Conjuring Mice

Many years ago – during a time when computers had been around for a while but the Internet was still new, wild and exciting- I was searching for a unique fantasy background for my desktop. There was one background called ‘conjuring mice,’ which showed a purple-clad wizardess summoning rodents outside a church. Perfect.

A few months later, I saw the same art – this time in a Barnes and Noble. Turned out it was the cover to Barbara Hambly’s Stranger at the Wedding, which some early Internet thief had lifted and made into a background jpg. After staring at the image for months, I decided to pick the book up. It became one of my all-time favorite fantasy novels.

That was a long time ago. But last month I saw a Buzzfeed piece called 13 Fantasy Novels That Are Good Despite Their Covers. Number nine on this list was Blood Song by Anthony Ryan. After seeing the cover and having one of my friends rave to me about how good it was, I decided to give it a read.

As it happened, I couldn't put it down.  In fact, all of Monday was a fog because I was up until six in the morning finishing the last three chapters. Reading them took three times as long as normal because the ending was so good each line just had to be read at least twice.  It’s my favorite fantasy writing since Patrick Rothfuss’ Kingkiller Chronicles (the first book of which is also featured in the Buzzfeed article). In fact, I’ve already pre-ordered the sequel, which is out July 1st.

So two of my favorite fantasy authors, Hambly and Ryan, got on my radar because of cover art - although the context in each case was very different. It just goes to show one can never underestimate the visuals. For an aspiring fantasy author like myself, the lesson is clear – cover art should stand out. People read books for the story, but it's what is on the cover that can grab their attention.

Bonus reading: Here's an interesting though somewhat dated conversation on this very topic.