# Book Covers *The Urth list — 1 messages, 1 voices, 06 May 1998* > 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. --- ### J. Schultz *06 May 1998, 22:49* I'm intrigued. I've never seen the British covers for the Urth cycle. Tony, if you would be so kind, send those scans my way too. I will say that the greatest fault of the Maitz covers can also be seen as one of its good points. When I first read the Urth cycle, at the tender age of 19, I had nothing to tell me that this wasn't the run of the mill sword and socerey stories I was used to. Besides the praise of critics covering its back cover, I thought I was in for a traditional, well told story set in your basic pseudo-middle age fantasy backdrop. Imagine my surprise when I realized that the citadel was and ancient spaceship now in disrepair! As to bringing Wolfe to the people.. : ) Fantasy and Science Fiction alike have taken a wrong turn somewhere. Much like Hollywood, their are cranking out books using the same formula over and over again. To even get Wolfe's books I have to go to a huge Barnes and Noble bookstore, because in smaller stores the SF/F shelves are cramed full of garbage. Case in point: Let's see a show of hands... How many of you have been in bookstores where the STAR TREK, STAR WARS, and DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS novels out number all the other SF/F books? (Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with a good mindless fantasy book every now and then but the trend is becoming an epidemic) Good authors are turning to these series to make money, and I can't really blame them. The rewards for literary SF/F are slim. Speaking of this, anyone have any suggestions for further reading. I'm hungry for a good story and I can get lost in a bookstore for hours without ever making a decision. Any help in the right direction would be appreciated. ---