Lou Anders News

Lou Anders the Editorial Director at Pyr has an interesting interview over at BSC. In the interview he has some interesting thoughts on the genre and an interesting view of Science Fiction and Fantasy's current state.

A quick blurb from the interview:

What, to you, makes a good cover for a book?  Including what makes a good base piece of art?

I’ve thought a lot about this recently, as a guest spot I did at IlluXcon doing portfolio reviews forced me to quantify a lot of what was previously intuitive, and I’d say that a good cover contains a sense of narrative; it draws you into the scene and suggests what might have happened seconds before the image and what might be happening seconds after. (For a wonderful example, see David Palumbo’s cover for Joel Shepherd’s Petrodor.) This is true even of the more abstract covers. Books are judged on covers, despite the saying against it, and it is all-important that the cover communicate the excitement within in an enticing, professional, dignified, and compelling way.  I say dignified because I think the best SF&F covers find a way to represent the tropes of SF&F in a mature, 21^st century manner. They are inclusive not exclusive.  Stephan Martiniere and John Picacio are masters of this.