To rinse our mouths after that repugnant cover for Black Halo, I’ve got another wonderful effort from the folk at Bragelonne and artist Marc Simonetti (who you might remember from his artwork for George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire):
Cheers to Mihai for pointing it out (he’s a great source of cover art). Like the cover for Lamentation, Simonetti provides another piece of art that really encapsulates the tone and atmosphere of the series. Great work.
Now, Sam’s a good friend of this blog (seriously, he’s behind one of my favourite interviews I’ve conducted), but I can’t give him (or, more accurately, his publisher, Gollancz) a free pass here. Seriously, this cover hits on every metric for what’s wrong with Fantasy art today. Overly aggressive and poorly representative of the Fantasy genre? Check. Bland typography? Check. Uncanny valley? Check. Flaming water (wait, what?)? Check. Insane, weird pull-quote that tells you absolutely nothing about the book? Check. Poorly photoshopped H&M model with basic glow filter attached? CHECK CHECK CHECK!
I appreciate the continuity with the series’ previous cover art, but here’s hoping Lou Anders will have the sense to put a better cover on the Pyr Books edition when it’s released in North America.
