Blood of Dragons by Robin Hobb. Art by Jackie Morris.
Art by Donato Giancola
Along with Range of Ghosts, Elizabeth Bear’s The Eternal Sky Trilogy has featured some of the best Fantasy cover art in years. This is gorgeous, and I applaud Tor’s effort to promote and capture the ethnic diversity of Bear’s work and her characters. Beautiful, important and powerful.
Artist Jack Fish created these out of a desire “to engage new/younger/different readers who may not have considered picking up the series before.” I think the accomplished this well, by making the cover bright and interesting, without making them look like children’s books. There’s a wonderful sense of journey and continuity to the covers and a classic feel that a lot of Fantasy novels lack these days. Read More »
Gorgeous. Like, really gorgeous. And a step up even from the impressive early version that leaked a few weeks ago. I say this despite the hooded figure on the cover, which is saying something. It’ll look even more sharp if they end up using the foil-stamp technique that we saw on the paperback edition of The Black Prism. Good job to Lauren Panepinto, artists Shirley Green, Silas Manhood, and the Orbit Books crew.
And it came to pass in those days, as it had come before and would come again, that the Dark lay heavy on the land and weighed down the hearts of men, and the green things failed, and hope died.’ From Charal Drianaan te Calamon, The Cycle of the Dragon.
In the Field of Merrilor the rulers of the nations gather to join behind Rand al’Thor, or to stop him from his plan to break the seals on the Dark One’s prison – which may be a sign of his madness, or the last hope of humankind. Egwene, the Amyrlin Seat, leans toward the former.
In Andor, the Trollocs seize Caemlyn.
In the wolf dream, Perrin Aybara battles Slayer.
Approaching Ebou Dar, Mat Cauthon plans to visit his wife Tuon, now Fortuona, Empress of the Seanchan.
All humanity is in peril – and the outcome will be decided in Shayol Ghul itself. The Wheel is turning, and the Age is coming to its end. The Last Battle will determine the fate of the world..
Can’t really comment on the synopsis, given that I’ve only read the first seven volumes of the series, but it was written by Harriet McDougal, Jordan’s widow and Wheel of Time overlady, and will appear on both the Tor and Orbit Books editions of A Memory of Light.
The cover itself is pretty, and fitting for the title of the novel, after all the previous volumes were black. It’s simple and classic, if predictable. Good enough for me.
