Friday, 17 August 2018

Words And Images

Exercise:

read a novel;

find a descriptive passage that might provide an image for the book cover;

also search the 'net for already existing images that might be adaptable.

"They were an uncanny sight, walking along a ridge against the blood-flaring sunset, the thin, ragged, big-headed boy like a dwarf from some legend and the shaggy, lumpish animal skulking at his heels."
-Poul Anderson, "Chain of Logic" IN Anderson, Twilight World, pp. 35-68 AT 1, p. 39.

The alert blog reader will notice that the image attached to this post differs in several details from the described scene. That scene - a ridge against a blood-red sunset and a dwarfish figure accompanied by a skulking animal - would certainly provide an appropriate book cover although it would emphasize the horror aspect of the mutants. However, the large head on the boy might also evoke the possibility of superhuman mental powers.

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

The massive dog I thought of was Huan, the great hound from Valinor who became the friend and protector of Beren and Luthien in THE SILMARILLION and the long poem Tolkien wrote about them. It had been prophesied that Huan would be given to speak thrice and that he would die only by the fangs of the greatest of all wolves to walk the Earth.

Sean