Tor.com’s blog just recently posted these very impressive images that will be used for the E-Book release of Robert Jordan’s second Wheel of Time book: The Great Hunt.
The artist, Kekai Kotaki has a proven track record doing concept artwork for the various releases of the MMMORPG Guild Wars. He’s a real artist, with a truly amazing collection of artwork on his website.
Unlike, for instance, the artwork for the same book from 1990: almost twenty years ago:
And then it’s re-release in 2004 as two books:
I know the Wheel of Time is huge now. Just last week, the most recent installment, the Gathering Storm, hit #1 on the NYT Bestseller list. Brandon Sanderson, my idol right now (that I can’t stop talking about) was chosen to take over the series after the death of Robert Jordan, thus combining both Sanderson and Jordan fans together in a whirlwind of nerddom.
But beyond all this, I’m hoping that Tor is starting to say something with these new, amazing, elegant covers. Perhaps that fantasy fans are sick of looking at the same exact, poorly drawn cover in the same tired “fantasy” style? I sure hope so.
I know I’m sick of standard fantasy covers.
One thing I’ve found frustrating is the change of covers between the UK and US releases of Terry Pratchett’s books. It’s understandable, in that the US publisher is attempting to make the books more acceptable to the average person passing the shelves, but they just seem so ugly.
They are ugly! Publishers are just not putting any money into the covers. And these tacky ones are perpetuated again and again by big series like Wheel of Time.