Friday Face-Off: Ruins
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 cover featuring RUINS
Mogsy’s Pick:
The House of Shattered Wings by Aliette de Bodard
It all begins with a fallen angel. The War in Heaven has come to Paris – or what’s left of it. The proud city is a ruin now, the once beautiful Seine clogged with the ashes of the dead and destroyed. House Silverspires, which used to be one of the most powerful Fallen factions, has followed Paris’ downfall into decay and disarray. It is thought that the House’s founder Morningstar has abandoned them, or he may be dead; either way, the fate of Silverspires now rests in his protégé Selene’s hands. And Selene, while she’s no Morningstar, is trying to do her best to keep her people safe as a sudden string of uncanny deaths strikes those with ties to her House.
Let’s take a look at the covers!
From left to right:
Roc (2015) – Gollancz HC (2015) – Gollancz PB (2016)
German Edition (2017) – French Edition (2017) – Blackstone Audio (2015)
Winner:
Wow, what a dark set of covers! Here I think a little brightness might actually help highlight the ruined city, which I enjoy as a visual theme as much as I do the angel wings. The French edition it is!
But what do you think? Which one is your favorite?
The BiblioSanctum 
Some books are dark and need similar titles, there are no happy unicorns puking rainbows around. I love the first cover and the German one!
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I actually love both Gollancz covers😁
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Unicorn puke for you, then 🦄 🌈 🤣
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I think I like the Gollancz pb just a bit more! Cool abstract effect! 😀
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The first cover is good too (and also the one I own) but too bad the dim lighting makes it hard to see some of the details!
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Those bare branches that seem to reach out for the wings are a bit creepy, but in a very good way! 😉
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Ooh, nice observation!
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I’ve loved everything I’ve read from Aliette de Bodard, but I’ve not yet read this one. My favorite is the Roc edition, though I might be biased as that’s the edition on my bookshelf.
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I have that edition too! The angel wing imagery is just too cool though, and I do find the Roc edition just a tad too dark 😀
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Haha – would you believe we used the same book this week. We chose different covers – I went for the audio – but I really like the French cover and could very well have chosen that simply because of the brightness and clarity of the ruin – but for some reason I didn’t include that cover. Must have overlooked it.
Lynn 😀
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Nice! It’s a great book featuring ruins on the cover. The audio would have been my second choice, I love the intricate designs!
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The first is good but should pop more, i will go with Gollanzc PB, weird choice for me, but I like it
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Yeah, my only complaint about that first one is that it is so dark
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I agree! For once the French edition is my favorite!
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Yay! I just thought it was the most well balanced of them all! 😀
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I like the first two covers best. I think I’d need to see them for real to pick my favourite.
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I see you also went with this one, good choice. I think your ultimate pick is pretty interesting even if I personally prefer the more gothic covers myself. 😉
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