Dig The Covers

Each new edition of a novel is the same text as before but is an opportunity for a new cover illustration. The covers of the uniform Grafton editions of Poul and Karen Anderson's King Of Ys tetralogy (see the attached image and an earlier post, "The King Of Ys, Volume Two") are beautiful, evocative pictures, fully appropriate to the contents of each volume.

Even when internally illustrated, which is rare, a novel is essentially a words only medium so that the visual experience presented by the cover illustration ceases as soon as the book is opened. That is as it should be as long as we continue to value prose fiction.

However, there could be an animated film adaptation of the tetralogy based on the style of the covers - although even better than this would be a sequential art (comic strip) adaptation in which the static representational art continues beyond the cover and continues to be appreciated while the reader also follows the story.