Julie Bell was on my artist wish-list for this ebook cover project right from the start. There are few artists as comfortable with figure drawing as Julie. The only question was, which book and which scene? Fairly early on, Megan Messinger had described the “Bowl of Winds” as a pivotal point in the book that focus on the strength of character and ability the women in the Wheel of Time possess. Since Julie has a hard-earned gift for painting strong women that are every bit as powerful as they are beautiful, it seemed a natural fit.

Still, some hard decisions had to be made. The scene includes thirteen women working together. If we did a long shot, we could include all thirteen, but then we loose the ability to engage with specific characters. When you add in the thumbnail-size that ebook covers are often first seen at, I thought it best to focus on a few of the key characters: Elayne, Aviendha, and Nynaeve.

The scene fell together pretty quickly after that. I have to say a special thanks to our Leigh Butler who called me in a mild panic after the sketches were approved: it seems that the clothing in the scene was described in the book before this one. Not something I ever would have caught. And further proof that the more people we let into the process, the better it is for the project.

• Check Your Dark Lord at the Door” — Lou Anders & Jonathan Strahan
• Goats of Glory — Steven Erikson
• Tides Elba: A Tale of the Black Company — Glen Cook
• Bloodsport — Gene Wolfe
• The Singing Spear — James Enge
• A Wizard of Wiscezan — C.J. Cherryh
• A Rich Full Week — K. J. Parker
• A Suitable Present for a Sorcerous Puppet — Garth Nix
• Red Pearls: An Elric Story — Michael Moorcock
• The Deification of Dal Bamore — Tim Lebbon
• Dark Times at the Midnight Market — Robert Silverberg
• The Undefiled — Greg Keyes
• Dapple Hew the Tint Master — Michael Shea
• In the Stacks — Scott Lynch
• Two Lions, A Witch, and the War-Robe — Tanith Lee
• The Sea Troll’s Daughter — Caitlin R Kiernan
• Thieves of Daring — Bill Willingham
• The Fool Jobs — Joe Abercrombie

When Irene told me that she’d been cleared to create a new art package for Ender’s Game for the eBook release, I confess that I groaned. Covers for this book have always been a problem. It’s not a children’s book, but when you ask for a painting of a ten year old boy, it’s hard not to get something that looks like a children’s book. This can lead to problems, like the email I recently got from a school librarian who was sure that there was some mistake; this children’s book had “bad words” in it.

I had no doubt Sam could portray a boy who wouldn’t put off older readers. I have often felt a number of his paintings show a cool exterior while suppressing some kind of underlying trouble or anxiety; if anything describes Ender, that’s it. When I contacted Sam, I wasn’t surprised to hear that Ender’s Game is one of his favorite novels.

[…]

In the end I was intrigued by Sam’s use of scale in the chosen sketch. I loved seeing Ender large with an entire planet underfoot—whether it’s Earth or the alien planet, the fate of both worlds depend on this small boy. The weightlessness, of course, refers to the Battle School exercises so memorable in the book. The flat-color triangles, representing the holographic game pieces, set against the realistic rendering of Ender and the planet, enhance the lie of the game.

The sketches that I saw were very good. The artist is wonderful, and it looked very promising, though again the sketches were of children. Irene and Sam heard me when I said that if we were going to put a child on the cover, that child had to have old and wary eyes, had to look like a real child who had been under great stress. The finished art has that quality in spades. My reaction to seeing the finished art was “Oh! That’s Ender!”

The composition is spectacular, too—it actually illustrates something that is such a powerful part of the novel: Ender has been separated from Earth and humanity even as he is being forged as a weapon to protect them.