There’s “epic,” and then there’s “epic AI fever dream that looks like it was storyboarded by a toaster.” The Shixa lands firmly in the second camp. At first glance, this cover is trying so hard to be a Hollywood blockbuster poster you can practically hear the Inception BRAAAAM sound effect in the background. But the longer you look, the uglier it gets.
Front and center we’ve got a golden-winged apocalypse angel, half sun god, half cursed Mardi Gras float. Its anatomy makes less sense the more you study it—are those claws, hands, or leftover wing fragments? Meanwhile, its mask-like face is somewhere between “terrifying demonic entity” and “steampunk rave DJ.” It doesn’t say “menace of biblical proportions.” It says “I was rendered in MidJourney version 2 and left unedited.”
Behind this fever dream deity lies Washington, D.C.—or what’s left of it after AI melted all the landmarks into surrealist goo. The Capitol dome is warped, the Washington Monument looks like it was built out of chalk, and the cars littering the street? Blurry blobs of twisted metal, the automotive equivalent of melting wax fruit. This isn’t post-apocalyptic America. This is “post a prompt and hope for the best.”
And then there are the tiny people. Four silhouettes planted in the foreground, looking less like brave survivors and more like a boy band about to drop the most confusing concept album of 2023. “Our next single is called ‘Golden Wing Daddy’ and drops Friday on Spotify.”
Finally, the typography. THE SHIXA is slapped across the bottom in a fantasy serif font that’s trying to be “ancient mystery” but ends up clashing so badly it looks like it wandered in from a Shakespeare anthology. The text and the art are in two completely different genres, refusing to acknowledge each other like coworkers at an office holiday party.
Verdict: This isn’t a book cover. This is an AI-generated apocalypse poster where the only real catastrophe is the design itself.