Posts Categorized: Art

fools-quest-by-robin-hobb-cover-art

Robin Hobb revealed the cover art for the UK edition of Fool’s Quest today, and it’s very pretty. I really like the way Jackie Morris‘ art has come into its own and helped to define this series. I wasn’t always a fan, but this is gorgeous and Hobb’s books are some of the most recognizable on UK shelves. Great all around.

The North American cover for Fool’s Quest was revealed in January.

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Sometimes you just want to let your mind wander to other worlds, to meander through the idyllic corners of a world full of wonder. UK artist Josh Hutchinson has opened a portal to those worlds and is illustrating their beauty one at a time. I like that Hutchinson’s art manages to be both cartoony and colourful, realistic in a way that reflects places and people that you could find here on our world, all while creating that sense of wonder and mysticism that makes fantasy worlds so compelling.

More of Hutchinson’s art can be found on his official website and his DeviantArt gallery.

the-house-of-shattered-wings-by-aliette-de-bodard

Holy moly. I’ll be honest and say that I don’t generally expect great things from Roc Books covers. But this? This is just gorgeous. Eloquent and impactful, great little details all around. The House of Shattered Wings is one of my most anticipated novels of the year, and I’m glad to see it has a cover to match my excitement.

The first details about The House of Shattered Wings were released several weeks ago, but now we have a new blurb with more details about the story:

Multi-award winning author Aliette de Bodard, brings her story of the War in Heaven to Paris, igniting the City of Light in a fantasy of divine power and deep conspiracy…

In the late Twentieth Century, the streets of Paris are lined with haunted ruins. The Great Magicians’ War left a trail of devastation in its wake. The Grand Magasins have been reduced to piles of debris, Notre-Dame is a burnt-out shell, and the Seine has turned black with ashes and rubble and the remnants of the spells that tore the city apart. But those that survived still retain their irrepressible appetite for novelty and distraction, and The Great Houses still vie for dominion over France’s once grand capital.

Once the most powerful and formidable, House Silverspires now lies in disarray. Its magic is ailing; its founder, Morningstar, has been missing for decades; and now something from the shadows stalks its people inside their very own walls.

Within the House, three very different people must come together: a naive but powerful Fallen angel; an alchemist with a self-destructive addiction; and a resentful young man wielding spells of unknown origin. They may be Silverspires’ salvation—or the architects of its last, irreversible fall. And if Silverspires falls, so may the city itself.

The House of Shattered Wings, the first volume in a duology, is due out on September 1st, 2015 from Roc Books (North America) and Gollancz (UK).

city-of-blades-by-robert-jackson-bennett

City of Stairs was my favourite novel of 2014. It goes without saying that I’m ravenously excited for this follow-up, City of Blades. Doesn’t hurt that the cover’s gorgeous to boot.

The city of Voortyashtan was once the domain of the goddess of death, war, and destruction, but now it’s little more than a ruin. General Turyin Mulaghesh is called out of retirement and sent to this hellish place to try to find a Saypuri secret agent who’s gone missing in the middle of a mission, but the city of war offers countless threats: not only have the ghosts of her own past battles followed her here, but she soon finds herself wondering what happened to all the souls that were trapped in the afterlife when the Divinities vanished. Do the dead sleep soundly in the land of death? Or do they have plans of their own?

City of Blades is due for release on January 26, 2016.

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“We’re looking to publish The Thorn of Emberlain before the end of 2015,” revealed the Gollancz blog. Lynch’s release dates are notoriously slippery, but this is encouraging news.

Details on the volume are slim, but the blog post did give readers a sweeping taste of what to expect. “As you can tell from the armour, the business like blades and the scarlet banner Scott’s new book takes Locke into a new world of risks and adventure,” Gollancz said. “You could say that The Lies of Locke Lamora was the book of the con, that Red Seas Under Red Skies was the pirate book and The Republic of Thieves took Locke into politics. Now, with The Thorn of Emberlain the Gentleman Bastard is going to war.”

The cover art is by London-based Uruguayan artist Alejandro Colucci.