“In space, no one can hear your fashion choices scream.”
Gather round, brave voyagers of the visual void, because today’s Horrible Cover sends us rocketing past the asteroid belt of bad taste and directly into a wormhole of Why, though?
Today’s intergalactic misfire: Amazon Star Academy by Morgan Blayde. A title that implies interstellar intrigue, elite warrior training, and possibly some kind of celestial educational institution. What we get instead… is a moon-humping, grass-crouching, sword-wielding space-lady who appears to be cosplaying as Lara Croft at a Comic-Con held on a golf course.
Let’s start with the composition, which can only be described as a battle between three design interns and a broken gradient tool. Our heroine crouches in a field of suspiciously Earth-like grass, in front of what might be a moon, or a cheese wheel in mourning. The sky is filled with vaguely magical sparkles that seem stolen from a 2008 unicorn calendar.
Then we meet our central character: the titular Amazon. And boy, is she ready to fight… a wind machine. She’s wielding a single bronze sword, her hair artfully tousled, her eyes fierce, and her clothes somewhere between “space gladiator” and “bargain-bin cosplay corset.” What’s she doing? Tactical crouch? Preparing to leap? Possibly searching for her lost dignity in the grass?
Typography is another beast entirely. The words Amazon Star Academy are set in teal rectangles that appear to have been added by someone who only recently discovered text boxes in Microsoft Paint. The font says “legal memo,” not “star-faring warrior women of the cosmos.” It’s like Spartacus meets PowerPoint 2003.
And let’s not overlook the moon. That big old textured lump in the background is high-resolution enough to show every crag, crater, and JPEG artifact. It’s looming like a nosy neighbor, photo bombing this fantasy like it lost its own book deal and decided to haunt this one.
Final Verdict:
A sci-fi fantasy cover so confused, it couldn’t decide whether it wanted to slay dragons, attend night school, or pose for a fitness calendar on Pluto. This isn’t just bad — it’s space opera gone rogue.