[something something something] second round of voting for the first annual Lousies awards [something something something]
In today’s installment of New Covers For Old 2021, there are an overwhelming preponderance of solid improvements… and one sucker-punch.
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Roots—0
Bringing Them Back—0…the original cover art was much better and probably would have worked fine with better typograpy
Galya—would have worked much better if everything weren’t scattered over the cover. Too many visually unrelated elements with none really predominant.
Humans—A not-too-bad image shot down by bad typography. A provocative title made boring.
One Forever Alone—Oh, so close! But the imagery is so dark that the figure is lost at even a moderate thumbnail size.
Flora—Though I wish that the type were a little stronger, this is really very nice!
First Lie—A decent enough cover…but generic-looking and doesn’t really convey anything of the nature of the book described.
Druantia—0
Wolf Magic—0…not the least for rendering the three words of the title three different ways. But that’s not the only problem…
Myrmidia—0
Humans are not from Earth
Ellis Silver PhD
At Wikipedia honorifics like “Dr.” and degrees like “PhD” should never be used as part of a person’s name; the policy objection is called “peacockery”. Honorifics and degrees can be listed in the education section of a bio, but not used as part of a person’s name. If mentioned in the author’s bio blurb with modesty (false or otherwise), it was OK. After a very few edit wars at Wikipedia and internet encounters elsewhere, I began to agree that Joe Blow calling themself “Dr.” or “, PhD” was very often a false appeal to authority. It was often the last stand of a frustrated academic manqué. DON’T DO IT.
In general, I’ve found that those who use the honorifics are those who managed to get the degree but didn’t manage to do with it what they wanted to do. Tenured professors at Harvard go by Joe, teachers at the local public high school prefer Herr Professor Doctor Dr. Blow.
— Dr. Zsusza, PhD
It’s even worse when you see it in the byline for novels.