Friday Face-Off: Longboat
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:
“Odin, Odin, send the wind to turn the tide.”
~ a cover featuring a LONGBOAT
Mogsy’s Pick:
Eaters of the Dead by Michael Crichton
This week’s theme’s a toughie, so I’m bringing back a book I read long ago by the late Michael Crichton whose books I could always count on to be entertaining and smart. Eaters of the Dead is a historical fiction novel set in the early 10th century about a refined courtier from the Caliph of Bagdad who is enlisted by a party of rowdy Viking warriors to help them hunt a flesh-eating monster. It’s not the easiest of Crichton’s books to get into, since it’s written in the form of a journal and is essentially a retelling of Beowulf from an outsider’s point of view. It was also made into a movie called The 13th Warrior.
There are a lot of covers for this book, so I’m mostly going to concentrate on the nicer ones as well as those featuring longboats.
From left to right, top to bottom:
Alfred A. Knopf (1976) – Arrow (1997) – Ballantine (1998)
Ballantine (1993) – Harper (2009) – Ballantine Movie Tie-in (1998)
Harper Paperbacks (2016) – Avon (2006) – Czech Edition (1994)
Spanish Edition (1988) – Estonian Edition (2009) – Polish Edition (1992)
Portuguese Edition A (1997) – Portuguese Edition B (2008) – French Edition (2005)
Italian Edition A (2010) – Italian Edition B (2018) – Hungarian Edition (2015)
Winner:
Nothing’s really leaping out at me this week. But I have to choose one, so I think I’m going to go with the 2010 Italian edition because it’s the only cover that would make me grab the book off a shelf without knowing anything about it. It also like the image and art style because it looks like it could be an oil painting in a museum.
But what do you think? Which one is your favorite?
The BiblioSanctum 
Spanish 1988 has a cute dragon, so I’d pick this!
But I agree.. nothing that’s really awesome there
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Haha, I suppose it’s quite cute 😀
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I guess the movie tie in, but wtf is going on with the Polish
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It looks like the cover of some really bad 70s fantasy movie, lol.
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I’m kind of surprised we picked the same book! You have a lot more covers than I do, however. I think my favorite is still the same as the one I chose in my post, the Harper 2016.
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I considered that one! Love the color!
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All the covers with the dragon’s head ship prow (I hope that’s the correct term…) make me think about Viking adventurers, so I guess all of those would be my choice 🙂
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I like the close ups of the prow too. The French edition was one I considered for a while 🙂
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A toughie indeed Mogsy! But I do agree with your pick.
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Thanks! It just seemed the classiest 🙂
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Oh I like this- I’ve never read the book but I did see the movie. I like the Harper 2009 edition a little bit, and the Avon and Estonian as well.
The Portuguese ’97 version has such an old school feel to it!
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I can’t remember if I saw the movie. Maybe just bits and pieces. I definitely want to watch it now though!
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I think I like the Hungarian Edition (2015) best, but I don’t love any of them. I like the color and the ship on the Ballantine Movie Tie-in (1998) edition, but the eye ruins it
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I feel the same way. There a few that stand out to me, like my winner, but at the end of the day, I don’t love any of them either.
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Great book choice, though I agree – none of them sing, do they? My eyes keep being drawn back that very first cover – the Alfred A. Knopf offering. It is quirky and oddly beguiling.
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I think that’s the original first edition cover. There’s something almost eerie about that thing…whatever creature it’s supposed to be!
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It’s still the breaking wave that features on the cover below, I think, Mogsy…
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I see you and Tammy were in sync this week! There are a lot of great covers for this one, I liked the one that you picked too!
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Yup, I did have a feeling someone else might pick this one. I was really hurting for choices!
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Longboats are cool! I like the Hungarian cover!
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Gotta love Vikings!
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I like your choice – it looks like there’s something blazing in the background. I still like the skull cover though – don’t ask me why.
Lynn 😀
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Yes! I love the blazing effect. That’s what I wanted to say in my description as well, but just didn’t know how to put it.
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What a fun collection! I really like the cover you picked as well. That orange of the title really pops!
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Yes, it really brings out the colors in the background of the ship too!
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