We recently realised that we had missed reading one of this year's Arthur C. Clarke Award-nominated SF novels (Pashazade by Jon Courtney Grimwood). Why? Because this fine novel's cover design was so bad it didn't even look like a science fiction book. More like a Turkish cookery book. Can you judge a book by its cover? Do you - read reader - miss out on really great books because the cover illustration or design puts you off? (or the novel never even gets noticed by you in the first place).

If it's cover sucks, I won't even read the back of the jacket. If I'm feeling like a fantasy novel, that book had better have a semi-naked barbarian hacking the green-snout off a dragon. And if I'm feeling like a SF novel, it had better have some seriously sexy Foss-art starships lasering it out, or I'll walk right on by. Kindly restrict your arty typography and surreal photo-montage crap to the local Art College.

I'll give those poor cover art novels a chance. Hey, I'm broad-minded enough to recognise that not every science fiction novel needs an air-brushed alien by Jim Burns, and every fantasy novel doesn't have to look like a copy of Dungeons & Dragons for me to notice it. Give those creative heads a chance with their fancy Wired-style typography and photo-montage covers.

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