Terry Brooks’ next novel, The High Druid’s Blade, isn’t even out yet, but the cover for the follow-up novel, The Darkling Child, is already loosed on the world. (See what I did there? It’s like a demon from the Forbidding.) And, it’s just as pretty as the previous cover. I really like the rough, impressionistic quality of the painting they’ve used.
The Darkling Child is the second in The Defenders of Shannara, a loose trilogy of standalone Shannara novels that follow the events of Witch Wraith, Brooks’ most recently published novel. The High Druid’s Blade and The Darkling Child will be released in 2014.
So the stand-alone novel (that was initially going to be “linked by a handful of common characters to two more stand-alones that will immediately follow”) became part of a loose trilogy (complete with series title) and is now part of a loose duology? Is the loose duology loosely linked to a third stand-alone novel or is that third one all but toast now? ;)
Outside of Del Rey’s marketing department, who want to label everything as a nicely defined series (complete with title and matching cover art!), I think the two novels are more-or-less separate stories that take place within a similar timeframe to one another. No wool being pulled over anyone’s eyes.
;)
Oh, no worries about deception, really. Just wondering when three became two?
When my memory started failing me….
Oh heck, is that all?
I thought I missed out some news somewhere. ;)
[…] the Terry Brooks cover revealed yesterday, I quite like the stylistic choice to use a rough, textured illustration reminiscent of more […]
I’m rather impressed by this cover. I’d much rather see a slightly impressionistic piece of art, or a nice “filtered” piece, a la Chris McGrath, than the overly detailed photo-op pieces that seem to plague things like urban fantasy.