With a title like Dark Stars, you expect vast galaxies, shadowy constellations, maybe even a little cosmic dread. Instead, this cover serves us… grandma’s brooch floating in a fog machine. Somewhere, a star system weeps.
Front and center is an oversized pendant that looks like it came straight out of a QVC jewelry hour: a gaudy silver frame stuffed with pearls and a turquoise center stone that screams, “three easy payments of $29.99.” This is not a celestial marvel, this is your great-aunt’s Avon catalog centerpiece blown up to astronomical proportions. If the book is about cosmic horrors lurking in space, why does the cover look like it’s auctioning off costume jewelry?
The background doesn’t help. Instead of galaxies or starfields, we get teal smoke-tentacles that feel less “eldritch mystery” and more “Photoshop brushes set to maximum opacity.” They swirl around aimlessly, trying to look magical, but end up looking like an overenthusiastic vape cloud.
Typography? Oh, it’s a whole mess. Dark Stars is stamped in glowing letters with rainbow iridescence, clashing against the “antique heirloom” aesthetic of the pendant. It’s like someone tried to glue together Lovecraft in Space and Home Shopping Network, and the glue didn’t dry. The tagline, “A Monster Unique Amongst the Stars,” sits below in a generic serif font so meek it practically apologizes for being there.
The result? A cover that promises grandeur but delivers cluttered costume jewelry floating in cosmic soup. Instead of mystery, menace, or majesty, we get “grandma’s necklace lost in a vape shop.”
Verdict: Yes, this is a horrible cover. If Dark Stars was aiming for the cosmos, it missed orbit and crash-landed in a QVC clearance bin.