From: Steve Taylor <steve@afs.net.au>
Subject: (urth) Re: Digest urth.v028.n073
Date: Wed, 03 Nov 1999 15:45:00 +1100

Patri10629@aol.com wrote:

> A sidenote: Responding to my constant complaint that parades are not 
> organized in response to, and full-page New York Times reviews are not 
> devoted to each new Wolfe book, (and a national holiday not declared 
> specifically for a masterwork like ON BLUE'S WATERS), a friend replied: "With 
> those godawful covers they slap on his books they're scaring off anybody with 
> half a brain who doesn't already know he's great." Comments?

Heartily seconded. I avoided _Book of the New Sun_ for years because I
didn't want to read the sort of B-grade fantasy that would bear titles
like _The Shadow of the Torturer_. Then I read Michael Moorcocks
extremely opinionated and slightly bonkers book of essays on fantasy
(can't think of the title) and was sufficiently impressed by the chapter
on _BOTNS_ to give it a try. After that, all was lost...

It wasn't actually the covers that scared me away, as being a lifelong
reader of SF/F I'm used to being caught reading books with clumsy,
juvenile or embarrasing covers. (Though just this week I found a
particularly horrid copy of _There Are Doors_ with a quite obnoxious Wet
T-Shirt Contest/"look at my nipples" cover.)

Tangentially: Can anyone point me to any online writing on _There Are
Doors_? No specific comments or questions on my part yet, but I'd like
to see what others may have said.



                                                  Steve

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