Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme that currently resides at The Artsy Reader Girl and features bloggers sharing lists on various book topics. For this week’s Top Ten Tuesday, participants are required to list their top ten favourite covers with an item of the blogger’s choice on them. This is an interesting topic that I have done in the past, producing a striking list about book covers featuring dragons that I felt really popped. However, I’ve been in a nautical mood lately, so I’m going to do a list focusing on book covers where ships are prominently featured.
For this list I am envisioning old, classic seafaring ships, or at least something that could be sailed in a terrestrial setting. As such, I am excluding spaceships from this list, primarily because I think that is a separate list that I could do at some other point. Even with this restriction I was able to come up with a fun collection of book covers where ships are featured prominently. This list looks really awesome, and I had a fun time pulling it together.
Honourable Mentions:
The Poisoned Island by Lloyd Shepherd
Black Leviathan (German Cover) by Bernd Perplies
I’m slightly cheating by featuring the German version of this cover, but as its cool, I’ll allow it. I loved this whole book, and it was fun to follow an airship crew (technically a ship) as they hunt dragons.
Seas of Swords by R. A. Salvatore
The use of the ship is subtle in this cover, but I just love seeing Drizzt framed by the rigging.
Top Ten Tuesday:
The Fury of the Gods by John Gwynne
I just had to feature the cover of the book I’m reading now, The Fury of the Gods, which looks so damn awesome. Gwynne’s Bloodsworn trilogy has featured some brilliant covers the last couple of years, although this one might be my favourite. The ship featured in this cover is really small, but it’s placement in front of the rampaging snake god ensures it has a lot more impact. I love the contrast in sizes between the ship and the giant monster, and it helps to make this such an amazing cover.
Jingo by Terry Pratchett
A cover that has long been stuck in my mind, as Jingo was one of the first Discworld novels I ever read. The original cover art of Jingo featured two ships bordering the main battle on the weathercock, with various characters from the books dawn in Josh Kirby’s distinctive style. Later versions of the cover removed the ships and only featured the central conflict. This meant that I had a bit of a hard time finding a good picture of the cover that fully showcased the two ships in detail, so sorry if the full awesomeness doesn’t come across in the above shot.
Heastward Ho! by Garry Kilworth
Few covers are as much fun as the one for Heastward Ho!. The final book in Garry Kilworth’s Welkin Weasels series, which is set in a world with sentient rodents, Heastward Ho! featured a great adventure tale that I loved when I was younger. The cover for Heastward Ho! is very distinctive, especially with the weasel crewed ship firing cannons, and I love the fantastic blend of colourful elements. An overall excellent cover, although I must give a special mention to the other Welkin Weasels’ novel, Windjammer Run, which also featured a cool ship-focussed cover.
Pieces of Eight by John Drake
An awesome historical fiction book that provided a new take on the Treasure Island characters, Pieces of Eight has a fantastic cover that not only shows a cool pirate ship in the background, but also had two of the character’s fighting in the ships rigging.
Queen of Storms by Raymond E. Feist
The hardcover copy of Queen of Storms featured a great seascape shot with the titular ship, Queen of Storms, right in the middle. An excellent cover that really captures the imagination.
The Eagle’s Prophecy by Simon Scarrow
The sixth book in Simon Scarrow’s Eagles of the Empire series, The Eagle’s Prophecy, took the protagonists on a very different adventure, as they stopped fighting the British and took on pirates instead. The have been a few different versions of the cover released over the years, although the one I originally got was the simple, but effective, cover with the ship’s sail above. A great cover with some detailed art that immediately tells the reader that there is something nautically themed about this book.
Red Seas Under Red Skies by Scott Lynch
The second Gentleman Bastards novel, Red Seas Under Red Skies, features quite a lot of nautical elements, including a good half of the book spent out at sea, so it’s inevitable that they would feature some fantastic ships on the cover. There have been several different covers for Red Seas Under Red Skies released over the years, all of which look quite excellent and matched the themes of the book very well. However, my favourite is the one above that really captures the chaotic nature of the plot. The ship on fire references a key scene in the novel, and it blends beautifully with the titular red skies and red sea to create a striking image. An awesome and memorable cover that I have a lot of love for.
The Fathomless Caves by Kate Forsyth
Kate Forsyth’s brilliant Witches of Eileanan fantasy series featured some great covers throughout its run, although the best one with a ship is The Fathomless Caves, which was the last book in the original series. Setting the ship in front of an erupting volcano, the original The Fathomless Caves cover has always stood out to me, and I love the contrasting colours and imagery. There were actually a few books in this series I could have used, with The Forbidden Land and The Skull of the World also featuring distinctive original paperback covers that also made great use of ships, but I think the above cover for The Fathomless Caves is the only choice.
The Last Kingdom by Bernard Cornwell
There is a lot of Viking imagery in the Last Kingdom books by Bernard Cornwell, and I love the various shots of longboats and other watercraft that are routinely featured on the cover. One of the best can be found on the first book in the series, The Last Kingdom, which features two cool longships ploughing the waves to battle. Viking/Danish ships are so damn awesome, and I think this is one of the better cover art versions of them in this series.
Mossflower by Brian Jacques
The final book cover I want to feature on this the fantastic novel Mossflower by Brian Jacques. Like many fantasy fans I spend my youth reading the fun and distinctive Redwall series by Brian Jacques that featured some brilliant art depicting the animal protagonists in action. Quite a few of these covers features boats or ships to some degree, so I was spoiled for choice here. Of them, I love the cover for Mossflower the most, as it really captures the magic of the plot and features outstanding artwork of the ship in question. This was a great cover and an awesome final inclusion for this list.
Well, that’s my list. As you can see there are some incredible books out there that make great use of ships and boats on their cover. All the above books are really awesome as well, and you can have an incredible time reading them while also appreciating their great covers. I had a lot of fun coming up with this list, and I will have to think about replicating it with another item in the future. In the meantime, let me know what your favourite books with ships on the cover are in the comments below.
The Unseen Library 