Some covers try to lure you in with mystery. Some go for spectacle. And then there’s Within and Without Time, which looks like a theology student fed “Book of Revelation fanfiction with a steampunk twist” into an AI generator and called it a day.
The first problem jumps right off the page — the armored angel strutting in from the left. He looks like he wandered out of a World of Warcraft cutscene, complete with impractical “AI armor plating” that defies the laws of movement, physics, and probably human bone structure. His wings hover just so, conveniently cutting off before you realize they’re structurally incapable of flight. This heavenly figure isn’t guarding the gates of eternity; he’s auditioning for an off-brand Final Fantasy.
Then there’s the main figure at the bottom — the “serious boy in a serious suit.” Except the suit doesn’t know whether it wants to be Victorian or early-20th century gangster cosplay. His hands are classic AI nightmare fuel: more melted clay than flesh and bone, posed as if he’s trying to remember how human knuckles work. His hair, though? Oh, it’s perfect — windswept in a way only possible when rendered by a program that’s never seen actual wind.
The backdrop is a fever dream of clocks, cogs, and clouds, as if time itself exploded in a steampunk scrapyard. Perspective is optional here; some gears look twenty stories tall, others float in nonsensical space, and all of them fight to stand out against a sky that looks smudged with a dirty rag. And looming over all this chaos, the blocky title font crashes down like a factory recall sign: WITHIN AND WITHOUT TIME. Big, basic, bold. The tiny “and” crammed awkwardly in the middle feels like a guilty afterthought — a whisper drowned out by the noise of everything else.
This isn’t timeless. This is “time’s up.”
Mind you, it’s better than the original cover used for the book.