Judging a Book by Its Cover; or, Cover Conundrum

Ramblings by Jeanne

I’ve always been fascinated by book covers. So much planning goes into them: designing the images, the type-face, and the colors. The results can be quite mixed. There are books which accurately reflect content, yet others in which one has to wonder if the artist had any clue as to the contents of the book. Some seem to be rather generic covers, as if the artist has been told “this is a Southern murder book” and so produces a picture of a big ol’ plate of fried chicken or a big ol’ watermelon with a big ol’ dangerous looking knife, setting both on a homey looking checkered tablecloth. Never mind that neither knives nor fried chicken play a noticeable role in the book: it’s just a sort of visual shorthand to say “Hey! Reader! Southern mystery here!” A cozy mystery will have a cat and some other comforting accouterment: a quilt or a china tea cup or flowers and then something vaguely menacing, such as a bottle with a skull on it.

Romance books? I don’t need to describe those! Handsome man, handsome women, either in an embrace (it’s going to be passionate!) or studying each other warily (they hate each other on sight, so naturally they’ll fall in love.)

Other books have covers that reveal little about the contents but intrigue the viewer: what could this book be about?

In many cases, the authors do NOT have any input into what the cover looks like. I often wonder exactly how some choices are made. Obviously, someone believes that this cover will “sell” the book to a specific audience. Recently, I’ve noticed an interesting instance of this with Catalyst: A Tale of the Barque Cats by Anne McCaffrey and Elizabeth Ann Scarborough. The story is set in the future, when cats are used to protect spaceships from vermin and serve as valued members of the crew.

This is the first cover for hardback edition of Catalyst.

However, apparently the publisher decided to go with a different designer, so the cover for the sequel, Catacombs, had a very different look as you can see.

The cover of the paperback version of the first book now resembles the second.

What do you think?  Which cover do you like best and why?  I'll explain my choice in the comments section.

Barque Cats Return!

Catacombs: A Tale of the Barque Cats by Anne McCaffrey and Elizabeth Ann Scarborough (F MCC Main)


Reviewed by Jeanne

In the future, spacecraft have cats on board who keep down vermin such as mice who chew on cargo and components that could endanger the ship and its passengers. These highly trained cats also alert the crew of potential hazards such as air leaks. The cats are so valuable that they usually have their own person assigned to keep them well cared for and healthy.

Or that’s the way it used to be, before a panic caused the humans to try to eradicate animals. A whole group of the Barque Cats and some of their humans followed the alien cat Pshaw-Ra to his home planet, a paradise for cats.

As Catacombs opens, Barque Cat Chester and his boy Jubal are beginning to wonder a bit as to whether they jumped out of the proverbial frying pan into the fire. For one thing, this planet is very hot and rather uncomfortable for long haired cats and their humans. For another, their welcome has been a bit. . . reserved. It seems Pshaw-Ra may have misrepresented things just a bit. It soon becomes obvious that there’s something sinister going on and the Barque cats may be just pawns in the struggle for power among the royal cats.

Oh, and Pshaw-Ra has plans to take over the universe for cat kind.

I enjoyed this second book more than the first, in part because the setting is so vivid. The authors did an excellent job of evoking the hot, sandy, arid world—not an easy thing to do when I was surrounded by winter when I read it! The Egyptian imagery and mythology were a plus for me. The scenes in the catacombs were particularly effective. Parts of it reminded me of McCaffrey’s Dragonriders; I won’t say more. Humans and cats work more as a team in this book, with better developed personalities on both sides, and the action scenes are well done. One thing I noticed in the first book was that one character who was supposed to be in her twenties sounded younger than that; in this book, there are no such problems. Both McCaffrey and Scarborough are seasoned writers, though usually they write for adults; I felt there might have been a little bit of adjusting going on in Catalyst which has smoothed out in Catacombs.

This is one of those books that adults or teens would enjoy, and you needn’t have read Catalyst first. Cat lovers will especially enjoy the books, but even if you aren't a feline fan there's plenty to like here. Unfortunately, this appears to be the last book. I for one will miss Chessie, Doc, Pshaw Ra and Chester. I hope many will be inspired to make their acquaintance.