The Friday Face-Off: Peace is Poor Reading

The Friday Face-Off is a bookish meme hosted by Books by Proxy that compares book covers to decide which is best.

This week’s theme:

Peace is Poor Reading

A cover which features war

Aaanndd it’s another Friday Face-off!! This time I’m featuring a novel that I’ve never read or heard of prior to doing this post — Leviathan, the fifth book in Jack Campbell’s popular Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier military science-fiction series. [Here’s a link to the first book on Goodreads.] It seems to be a much loved series, but I tend to shy away from hard science fiction and novels based on war. But the premise sounds intriguing and might interest those of you interested in science fiction. Anyways, let’s get to the

FACE-OFF!

paperback cover

Both covers are eye-catching. They are both colorful and include lots of action. Just a glance at them is enough to give a gist of what occurs in the story. I like the explosions on the hardback cover because they make me look at the cover and wonder what the hell is going on (which is probably what the dude in the foreground is thinking too). I like that I can make up my own stories using the images on the cover. There’s so much going on in the illustration but it’s not overpowering.

However, I also like the purple background on the paperback cover and that the space ship there is a prominent image. The lighter shades around the space ship give the effect that it’s travelling very fast while also battling the mini space ships that surrounds it. So the winner is:

This one was close. I like both covers equally but this one won because of the dominance of the title. I usually prefer the cover on which I can easily and quickly locate the title. I also find the purple color very appealing and I like that the images hint at what occurs in the story without seeming to give too much away. However, it’s possible that I would have thought differently if I was already familiar with the story.

Which cover do you prefer?

And have you read Jack Campbell’s Lost Fleet series?