Pat, over at Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist, dug out the cover art for Robin Hobb’s Dragon Haven the second volume in her The Rain Wild Chronicles duology:
Despite being very similar, I’d say this is a step up from the UK cover for Dragon Keeper and a huge step up from the US cover. Still, not blowing my socks off.
Four decades after the Oblivion Crisis, Tamriel is threatened anew by an ancient and all-consuming evil. It is Umbriel, a floating city that casts a terrifying shadow–for wherever it falls, people die and rise again.
And it is in Umbriel’s shadow that a great adventure begins, and a group of unlikely heroes meet. A legendary prince with a secret. A spy on the trail of a vast conspiracy. A mage obsessed with his desire for revenge. And Annaig, a young girl in whose hands the fate of Tamriel may rest….
I’m still a little bummed that Greg Keyes, author of The Kingdom of Thorn and Bone is writing tie-in fiction… but I suppose you gotta pay the bills somehow. Still, if any author can get me to give tie-in fiction a second look, it’s Keyes.
As for the cover, the most interesting aspect to me is that they’re downplaying the Elder Scrolls connection. There’s no big logo, there’s nothing indicating that it’s related to a videogame, there’s no cheesy Computer Generated chick is leather. In fact, it all looks kinda boring. The artwork is nice, but the overall low contrast and the font work isn’t very memorable. Maybe it’ll look better in person.
Alex Bledsoe released the cover art for his upcoming novel, Burn Me Deadly, painted by Jean-Sebastien Rossbach:
Bledsoe, and his first novel in the Eddie LaCrosse series, The Sword Edged-Blonde, popped onto my radar a few weeks ago after a couple of positive reviews from Graeme and Jeff, two bloggers whose tastes run similar to my own.
The artwork for both his novels appeals to me in that pulpy, mid-nineties kinda way. I dunno about the typography, though. The placement of the title sure makes everything a little lopsided. What do you think?
A few weeks ago, I posted the beautiful cover art for the North American edition of David Anthony Durham‘s The Other Lands, sequel to his successful Acacia: The War with the Mein, and now I’ve got a look at the UK edition.
It’s a known fact that UK covers are generally miles beyond their NA counterpart in terms of quality, but I’d say this is one exception to the rule. I appreciate the granduer of the NA cover, which suggests how mysterious and epic these ‘Other Lands’ are, whereas the UK cover has a nice sense of adventure and tension, but seems to lack focus. Still, either way, Durham’s got to be pretty happy with how the covers of his novels have been handled.
On top of this, Durham is hosting a giveaway for an ARC of The Other Lands. I’ll certainly be entering!
After stumbling across a black and white version of the cover for J.V. Jones’s upcoming Watcher of the Dead, the fourth volume in her A Sword of Shadows series, I shot her a line on twitter to see if she could send me the full colour version. And, well… here it is!
Pretty typical Fantasy art, but the quality of the artwork and the fonts is nice. I am rather terrified of the size of that fellow’s arm, though. But I guess to heft a sword like that, you have to be physically well-endowed in the, erm… upper body area. Despite not being totally enamoured with Jones’s early work, A Sword of Shadows is something I still have to give a serious shot.
