Re: Cover art mixup

On Sun, 23 Jun 2024 16:46:39 -0500, Lee Gleason
<lee.gleason@comcast.net> wrote:

On 6/23/2024 7:55 AM, James Nicoll wrote:

In article <robertaw-7448D9.21544222062024@news.individual.net>,
Robert Woodward  <robertaw@drizzle.com> wrote:

In article <YIEdO.9438$zMs3.1124@fx48.iad>,
Lee Gleason <lee.gleason@comcast.net> wrote:
>

    It the late 70s, early 80s, there was an SF paperback published that
mistakenly  used the cover art intended for a different novel from the
same publisher. Does anyone recall the name of the book? It was pretty
widely discussed at the time.
>

>
Publishers have used inappropriate cover art that they had on hand for
decades. It is possible that you are referring to the first edition of
Lawrence Watt-Evans's _The Unwilling Warlord_ (1989) that used Darrell
Sweet art that was originally done for a Lloyd Arthur Eshbach title
(IIRC, _The Scroll of Lucifer_, released in 1990). This is later than
you specified.

 
I wonder if Lee is not referring to a famous story about Jack Vance
complaining about his book cover. This inspired, iirc, an artist to
take special care with the cover he was working on for a non-Vance
book. The result was so good the published decided it was perfect
to replace the cover Jack Vance was bitching about.
 
I think the Vance was Araminta Station.
 
>

  These sound interesting, but not what I was looking for. I dimly
recall that one of the covers had a woman on it, holding a small
creature like it was a baby. The book it was affixed to had nothing to
do with that, but another book from the same publisher around the same
time had a plot it fit perfectly.

This piqued my curiosity enough to lead me to attempt a Google search.

I found an interesting page not directly related to your query:

https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2011/12/25/adventures-in-science-fiction-cover-art-reusing-cover-art/

John Savard