Cover Art | The Gathering Storm by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderon (featuring a flatulent Rand)
Cover Art Print This Post May 14th, 2009Remember that awful artwork that leaked a couple of months ago? Remember how Tor denied that it was legit and the real cover art would be much better?
Well, the only kinda lied about it all.
Erm… did Rand have too many beans at dinner? Or maybe the hole in the building behind him indicates extra hot chicken wings? Elayne certainly looks distressed. But, hey, at least it doesn’t look like he’s dancing a jig anymore! Sorta…
Seriously Tor, hire a new art department, please.
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Yup, 100% agree. Looks like the 6th-grader summer intern picked that one. Blech!
Not inspiring. Boring. Oh well.
Just because they know it’s going to be a bestseller that is no reason to give it such a crap cover, even though the past ones have been just as bad. Giving such a high profile book a cover like that will do nothing to help the genre, it’s just pants. Pants.
That is truly awful. What self-respecting guy would choose to wear such colors? And it looks like he’s yelling impotently at the sky after throwing a temper tantrum in what looks like an inn. Can we at least have a display of magic?
I know continuity of art is important in covers, but they needed to switch artists many years ago.
Man, that’s almost as bad as the last one, which was the worst cover I’ve ever seen!
Actually Rand is shaking his fist at the gods of fantasy book covers.
“Why am I stuck in another craptastic cover?!?”
hmm…let’s see
First, this cover is just awful.
However, pretty much every WOT cover is equally awful, so to expect something good now is unreasonable. This cover fits with the other awful covers, so in that respect it was the right choice – did anyone really expect good covers for the last 3 books after 12 books with bad covers?
*shudder* its a good thing he’s a well established author, a cover like that could kill a newbie.
I’ll grant that this cover is rather crappy (because, well, it is), but Tor’s Art Department?
THEY are good.
Check out the Cherie Priest covers (with special attention to Boneshaker), Brandon Sanderson’s Warbreaker, The Revolution Business from Charles Stross. All excellent.
Just browsing Tor’s website finds some good covers that MORE than makes up for the crappy Sweet cover(s). I’ve heard it suggested that RJ personally requested Sweet to work on his books.
I think WoT is a special circumstance and most everything else coming out of Tor’s art department has been solid – if not better (again – have you SEEN the cover for Boneshaker?)
Irene Gallo does good work.
Er, it was a joke, Joe.
I’ve featured several Tor novels in my cover art posts.
Didn’t read as a joke.
Besides, I’ve seen the sentiment passed around elsewhere in regards to the art department. It was worth speaking up about.
Well, from a non-sarcastic angle: it’s worrisome that the Tor art department would allow shit like this to get released to the public. While I appreciate that they’ve kept the same artist/layout since the beginning (which more publishers need to do), it’s clear that Sweet has just been phoning the last few in – there’s no action, the level of detail is non-existent and the characters look ridiculous. Even compared to earlier covers in the series (Lord of Chaos and Knife of Dreams aside), there were clearly some bad decisions made when it came to this cover.
Based on some of Tor’s other cover art (some of which you’ve mentioned), they clearly know what makes an attractive cover. This isn’t one of them, neither are the Steven Erikson covers they release. I don’t care if Robert Jordan requested Sweet from his deathbed, because he almost certainly didn’t request a shitty cover that lacks any sort of impact at all. One has to wonder where that disparity in quality derives from.
I think it all boils down to the fact that Tor wanted to keep the covers consistent over the series with the same artist.
The funny thing about this is that for years I ignored the Wheel of Time series precisely because I thought the covers looked horrible. I know, it breaks the old adage ‘never judge a book by its cover’ but I was always of the opinion that if a book is good enough, the publisher will want the cover to be nice. The WoT covers have always been embarrassingly awful, in my opinion, but this one is the absolute worst.
Aidan, I totally agree with you man. Sweet needs to paint an intense piece with action and movement and detail. Especially for the biggest BOOK of Tor’s entire 2009 list. It’s imperative that they get this one right. How could they miss it so completely?
TDR’s cover was an acheivment, and so was tEoTW – everything in between stinks
The covers of The Wheel of Time books have always sucked. Darrell K. Sweet never captured the feel of the series and his representations of the characters didn’t even match the descriptions in the books. I never understood why Tor and/or the author stuck with him. This is a horrifically bad cover.
You all seem to be forgetting something. Technically, This isn’t the last book, There are two more after it.
And it doesnt hurt that they want to make an Omnibus version of the last three books in one big Volume.
Where’d you hear about an Omnibus, Soja?
The whole reason the book has been split (beyond increased revenue and a more even release schedule) is because binding that many pages between one cover is very unwieldy and expensive. We’re talking nearly 700k words. The only Omnibus I could see is a limited-edition, that would cost an arm and a leg.
The whole series’ cover art has been one stinker after another. Maybe we just have to “embrace the pain,” like Egwene?! But I’d rather be slapped on the ass with a slipper every time I pick up a RJ novel than have to look at the godawful cover art. Makes me embarrassed to read them in public or recommend them to friends.
I think that’s meant to be Aviendha, not Elayne
Ahh, well, if that’s supposed to be Aviendha then the cover’s even more ridiculous than I originally thought!
Thank goodness we don’t get these awful covers in Australia – the ones here may not be exciting, but at least they grant the contents some dignity! See it at:
http://images.seekbooks.com.au/9781841492414.jpg
In South Africa we get the British editions – in this case Orbit. Not the most exciting cover, but reflects the contents much better than the US ed.