{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/563", "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": 563, "subject": "Bruce Pennington covers", "messages": 4, "voices": 4, "first": "1998-05-06T08:57:04+00:00", "last": "1998-05-06T12:29:16+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Tony Ellis", "address": "tony.ellis at futurenet.co.uk" }, "date": "1998-05-06T08:57:04+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Bruce Pennington covers", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " \n06/05/98\n 09:40\n Bruce Pennington covers" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Dan Parmenter wrote:\nSpeaking of Don Maitz and the covers, isn't there also a series of\ncovers for the British versions that are by someone else? " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Whenever I read praise for the Maitz covers I feel this evangelical \nurge to champion our own original British covers (not to be\nconfused with the various naff covers of the later reprints). Thank\nyou giving me the chance to preach, Dan!\n\nThe artist is Bruce Pennington, and for my money his covers \nevoke the romance, the mystery, the great age and the ruinous\nbeauty of Severian's world like nothing else. The covers for \nClaw and Shadow are the most outstanding, but they all convey -\nthrough tone and colour as much as through what is depicted -\nexactly what the reader is in for.\n\nDan, I'll be happy to scan the covers for you. And anyone else\nwho has never seen them will be doing themselves a favour if\nthey take a peek too." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "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" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Agreed. SF fans always assume the moral high ground in the great\nSF versus Literature conflict, but in fact there's an awful lot of inverted\nsnobbery in there. And the only thing that's worse than a snob is\nan inverted snob." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Peter Stephenson", "address": "pws at ifh.de" }, "date": "1998-05-06T09:58:39+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Bruce Pennington covers", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Tony Ellis wrote:\nThe artist is Bruce Pennington, and for my money his covers \nevoke the romance, the mystery, the great age and the ruinous\nbeauty of Severian's world like nothing else. The covers for \nClaw and Shadow are the most outstanding, but they all convey -\nthrough tone and colour as much as through what is depicted -\nexactly what the reader is in for." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I have to agree with this. The cover for Shadow, showing a mysterious\nfigure (Severian) below a cluttered hill, has haunted me ever since\nI first bought it. There's a sense of age and decay, mixed with a\nhalf familiarity of seeing our own past; the figure, totally enfolded\nin his cloak, is at once a focus and slightly apart from the world.\nIt's full of all the right sorts of ambiguity.\n\nBy the way, I noticed that the cover of Claw in the Italian translation\nwas the one from this series. I wonder how far they've spread.\n\npws" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Kieran Cleary", "address": "kierannwn at tinet.ie" }, "date": "1998-05-06T11:51:13+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Bruce Pennington covers", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I have to agree with Tony: the covers for the UK version are (IMHO) far\nbetter than the Maitz covers. On the other hand, the covers for the UK\nversion of the Long Sun series are very poor indeed, compared to the covers\nI've seen for Lake and Exodus on P.Duggan's website. A nice touch on the UK\ncovers, though, is the embedding of stained glass windows in the otherwise\nnaturalistic landscapes. Good conception, poor execution. Plus, I don't like\nto see clear depictions of protagonists' faces on covers (this is turning\ninto a bit of a rant..better stop).\n\nWhile I'm on tangential and subjective opinions, though a film of the Urth\nsequence would have to be a travesty, it would also *have* to feature T. L.\nde Victoria's \"Ascendens Christus in altum\" as mood music.\n\nBeen away for a while. I have to say that a stuffed-to-overflowing Urth mail\nfolder is a nice treat.\n\nKieran C.\n\nNorth West Labs\nFinisklin Industrial Estate\nSligo\nRepublic of Ireland\n\nTel. +353 71 69441\nFax. +353 71 69451\nemail: kierannwn at tinet.ie" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Peter Westlake", "address": "peter at harlequin.co.uk" }, "date": "1998-05-06T12:29:16+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Bruce Pennington covers", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "At 12:51 1998-05-06 +0100, you wrote:\nI have to agree with Tony: the covers for the UK version are (IMHO) far\nbetter than the Maitz covers. On the other hand, the covers for the UK\nversion of the Long Sun series are very poor indeed, compared to the covers\nI've seen for Lake and Exodus on P.Duggan's website. A nice touch on the UK\ncovers, though, is the embedding of stained glass windows in the otherwise\nnaturalistic landscapes. Good conception, poor execution. Plus, I don't like\nto see clear depictions of protagonists' faces on covers (this is turning\ninto a bit of a rant..better stop)." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Me either, especially when they don't look like my mental picture,\nwhich they invariably never do, especially in this case.\n\nThe stained glass windows are very nice, and I liked the way the\nfirst two joined together to make a bigger picture; I was looking\nforward to the third and fourth books, and was very disappointed\nwhen the spines did not continue to build up but were duplicates\nof the second. Of course, Calde had the subtitle \"Volume Two of the\nBook of the Long Sun\", so I suppose it's only fair that it should\nhave the same cover as Lake!\n\nHello, by the way.\n\nPeter.\n\nPeter Westlake, Harlequin Ltd, Barrington Hall, Barrington, Cambs CB2 5RG." } ] } ] }