Cover Art

Cover Art | The Great Hunt by Robert Jordan (E-Book Edition)

By Aidan Moher November 10th, 2009
The Great Hunt by Robert Jordan (E-Book Edition)

Artwork for The Great Hunt by Robert Jordan (E-Book Edition)
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I was rather tepid on the cover art for the E-Book edition of The Eye of the World, but Tor Book has won all my loyalty back with the cover for The Great Hunt. An incredible re-imagining of the original Darrell K Sweet cover, Kotaki (the author I was most excited about, when these new covers were first announced) brings everything I wanted from these new covers to the classic series. If this is an indication of what’s to come, I hope Tor considers recovering the novels once the final two volumes are out (no doubt with inadequate Sweet artwork).

Cheers to Irene Gallo (art director at Tor) and Kekai Kotaki!

FOR THOSE HUNTING THE HORN OF VALERE: Try again.

Cover Art

Cover Art & Synopsis | Gardens of the Sun by Paul McAuley

By Aidan Moher November 10th, 2009
Gardens of the Sun by Paul McAuley

The Quiet War is over. The city states of the moons of Jupiter and Saturn have fallen to the Three Powers Alliance of Greater Brazil, the European Union and the Pacific Community. A century of enlightenment, rational utopianism and exploration of new ways of being human has fallen dark. Outers are herded into prison camps and forced to collaborate in the systematic plundering of their great archives of scientific and technical knowledge, while Earth’s forces loot their cities, settlements and ships, and plan a final solution to the ‘Outer problem’. But Earth’s victory is fragile, and riven by vicious internal politics. While seeking out and trying to anatomise the strange gardens abandoned in place by Avernus, the Outers’ greatest genius, the gene wizard Sri Hong-Owen is embroiled in the plots and counterplots of the family that employs her. The diplomat Loc Ifrahim soon discovers that profiting from victory isn’t as easy as he thought. And in Greater Brazil, the Outers’ democratic traditions have infected a population eager to escape the tyranny of the great families who rule them. After a conflict fought to contain the expansionist, posthuman ambitions of the Outers, the future is as uncertain as ever. Only one thing is clear. No one can escape the consequences of war – especially the victors.

Ignoring the strange choice of title (given the success of Steven Erikson’s Gardens of the Moon, albeit in a different genre), Pyr Books have another winner on their hands. I love the green overtones, a colour generally associated with Fantasy, but that works wonders for bringing out the character of space, and the bold splash of complimentary red from the ship in the lower corner. The use of a cursive font is odd, but I suppose it hints to the potential reader that they’re not picking up a hardcore Space Opera.

The painting is the work of the wonderful Sparth.

Cover Art

Cover Art | The Black Prism by Brent Weeks

By Aidan Moher November 9th, 2009

In a shocking turn of events, the cover of Brent Weeks‘s next novel, The Black Prism features a menacing looking dude, a white background and a splash of bold colour (obviously signifying magic, or something). This is a major departure from The Night Angel Trilogy, his first series.

Black Prism by Brent Weeks
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Okay, seriously. I suppose they want to give Weeks his own identity, so you know a Weeks novel on the shelf, but this is a little blatant. The original covers were interesting when they first hit the market (and effective, too, given Weeks sales and popularity), but couldn’t Orbit have done something to give this new series its own identity? Removing the hood from the Hollister model on the front doesn’t count.

News

An Aside | The Gathering Storm hits #1 on NYT Bestseller List

By Aidan Moher November 9th, 2009

The Gathering Storm by Robert Jordan and Brandon SandersonNot shocking, but The Gathering Storm, the 12th volume in Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time series, debuted at #1 on the New York Times Bestsellers list, knocking off The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown.

From Brandon Sanderson’s blog:

If you didn’t hear the news, we got a call on Wednesday informing us that THE GATHERING STORM had hit the number one spot on the New York Times hardcover Best Seller list. This was accompanied by hitting number one on the independent bookseller’s list and being the bestselling hardcover fiction book at Barnes & Noble and at Borders. (And at the last one, I believe, we were the overall #1 book regardless of genre, which is impressive.) We did, in fact, knock Dan Brown out of the #1 spot—by a wide margin.

I can’t be the only one curious to find out how many units sold it takes to outsell a new Dan Brown book by ‘a wide margin’.

Sanderson’s thoughts on the impressive debut:

Either way, the last four Wheel of Time books had all hit #1, and I worried a lot that it would be on my watch where we failed to do so. It is a testament to the beloved nature of the series, mixed with the ardor of the readers, that we have weathered a change in authors without a dip. We actually outsold KNIFE OF DREAMS’ first week, which is amazing.

The thing is, I don’t feel I can take much—if any—credit for this. The reason this book turned out as well as it did (and thank you all for your kind emails, posts, and reviews) was because of the work Robert Jordan did before he passed away. He literally lay on his deathbead dictating scenes for you, too weak to write. He loved his readers dearly, and those of you lucky enough to meet him know that he was a truly kind and generous man.

Beyond that, the strength of this book is directly tied to the excellent storytelling that came before it. It doesn’t take much experience with construction to realize that the foundation of a building is far more important—structurally—than the roof. Robert Jordan’s skill with worldbuilding, characterization, and plotting was amazing. Working on these books has only increased my respect for his abilities.

So, congrats to Brandon and the Tor Books team for the momentous occasion!

Cover Art

Cover Art | Under Heaven by Guy Gavriel Kay (North American Edition)

By Aidan Moher November 7th, 2009

Yesterday I brought you the cover art for Under Heaven, the next novel from popular Canadian author Guy Gavriel Kay. Now today, thanks to Alec at Bright Weavings, I have a look at the equally impressive North American cover.

Under Heaven by Guy Gavriel Kay

Taking a more literary route, the North American cover embraces the Asian underpinnings of the novel as surely as the UK cover. Though I enjoy the character art on the other cover, I can’t complain about them being left off here in favour of the armoured horse and the Kanji. This is one of those rare cases where the North American cover art just ekes out the victory. I expect this is one of those novels that will look really sharp when you pick it up in a bookstore. Either way, you really can’t go wrong with whichever version is released in your region.