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actuallyalys
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a ranking of book covers of 'house of stairs'

When I was a teen i read this weird book about teens trapped in a house that consists entirely of stairs, with some landings for necessities. Since it's a science fiction book from the 1970s, it turns out to be a weird government conspiracy.

I recently found out there are a surprising number of covers for this obscure title. Naturally, I have strong opinions about which one is best.

note

I don't think book covers have to be literal to be good. (although i often like ones that blend the literal and metaphorical, like the Francis Cugat cover of The Great Gatsby.) however, basically all of these went the literal route so i judged them that way.

6. The "modern" one

Dark cover showing a pair of stairs and the text 'House of Stairs' in red text with a faint blur

Ominous but doesn't really get at what makes the situation weird. This is a house entirely made of stairs not a house that a single really tall or really prominent staircase or something. I don't care for the weird blur effect on the letters either.

I suspect this is the most "modern" cover and at least superficially is probably the one that checks all the boxes for a cover published in the 2020s. However, it is boring. Next!

5. The one I like, but not for this book

Cover with "House of Stairs" in bold print. The stairs spiral up on a thin rectangular image on the right. Also in the image is a determined-looking boy in the foreground with some fainter figures behind him. The figures are all drawn in a flat style without shading. Behind the rectangular image is a vague monochromatic image of what look to be clouds

This is actually one of the most interesting ones purely as an illustration. However, to me it seems to completely leave out the creepiness. Something about this evokes a myth or fantasy rather than 70s science fiction.

Tonally it almost would work better as an illustration of the infinite staircase in The Phantom Tollbooth.

4. The one with the geodesic dome

A pencil-y drawing of five teens standing in front of a mishmash of stairs. The taller boy is in front, even though I thought the male main character was shorter than the other male character. Below them is the title "House of Stairs" and a red geodesic thing-y. There's no detail around the geodesic thingy so it's just set on a flat cream background.

This one conveys the fact that it isn't just one staircase, but a jumble of them. It also has a weird geodesic dome, which is great. Whether or not the machine in the book is actually described as a geodesic dome, I think that's a cool way to depict it. However, it's not really well integrated into the rest of the image and is kinda flat.

The top seems to borrow from the M.C. Escher painting a little. I like that in some ways, but it feels like not quite the right kind of weird. (Although it quite possibly was the inspiration for this book.)

3. The nightmare

House of Stairs by William Sleator is in big letters in the front. Two characters, a boy and a girl are in the foreground, with the girl holding up a hand. Behind a weirdly shaped thing I can't really identify. It vaguely looks like a saddle or something fashioned out of leather but isn't really shaped like a saddle? Behind them are the rest of the characters. Behind them are a series of stairs. The stairs behind the title are particularly weirdly shaped and don't look entirely real.

I think this starts to feel like the right mood. I also like this one quite a lot purely as an illustration. This one evokes a nightmare to me. I don't remember that being quite the tone of a book—it's not that dreamlike—but it is quite close.

2. The one on the copy I read

This book has the tagline "There are endless places to run but no place to escape the..." followed by "House of Stairs." This depicts the many sets of stairs and landings clearly in front of a white background. In the foreground, climbing stairs leading toward the viewer, a girl is pulling a boy by the wrist. The girl has a flat, maybe vaguely stern expression, and the boy has a weird expression. Kind of ashamed, maybe? There's teens in the background whose expressions are too far away to make out but have kind of draped themselves over the stairs. There's a red glowing thing on the landing in front of them.

Now we're talking! This is the first one that really feels emblematic of the era this came out in. A cover doesn't have to be "typical" for the era in order to be good, but I think you have to do a really good job if you're going to give a book a new cover. (I understand why publishers do this—they don't want their to look dated even if they are—but I'm talking about my book cover opinions, not business strategy.)

I think the way the stairs are drawn conveys the setting and weirdness well. There's also a weird orb thingy, but it's hard to make out, which I think is actually better.

This is definitely not the best illustration on the list. The two characters look stiff and awkwardly posed (in fairness, I think the pose they're trying to communicate is hard to illustrate).

1. The apeshit one

This one is greenish throughout. Figures with indistinct faces are dancing around this red glow on the landing, with hands lifted above their heads at weird angles. three sets of stairs head off in different directions, one leading up to a disc thing. There are also some faint outlines of stairs in the background as well as more stairs underneath the platform where the teens are dancing.

Lest you think I automatically gave the no. 1 spot to the one I had as a teen, I think this communicates what happens in the book and "this is a weird book from the 1970s!" the best.

It's hard to evaluate the artwork because the image i found is so small, but at this distance I like the way the dancing figures are depicted. The way the red light from the machine illuminates the landing is a nice touch.

Surprisingly, someone else did a review](https://booksbonesbuffy.com/2021/11/05/the-friday-face-off-first-sci-fi-read-scifimonth/) of the covers. She picked the same cover I did, although she was more negative than me.

on that note...

if this has put you in the mood for stories about weird architecture, i wouldn't recommend House of Stairs. It'd probably be a fun read (especially if you grew up reading weird paperbacks from the 70s and 80s), but I have better recommendations. I would read House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski or watch Jacob Geller's "Games That Don't Fake the Space". I've also heard good things about NaissanceE and myhouse.wad and watched people play through them, but haven't played through them myself.

If you do like weird novels vaguely aimed at teens from this era, by all means check it out. I would also recommend A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L'Engle. It's more weird science fantasy than weird science fiction, but it holds up well, IMO.

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