Indie Book Covers of 2012

One of my favorite parts of posting book reviews is looking at the cover art, even on ebooks.  Some of the finest art out there is on Indie Books and I am well-known for buying a book for its cover!

 

One of the most beautifully illustrated books I have read in a long time is Ravenwild by Dr. Peter J. Plasse. The gorgeous illustrations are by the incredibly talented Michael Longenecker. Even if the book were a dud, I would recommend it just for Longenecker's richly detailed paintings and drawings which are sprinkled throughout the book! However, this book is a very good read. I spent a snowy day in March reading this tale, and I am now a confirmed fan.  This is definitely my cover of the year, and the artwork within is awesome.

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Hemlock and the Wizard Tower (The Maker’s Fire) by B. Throwsnaill. This was the best .99 that I have spent in a long while and the cover art was also fabulous.

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The Sum of All Men This book was first published in 1998, but for some strange reason I had never read any work by David Farland. That omission, however, has been rectified. He isn’t an indie, but I am now a drooling fan.

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Darkness Rising 3, Prism is the long awaited third installment in the sweeping Darkness Rising Series, by Dr. Ross M. Kitson. I love, love, love Hunor!

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FireseedOne by Catherine Stine – this was a guest review by Alison DeLuca. An awesome book!

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Northman is an excellent novel by an indie author. J.D. Hughes twists time and history into a paranormal page-turner that is one of a kind. The cover is simple and powerful, and caught my eye when I first saw it on his blog.

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‘The Time Weaver’ by indie author Thomas A. Knight was an excellent first novel, and I think it bodes well for his future efforts. He also opted for a simple cover design, one that is intriguing in its simplicity.

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Jeffrey Getzin’s breathtaking epic fantasy, ‘Prince of Bryanae’ is exceptionally well covered, in a fabulous fantasy cover that is as fine as we could find on a Robert Jordan/Brandon Sanderson novel. I would have given this book my cover of the  year vote, if I hadn't fallen in love with Peter Plasse's Ravenwild.

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Alison DeLuca's wonderful Steampunk books, The Crown Phoenix Series has three amazing covers, all of which really catch the eye, but there is something about this cover that I just love. Maybe it is that she reminds me of Wednesday Addams, only sweeter...

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I was also fascinated by the simple yet intriguing covers on LornaT. Suzuki's and Nia Suzuki-White's wonderful Dream Merchant Saga. I felt compelled to pick them up and take a good look when I first saw them and I am so glad I did!

 

All of these covers prove that even ebooks need good covers on them, because every one of these books was a Kindle or Nook purchase, and as I said before, I usually buy a book for it's cover.

These are by no means all of the fine covers which were featured on the Best In Fantasy this year, but they were the ones with most quickly caught my eye and while I could go on and on, there is only so much you poor readers are going to put up with.

Sigh.

I always loved looking at the pictures as much as reading the books when I was young, and I'm no different now! 

 

The Best In Fantasy Year in Review

This year, in July I began my quest to try to read and discuss one really good fantasy read a week.  At the time that I began this quest, I had no idea just how difficult and time consuming a task that would become!  I quickly discovered that for every one book that I loved, I had to read four or five that I quite frankly didn't love. Many books that have received high critical praise didn't ring my chimes at all. 

For this post, I had to decide which book-cover was my favorite book cover, and that was incredibly difficult!  The art and graphics on most of these books is so great that I would be proud to have it on my walls.  Still, Stephen King's incredible cover for 'The Dark Tower' looms as the best cover that I have seen this year.  The joke there is that I never reviewed that book, although my friend Jesse Schlecter reviewed the series as a guest post!  Still, I am using it as the cover of choice for this post. A very close runner-up for cover of the year is Valerie Douglas' 'Servant Of The Gods', which was my final review of the year.

Since my reason for writing the Best in Fantasy was to discuss the books that I loved, you have never heard of the ones that I like moderately, or even not at all, and you will never hear about them unless we are chatting in person! I don't have the deeply rooted belief that I am the final word on whether a book is bad or great that a true critic needs to have.  You have come to realize, I am sure, that I have a rather quirky sense of what I consider to be a great read.  My choices of books tend to be quite divergent and often obscure.  Reading pleasure is so subjective and individual, that I simply try to promote what I personally consider to be little gems.

Several little gems really stood out in my mind this year, and they may or may not surprise you.  The first book that leaps to my mind when I think of the book that I enjoyed the most this year is  L. T. Suzuki's 'Imago - A Warrior's Tale'.  I was blown away by that first book in the series.  I dropped everything and immediately began reading everything in the whole series.  The more I read, the more I was addicted!

Another little gem that rocked the Casbah for me was 'Black Numbers' by Dean Frank Lappi.  That is the scariest, most compelling book I have read in a very long time.  I am now waiting on pins and needles for the sequel! 

I also dipped deep into the realm of Young Adult Fantasy, and along with J. K. Rowling's 'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows' (which was my inaugural post) I read Alison DeLuca's 'Night Watchman Express', Rick Riordan's 'The Lost Hero' and Gary Hoover's 'Land of Nod - The Artifact'.  Although all of these books are written from a teen's point of view (an age which I left behind along with the dinosaur), each and every one of them captured my attention and drew me completely into their world.

I also review many books by authors who have passed on, but whose works live on and still pull the reader in, even after all the years since their passing.  Fritz Lieber's classic ' 'Swords and Deviltry', Robert Jordan's 'New Spring', and Marion Zimmer Bradley's 'Mists of Avalon' were just a few of the classics that I re-read this year for this blog.  I was so happy to re-read their work, and discovered many things in them that I hadn't noticed the first time around.

We also lost several great writers this year. The prolific, amazing Anne McCaffrey passed on in November, and Diana Wynne Jones in March.

Despite the losses, and despite the amazing number of books that I have had to read just to find one gem a week, this has been a truly great adventure.  Each and every book that I have reviewed in this forum is a book that I absolutely loved reading, and I would gladly read again. Thank you all for being a part of my first year at this!  I hope to be able share many more little beauties with you in the years to come!