Friday Face-Off: Hands
Welcome to The Friday Face-Off, a weekly meme created by Books by Proxy! Each Friday, we will pit cover against cover while also taking the opportunity to showcase gorgeous artwork and feature some of our favorite book covers. If you want to join the fun, simply choose a book each Friday that fits that week’s predetermined theme, post and compare two or more different covers available for that book, then name your favorite. A list of future weeks’ themes are available at Lynn’s Book Blog.
This week’s theme is:
“A Hand without a hand? A bad jape, sister.”
~ a cover featuring HANDS
Mogsy’s Pick:
City of Blades by Robert Jackson Bennett
As you know, I’d never let a chance to talk about my favorite books pass me by, which is why this week I’ve decided to feature City of Blades, the second novel of The Divine Cities sequence. Taking place approximately five years after City of Stairs, the book opens in a tropical paradise where my favorite character from the first book, General Turyin Mulaghesh, has quietly retreated to after retiring from the Saypuri army. Not that retirement (or even losing her hand in the war) has slowed her down one bit, of course. Thanks to a bureaucratic mishap, she finds herself pulled back into the service of Prime Minister Shara Komayd, who sends her to the ravaged city of Voortyashtan on a covert mission. Once the home of a death goddess and her legions of fearsome warriors, the city has become a stricken ruin after the downfall of its Divinity. Now it is the site of much change but also rising tensions and violence.
And now, the covers:
From left to right, top to bottom:
Broadway Books (2016) – Jo Fletcher (20016)
Recorded Books (2016) – Czech Edition (2017) – German Edition (2017)
Winner:
The Jo Fletcher edition wins hands down (har har, see what I did there?), though I have to say I like the Broadway Books edition a lot too, making it a close second. To be honest, all the options were sufficiently different enough this week that I think each brings their own strengths and good points, but there’s just a simplicity to the JFB cover that really appeals to me.
But what do you think? Which one is your favorite?
The BiblioSanctum 
This one is definitely my favorite too, I love the otherwordly aspect of it. And the Czech edition is pretty amazing too, again seems otherwordly and I love the purple and green.
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Yes, it’s the otherworldly nature of it that really appeals to me!
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It is def the hand Broadway one for me
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It’s a very dramatic cover!
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Your choice was my favorite, too. I love night sky book art and the bridges are very intriguing!
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Yes, I loved the night sky…and did you catch the geometric patterns in it? I thought that was cool!
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I had a handful of choices for this week and this was one of them, but ultimately I went with another book. I actually like all these covers. But the Czech cover wins for me, I can’t resist bright blues and purples!
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It’s quite psychedelic!
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The Jo Fletcher one is the version I was immediately drawn to also for some reason. I think it’s the graphics and the stark colors. Great covers this week though and it’s hard for me to resist the one with blues and purples too!
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Exact reasons why I was drawn to it too!
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I like the top two for different reasons…hard to pick!
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Yes, all very strong covers this week!
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I agree with you for the choise of the cover
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It’s pretty, isn’t it? 🙂
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Ooh great choice!
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It’s a very pretty cover!
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Yeah, I really like the Jo Fletcher cover. Great choice.
Lynn 😀
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Love the tone it gives the book 🙂
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I agree with your choice!! I love the sky in the top half of the pic. The rest is pretty cool too, but the sky is what makes it stand out to me!
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I love it too. The sky with the stars and the moon…and those geometric lines were a cool touch, I thought!
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Totally second your choice. That one really stood out to me as well. 😉
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It jumped out at me because of its simplicity…but it’s also very beautiful 🙂
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The North American cover always makes me shiver uncomfortably because of how TIGHTLY that hand is clutching that sword. Jo Fletcher one wins by a landslide for me as well. 🙂
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Oh I know, looking at that image always makes me wince a little inside as well! 😀
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Perfect choice indeed: the starkness of black, white and grey is quite eye-catching!
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I agree, sometimes black and white can be used to great effect!
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