface) like yet another\nsword and sorcery epic.  But of course in addition to everything else,\nit *is* a story with quite recognizable fantasy and SF motifs so\nperhaps any other cover would be unfair too.  Nevertheless, despite\nits many awards, I'm not sure if the general readership of SF responds\nto it that well.  My first real exposure to the series occurred around\nthe time that Wolfe was the guest of honor at Boskone (a Boston SF\nconvention) in 1984.  Several members of the committee admitted that\nthey didn't even like Wolfe's writing!  There's a particular segment\nof SF readership that calls itself \"literary fandom\" that seems to\nopenly despise any SF that attempts to go much beyond space opera\nwhich makes it that much harder for \"literary\" SF to be accepted.  The\nfanboys don't like it and serious literary critics won't even look at\nit (because it's SF).  I remember literally begging a coworker to at\nleast read the first story in FIFTH HEAD OF CERBERUS so she would see\nthat there's good SF (a possibility she wouldn't entertain).  She\nnever did.  But don't get me started on the uselessness of \"genre\" or\nwe'll be here all night.\n\nD"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}