Cover Lover - Rivers and Riots

Welcome to Cover Lover, a feature on this blog dedicated to book covers! For a long time, I'd wanted a place where I can share some of my favorite covers, or talk about any that might have caught my eye. So when I came across this idea on fellow gamer/book lover Angelya's site The Oaken Bookcase, I jumped at the opportunity to adopt it as well. The "meme" was originally created by another friend of mine, Jaedia, on her book blog Once Upon A Time, so be sure to check out both their sites and take a look at some of the covers they have featured.

A few weeks ago, I finished a book called Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch. A friend had to lend me their copy, because like a few others, I initially had difficulty finding one for myself. It wasn't until later that I realized why -- turns out, the US version of the book goes under the different title of Midnight Riot. Curious as to why, I decided to do some digging around.

And in doing so, I discovered that the two versions also have vastly different covers.

The original Gollancz cover

US cover

I love the original cover. And after reading the novel, I think I prefer it even more. Based upon a detail from a drawing called The Island by UK artist Stephen Walter, the Gollancz cover isn't as bombastic but still manages to capture the quirkiness of the story, and better yet, the liveliness and rich history of a big city like London. It has charm. It's different and unique.

The US cover on the other hand? I'm sorry, but no. I'll give that it's colorful and flashy, but if I'd walked by that on a bookstore shelf I probably wouldn't have given it a second glance. They've pretty much reduced the cover to look like every other convention standard urban fantasy out there! A shame, since the book was so awesome.

Not to mention, the American edition's cover apparently drew a bit of controversy a while back. The publisher Del Rey was criticized for changing an earlier version of the image -- which showed the character's face in more detail -- to the silhouette shown above, thus hiding the book's protagonist Peter Grant's ethnic background as the son of a native London jazz musician and an immigrant mother from Sierra Leone.

Honestly, it seemed like it was a bad idea to change the covers all around. Fortunately, sounds like Del Rey later changed their cover policy to announce that new editions of the book will now have the British cover, and so will the third Peter Grant book Whispers Under Ground and hopefully all future ones in the series as well. Great to hear, since those maps by Stephen Walter really are quite beautiful. Regardless, these are some fascinating stories behind the covers for sure.

Feel free to check out my review of Rivers of London here.