QuickTidal, on 13 August 2021 - 11:55 AM, said:
Turns out I have a book cover / Completionsim fetish.
Not a few weeks after doing this with the new DUNE books, I have discovered that the Harper Collins (Canada and the UK) versions of Patrick O'Brian's 'Aubrey & Maturin' series (a series I'm only on book 2 of 21 so far), was last reprinted between 2002 and 2010. I have found it mildly inconvenient to find some of the volumes when I search. I like those covers, they are nice and kind of stoic, and feature the original Geoff Hunt naval art on them, just refit into the new style which I will post below. These covers lean into the Nautical theme in layout, with gold lettering on the author name, and a sort of misty but bright adaption of the older art.
My problem is in the fact that by the time I get around to reading all 21 volumes...these covers may become impossible to find, and if that finding difficulty is beginning now, who know where it will be Ain a few years. Add in that IF Disney+ does decide to make a TV show reboot of the series, they will inevitably get bad photo TV show covers.
So yeah, I like these and have 3 of them this way...but there may be an availability problem going fwd.
OBrian-1.jpg
In the States, however, these books are published by W. W. Norton. Norton decided that at the 50th Anniversary of MASTER & COMMANDER (in 2019), they would not only reissue the first book in a new edition, but they commissioned brand new art and a new cover design entirely for the series. The Design, by artist Matthew Benedict was done to actually move through the series as if it's a bunch of stills from the series, and has a way different flair. It almost looks like TinTin Adventures or Johnny Quest to me...and I love the fat lettering on the author name. They feel less nautical overall, but I think they look really nice (I actually like them better) like this. The series is slowly releasing this way (the first 3 books are already out like this, and the next 6 come in November with more to follow in Jan 2022. So these covers will be easy to collect and I like them a lot. So I've switched, and ordered the first three from Norton in the States (the shipping, conversions, and border fees still put them about $1-2 less than I would pay for the Harper versions here).
Anyways, here those are.
OBrian2.jpg
I like the first version better and got me a bunch of those recently, up to
A Letter of Marque. May well buy the rest if I can free some shelf space, but I don't have anything I want to get rid of right now.
Last thing I threw out was the Sanderson stuff - four big hardcovers of
Stormlight, the short story collection (as well as
Mistborn, Elantris, Wax and Wayne as mass market paperbacks). I gave
Mistborn two tries and never finished, first
Wax and Wayne story was ok-ish but nothing to write home about; sort of liked
Way of Kings, but the books got progressivle more boring (should not have bought the last one in hardcover, but I hoped to get into it - nope
) and read some of the short stories I'm lukewarm about at best. I should have realised he's not my sort of author sooner; it would have saved me some money.