Judging A Book By Its Cover: Clockwork Century Series

This is my weekly post where I highlight and appreciate cover designs and the general physical appearance of books. We all judge book covers to some extent. I can’t say that I’ve ever decided against a book with terrible cover art if I liked the sound of the plot, but I have purchased special editions of books or multiple editions of books based on their cover art. If book covers didn’t matter, publishers wouldn’t put out so many beautiful editions!

I borrowed Boneshaker from the library some time ago and shortly thereafter purchased the entire Clockwork Century series. I’ve yet to read any of the other books (surprising no one), but perhaps I will this year! They’re lovely editions to my shelves nevertheless, though it does bother me to no end that Clementine doesn’t match the rest of the series. For whatever reason, this story wasn’t picked up by Tor, so it does ruin the effect slightly. However there’s nothing I can do, so I try not to think about it too much.

Here are the details – despite two different cover artists, I think the art styles do resemble each other enough to make the books match, part of this is possibly because the design is all done by the same artist:

Boneshaker – cover art by Jon Foster and cover design by Jamie Stafford-Hill, Tor 2009, ISBN: 9780765318411
Clementine – cover art by Jon Foster, Subterranean Press 2010, ISBN: 9781596064959
Dreadnought – cover art by Jon Foster and cover design by Jamie Stafford-Hill, Tor 2010, ISBN: 9780765325785
Ganymede – cover art by Jon Foster and cover design by Jamie Stafford-Hill, Tor 2011, ISBN: 9780765329462
The Inexplicables – cover art by Cliff Nielsen and cover design by Jamie Stafford-Hill, Tor 2012, ISBN: 9780765329479
Fiddlehead – cover art by Cliff Nielsen and cover design by Jamie Stafford-Hill, Tor 2013, ISBN: 9780765334077