Friday Face-Off: Classic or Vintage Sci-fi
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 CLASSIC OR VINTAGE SCI-FI cover
Mogsy’s Pick:
Neuromancer by William Gibson
Neuromancer was my first book by William Gibson–and might be my last, if I’m to be honest. Man, this book was such a trip. I guess I just didn’t quite “get it”, but what can’t be denied is the novel’s contribution to the science fiction and its status as one of the most seminal works in the cyberpunk genre. There are a lot of covers for this book, more than I could possibly show here, so I’ve only featured a selection of my favorites from which I’ll choose my winner.
From left to right:
Gollancz (2016) – Ace (1984) – Voyager (1986)
French Edition (2001) – Russian Edition (1997) – Portuguese Edition (2016)
Italian Edition (2003) – Chinese Edition (2013) – Greek Edition (1998)
German Edition (2021) – Romanian Edition (2017) – Japanese Edition (1986)
Winner:
When I was going through all the covers for this book, I came across a lot of bad ones but there were a lot of really strong ones too, which made it hard to pick a favorite. I’ve always been drawn to illustrated/comic art covers though, so I’m not surprised the Portuguese edition immediately drew my attention, but I also really like the Japanese and Gollancz (2016) editions.
But what do you think? Which one is your favorite?
The BiblioSanctum 
Portugese, absolutely! It brings to mind A Clockwork Orange, too 😉
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Good observation!
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Good choice! But honestly, I don’t like any of the covers. I‘d have loved one with Molly Millions, though. Like that: https://images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca887773594c2.wixmp.com/f/936bae35-d7f5-423e-9fe5-7bc4e0dc4f44/d4za7fp-7c6680df-d3ad-4ae5-a529-b4c93f00d260.jpg/v1/fill/w_786,h_1017,q_75,strp/molly_millions_by_peterman2070-d4za7fp.jpg?token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJpc3MiOiJ1cm46YXBwOjdlMGQxODg5ODIyNjQzNzNhNWYwZDQxNWVhMGQyNmUwIiwic3ViIjoidXJuOmFwcDo3ZTBkMTg4OTgyMjY0MzczYTVmMGQ0MTVlYTBkMjZlMCIsImF1ZCI6WyJ1cm46c2VydmljZTppbWFnZS5vcGVyYXRpb25zIl0sIm9iaiI6W1t7InBhdGgiOiIvZi85MzZiYWUzNS1kN2Y1LTQyM2UtOWZlNS03YmM0ZTBkYzRmNDQvZDR6YTdmcC03YzY2ODBkZi1kM2FkLTRhZTUtYTUyOS1iNGM5M2YwMGQyNjAuanBnIiwid2lkdGgiOiI8PTc4NiIsImhlaWdodCI6Ijw9MTAxNyJ9XV19.L0RTHpZQoI5dWJP-zaCJdKEfnbaHFULWUSENYlg5F7c
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Now that’s a great image!
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Love the theme this week. So many great choices, but I agree with you, Portugese drew my eyes right away.
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Yeah, I love the art style!
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Neuromancer was my first, and last, Gibson too! Does that make us Book Twins? 😉
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Haha, I’m sure there are quite a few of us, better make room for more book siblings!
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“family” reunions are going to be out of control 😀
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I like your choice, very cyberpunk indeed! And the French edition is another good one 🙂
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Yes, one of the characteristics that drew me to it was how “cyberpunkish” it looked!
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I love your choice this week, and then, although it’s completely different, I also Like the Chinese cover.
Lynn 😀
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Yes, lots of different covers this week!
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I love the Gollancz edition best, but wow the Portuguese is pretty eye catching!
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Gollancz edition is pretty nice too with the tinges of pink!
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If I were browsing the used bookstore and knew nothing about the book, either that Ace (1984) or Voyager (1986) cover would be the one to catch my eye.
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They do have that cool retro vibe!
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I like the retro look of the Ace cover. I really loved Neuromancer when I read it, very long ago now. It just really struck a chord with me. I’ve been wanting to reread it and see what I think now.
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I think I read it around the time I was still very new to sci-fi – I think I just found it all too overwhelming!
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Greek, Romanian and German, in that order.
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Those are really nice – the German one is so busy!
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Your pick of cover was my pick as well before I got to that part, I do like the Chinese one as well. I still have to read this novel as I want to decide for myself what the hype around the book that “kicked off cyberpunk” genre was all about.
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I sought out the book because of that too! Honestly, I was impressed with the ideas and I could see why it was such an important work for the cyberpunk genre, but I couldn’t get into it.
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That Portuguese one feels so very 80s!
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I agree, love the retro vibe!
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I love the German cover – and yes… me too. First and last Gibson book:)).
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Yeah, I’m scared off from more Gibson!
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And yet there are cyberpunk writers out there that I really enjoy!
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I will go with the first Gollancz
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That’s definitely up there as one of my top choices.
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I like almost all of them, lol. My top ones are Gollancz, Portuguese edition, Chinese edition, and the Japanese edition.
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Excellent choices 😀
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