Friday Face-Off: Sea Creature
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:
“Two little fishes and a momma fishy too”
~ a cover featuring a SEA CREATURE
Mogsy’s Pick:
Kraken by China Miéville
Ah, is there a more fearsome sea creature than the mighty Kraken? In this book though, it’s really the preserved body of a rare Architeuthis dux—better known as the giant squid. The story follows Billy Harrow, a scientist at the Museum of Natural History in London as well as its resident mollusk expert charged with overseeing the exhibition of the prized specimen. But then the huge creature unexpectedly goes missing, and Billy suddenly finds himself thrown into a side of the city he never knew existed: a world full of strange magic, secret doomsday cults, and other supernatural beings.
My first and only book I’ve read by China Miéville, this one’s definitely getting filed under “weird shit.” Let’s take a look some of the covers:
From left to right, top to bottom:
Del Rey (2010) – Tor UK (2010) – Pan Books (2011)
Russian Edition (2012) – Czech Edition (2010) – Italian Edition (2019) – Turkish Edition (2013)
German Edition (2011) – Hungarian Edition (2013) – Spanish Edition (2013)
Winner:
There are many strong contenders this week—who knew tentacles could be so appealing? My favorites are the Pan Books (2011), Hungarian (2013), and Spanish (2013) editions, but if I had to choose one, I think the Spanish one edges out the others slightly. At the same time, the styles are all so different, my winner could very well change by the hour, depending on the mood I’m in at the time.
But what do you think? Which one is your favorite?
The BiblioSanctum 
Yes I agree that it is the best cover. I’ve read a couple of good kraken books by Eric S Brown!
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I need to read more kraken books. Ones that are less weird and more adventurous 🙂
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Great choice! I swear I have this book but it’s not any of the covers you have here. I’ll have to track it down because now I’m curious! I love the one you picked, but honestly so many of these are beautiful. I adore the Tor UK and the Czech editions as well.
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Ooh, I’d like to know what your version looks like!
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I am torn, I like the first Del rey, but it does not really say Kraken so I am drawn to the Spanish one
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Yeah I own the Del Rey but it’s the least interesting to me.
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Tentacles are definitely tantalising and I like the three bottom covers but the Spanish is the best. I love the colours and the tangled tentacles. The Hungarian would be my second choice.
Lynn 😀
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Yeah, I do love the style of the Hungarian edition!
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I love your choice, the tentacles look like the are actually in motion – maybe it’s an effect of the very spot-on coloring… Lovecraft would have loved it too! 😀 😀
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Haha, for sure!
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Ooo… what a fabulous choice for this week’s theme! And I love your favourite, too – but I’m also very drawn to the Tor design.
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The Tor design is fantastic, I agree! Right down to the style of the border!
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Great choice this week! And it totally sounds like “Weird shit” 😂😂 I am not a huge fan of the Pan Books (2011) cover because I think the building looks like crayons 😂 but I agree with your winner!
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Haha yeah, Mieville is known for “weird” too, apparently 🙂
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I agree with your choice Mogsy!
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Great minds think alike 🙂
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Tentacles tentacles everywhere! I’m in heaven. I think if I had to pick one it would be the same Spanish edition you chose. However, until I saw it at the end I was going with Tor UK edition because tentacles AND the color purple.
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Yes, so many tentacles! And I agree, the Tor UK is so eye catching because of the purple color 🙂
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That’s my favorite one for sure. And I’ve never read a book by Mieville, partly for that reason- I keep hearing the weird descriptions and it puts me off a bit. Fun covers though!
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Yes, he’s known for his weird sff! I was wary about trying his work for that reason. And after Kraken, I confess I’ve been kinda scared off 🙂
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The cover of the winner is so beautiful!
(www.evelynreads.com)
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I love the realistic painted look!
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Great pick! I love the one you went with, the color is fab and the tentacles are great. I kind of like the one with the building and the tentacles underneath as well.
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That building one with the tentacle was one of my top three! Honestly, this week I had a hard time choosing my favorite 🙂
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The Italian edition drew my attention because of how it doesn’t talk about the Kraken hahaha and it actually focuses on the premise of the story! 😮
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Yes, I found that so interesting! And I think it translates to “end of all things” or something like that, right? Totally eerie 🙂
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Great choice! Definitely agree!
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