Friday Face-Off: Armor
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:
“Pretty armour doesn’t make a warrior”
~ a cover that features ARMOR
Mogsy’s Pick:
Blood Song by Anthony Ryan
The story of Blood Song is about a young boy who trains and grows up to become a leader and one of the greatest warriors in the kingdom. It’s a tried-and-true formula in epic fantasy which by all rights I should have been sick to death of, but Anthony Ryan managed to pull it off without making me feel like I’m getting the same old, same old. But how do the book’s covers fare? Let’s take a look:
From left to right:
Ace (2012) – Orbit (2013) – Turkish Edition (2014)
Dutch Edition (2013) – Bulgarian Edition (2015) – French Edition (2014)
Portuguese Edition (2016) – Romanian Edition (2015) – Czech Edition (2015)
Russian Edition (2014) – German Edition (2014) – Serbian Edition (2019)
Winner:
Armor on book covers in the epic fantasy genre are nothing new, but I’ll let you in on a little secret: I can’t stand them! They just scream “generic” to me, and as you can see from the collection of covers here, many of which just feature a close-up for a chest plate and/or gauntlets, they do tend to blend together and one looks like the next. So it’s a tough choice this week, but I think I’ll have to go with the Portuguese edition. It’s unfortunate that the text is so frightful and takes up so much of the cover, but the image itself is quite gorgeous.
But what do you think? Which one is your favorite?
The BiblioSanctum 
I actually read the Ace edition and while I initially scoffed upon seeing a sword with such a fancy guard on the cover, later on that image was confirmed within the text, so points for the cover! 😉 I am one of those irritating readers who want the content matched by the cover :D. The Russian’s just meh, German one looks too Roman, the Serbian – too Middle European Mediaeval; the Czech cover looks alright as long as you don’t look at the sword, so Ace it is for me 😀
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Haha, yep, the sword was a pretty big deal in the book as I recall! I totally get what you mean about demanding accuracy from covers, I’m the same way sometimes 😀
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Large choice today Mogsy! I prefer the Czech edition.
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That one’s pretty slick, as far as armor covers go 😀
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What a lovely selection of covers – while I’m not actually anti-armour, I don’t find they particularly fire me up to pick up a book… So perhaps I am without knowing it! For whatever reason, I’d already alighted on the Portuguese cover before discovering it was your favourite – and when I saw the enlarged version, I was so glad I did – it’s just so beautiful! I also rather like the title treatment – it certainly blazes out of the cover, while not particularly obscuring the artwork. Great choice, Mogsy:)
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Yeah, they’re okay for epic fantasy covers, but they don’t excite me, so I know exactly what you mean! I guess blazing is a good description for the text, but with the background being so beautiful, I wish the text was smaller so it wouldn’t block out so much 😛
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I like that Bulgarian cover. Lonely Castles work for me 🙂
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Wow, I just realized that thing’s sitting on one strange looking rock!
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It’s a difficult choice with all those amazing covers, but I guess my vote goes to the Ace edition: there is something powerful in that close-up of the arm holding the sword… 🙂
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For the concept, I do think that one does it the best!
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I almost went with a Ryan book myself this week but there were no alternative covers for the book. I love your choice, what a fantastic image – it just beats me whey they chose to cover most of it with the title.
Lynn 😀
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Yeah I was surprised to find so many covers for this one, tbh…though a little disappointed that many of them looked so much alike!
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Oh most of them are great!
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Yeah, not too many outstanding ones, but they don’t suck, at least 😀
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I like the vibe of the Romanian one, but the execution isn’t great. I think I’ll have to go with the French one. But there are def a lot of great ones.
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Good point, the Romanian one has an interesting idea, but I’m not too fond of the art style either.
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I know what you mean! Some of the poses on these covers are ridiculous. But I actually love the Orbit cover, maybe because he’s looking down😁
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Ridiculous or boring! There’s just something so awkward about a warrior posing 😀
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Great choice this week!
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Thanks!
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You’re welcome!
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Oh I love the Czech edition!
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That’s one of the more popular choices this week, it seems 😀
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Same! Is it fitting? Who knows, but I like it
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Exactly! This week, I’m going for looks.
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It’s nice when new blood gets breathed into an older trope. 🙂 I like the one you picked but the French edition works for me as well.
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Yeah, lots of different interpretations of the “armor” cover 😀
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I’m not familiar with the book but I do like some of the covers, my 3 favorites being the Bulgarian, French, and Portuguese editions. If I had to pick just one I’d also choose the Portuguese. I like the feel it gives, a cold morning heading towards the castle, fog and mist rising, birds flying from the ramparts.
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You pretty much nailed the reason why I chose the Portuguese edition – all those details makes it so atmospheric!
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Oh good pick. I liked the one you ended up with best too, I think it’s the most eye-catching of them for me.
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Yeah, I usually like people on my covers, but when it’s too close up, I feel it gets too generic…so there were only a few choices for me this week and that one was the one that stood out the most 🙂
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