The Sword and Laser discussion

I know you aren't supposed to judge a book by its cover, but thanks S&L for getting me to pick this one up because I would've judged it six ways from Sunday. I found the 1993 Bantam Spectra edition at my local used bookstore, and am filled with questions. Assuming the girls is Kivrin, what is the glowing golden headband about? What sort of science are the scientist guys sciencing in the lower right? And who is that 1993 heartthrob falling off his horse? Admittedly, I'm only halfway through, but you'd think that mullet would've made its entrance by now.

Cover artist Roger Kassel, you may not have read The Doomsday Book, but I'd really be interested in reading the blurb you were given from which to create this masterpiece

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...

Oooh 😯 that’s bad. Actually it looks like something I might have picked up as a tween.

Whoever designed the cover definitely made some odd choices.

ISFDB is a good place to compare cover art. The link for Doomsday Book is

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/titlecov...

I clicked thru to the cover artist's website and it turns out Roger Kastel also did the cover and movie poster for Jaws.

That's an awful cover. My old copy was the one with the windows - gorgeous. .

Mark wrote: "Whoever designed the cover definitely made some odd choices.

ISFDB is a good place to compare cover art. The link for Doomsday Book is

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/titlecov...

I clicke..."

I was just going to post that link. I agree with Michele that the triptych windows one is the superior effort. The Kastel one looks like those terrible double-exposure Glamour Shots photo collages we used to get in the '70s and '80s that so many people delight in (rightfully) mocking these days. Will Ferrell being the most famous version these days.

I like this one.

Lena wrote: " I like this one."

I dunno...I look at that bill and all can hear is the Duckman character King Chicken going "Tho, Duckman, we meet again, buck buck..."

I think of dark times and some affecting made for TV movie I watched as a kid in the 80s about the bubonic plague breaking out in Manhattan. And a movie about time traveling back to bubonic plague times. Or maybe that was TV too. Now the scare is all, rightfully, flu but I have great late night spooky memories of the terror of bubonic plague.

Valerie wrote: "I know you aren't supposed to judge a book by its cover, but thanks S&L for getting me to pick this one up because I would've judged it six ways from Sunday. I found the 1993 Bantam Spectra edition..."
That's the version I read in the 90's. :-D

Trike wrote: "Mark wrote: "Whoever designed the cover definitely made some odd choices.

ISFDB is a good place to compare cover art. The link for Doomsday Book is

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/titlecov......"

HAHAHA!! It's true!

my cover was this one:

I'm not sure what the big streak of light is - maybe Luke's old lightsaber?