Way of Kings Cover Art

[Red, White, and Joker]

I hope some foreign covers have a bridge crew on them.

That would be really cool.

Oh yes. Very yes.

[Miyabi]

They might have to rate the cover for blood though.

[Red, White, and Joker]

This cover has been rated M for Mature by the ESRB for "Graphic Bloody Violence"

[firstRainbowRose]

I don't know.  I think a bridge crew would be way awesome, but at the same time, why use them as a focus point?

[Inkthinker]

Because they're a focal part of the book, and one of the more unique aspects of this particular series. While I like the Whelan cover, it doesn't exactly showcase how this fantasy is different from others.

And perhaps it shouldn't, I don't know... that's really a marketing question. Is it better to attract people with a sense of the familiar, or showcase how this is different?

[Miyabi]

Mi'ch - Why would you ask why use the bridgemen?  It makes perfect sense.

I think it's close to a tie Ink.

Showing the bridgemen would be very different and unique.  I feel it would a draw a lot of people, but I think it would scare a lot of people off.

The more traditional cover will draw a lot of normal fantasy readers who would then be awed and tell other people about it.

So it's more a this audience or that I think.  But I think in the long run the story will get told enough the people looking for the new stuff would come around in the end.

[firstRainbowRose]

And of course the bridgemen would show action rather then standing still like someone else was complaining about.

And Ink, I do agree that the bridgemen are a unique aspect of the story.

[CtrlZed]

Showing what's different about this series on the cover may thwart what marketing is trying to do.  As with most of Brandon's books, KINGS has wide appeal and a broad audience.  It's a tough job as an illustrator/art director to pick just one thing to represent the whole book without alienating one audience or another.  A war scene on the cover is going to draw in one kind of reader and put off another.  While a huge part of KINGS deals with war, the individual character conflicts go way beyond that, for example.  With this in mind, Whelan has captured the feel of the book without illustrating one scene in particular.

Having said that, there will always be critics ready to slam the book's cover when it comes out.  But the majority of readers are going to hold the book in their hands and say, "This is one fine-looking novel."  And in that regard, the cover will have done its job.

[Miyabi]

The current cover only shows a few aspects of the book.  Granted they are HUGE aspects.  I think ti does well in covering them.  Though you can't really fully understand what any of them are until you pick up and read the book.

So I think it does well after having read into the book, but I'm not sure about how well it encompasses the story for someone looking in from the outside.

It's like someone looking in on a game of Go.  Sure it looks pretty, but until you take the time to learn its intricacies you really have no idea what's going on.

[zarepath]

Since when were covers supposed to show the most crucial aspects of a book/universe?  If this series is gonna be 10 books long, there's plenty of chances for us to see a bridgecrew, whatever the heck that is. 

And covers don't have to have lots of "movement," either.  The cover is supposed to be an icon, not a freaking storyboard.  I am totally fine with a dramatic figure pointing a sword over a giant rift in the land.  Maybe that's cliche somehow, but I really don't think so.  Obviously the "guy with a sword in dramatic pose" fantasy cover has been done once or twice before, uh, times a million, but the quality of the art itself is so good that I like to think that it's less of a cliche and more of a common fantasy cover art idea performed really, really well.  It's the really, really well part that has me excited. 

In the end, this cover is a million times better than any of the Mistborn ones, and especially that boring Warbreaker one.  People who haven't read fantasy for years will see this book at the bookstore and think, "Woah, that book looks epic." 

Hopefully, they'll be right.

[libraloco]

Yeah, Merin's name changed to Kaladin.

Doesn't that sound an awful lot like Kalad from Warbreaker? Is this intentional or just an accident?

EDIT: Sorry for being random. Anyway, for clarification Kalad is mentioned on page 88 of Warbreaker (hardcover). He might be mentioned somewhere else, but I'm not that far yet.

[Liam]

In the end, this cover is a million times better than any of the Mistborn ones, and especially that boring Warbreaker one.

I loved the hardcover of The Hero of Ages.  Vin atop Kredik Shaw surrounded by Inquisitors cloaked in mist was chilling.  But I agree that Warbreaker has a boring cover, which doesn't bother me that much because I've actually read the free eBook version more than my hardcover.  It's much easier to keep a PDF on a flash drive than lug a hardback around.

[Bookstore Guy]

Showing what's different about this series on the cover may thwart what marketing is trying to do.  As with most of Brandon's books, KINGS has wide appeal and a broad audience.  It's a tough job as an illustrator/art director to pick just one thing to represent the whole book without alienating one audience or another.  A war scene on the cover is going to draw in one kind of reader and put off another.  While a huge part of KINGS deals with war, the individual character conflicts go way beyond that, for example.  With this in mind, Whelan has captured the feel of the book without illustrating one scene in particular.

Having said that, there will always be critics ready to slam the book's cover when it comes out.  But the majority of readers are going to hold the book in their hands and say, "This is one fine-looking novel."  And in that regard, the cover will have done its job.

I see your point (and I think we've discussed this before).  Though I'd disagree about Whelan capturing the feel of the book--I don't feel and sort of emotion behind the painting.  It doesn't evoke an emotional response like a Picacio or a Martiniere.  Of course, this is strictly a personal opinion, and I can easily see how others love it, and why Marketing is going for the Whelan cover.  I just think it's silly to go out and get a Whelan cover, and then completely obscure it.  The figures, to me, aren't the cool part of the full, un-cluttered art piece.  The storm is the cool part (kinda like the Deadhouse Gates cover).  But we don't see that with the typography (and on the Mass Market paperback, it will be even more obscured).  In fact, I'd argue that the storm and its effects on the psyches of the characters (and their individual conflicts) is of way more importance than the Bridge Teams.  A Bridge Team would have been cool, but not as a cover.  It would make a beautiful interior illustration in, say, a Subterranean Press Limited Edition, but not a cover.

See, personally, I think that the reader who hasn't read fantasy in years will see this cover and think "This looks like all the other books in the genre."

The huge caveat here is that books look much different in print than as a jpg.  Mistborn 1, for example, didn't look that awesome on a computer screen.  But when I opened a shipment of them, and saw how it looked in person, it was far different, and very impressive.  I'm hoping the same applies here (as well as them shrinking down the typography so we can actually see the Whelan cover they paid good money for).

[Peter Ahlstrom]

I'm pretty sure the typography is not going to change after this. The cover has been through all its approvals already (or it would not have been revealed). I do wish it were smaller but this is what we get.

The prologue for the book will be in the back of the WARBREAKER paperback at the end of this month. I believe that Brandon has never read the full prologue at a reading; I've always heard him stop halfway through. If you have heard him read the first half and thought it was awesome, let me say you ain't seen nothin' yet. (Though I guess the people in this thread who have already read or are currently reading the book can attest to that.) (If you are currently reading it, make sure it has chapter 26.)

[guessingo]

His name is big, because they are selling Brandon as much as they are selling the book. The Wheel of Time made him famous. Look at Stephen Kings books. Alot of his books don't even have a blurb about the book (I hate that) and just have his picture.

They are selling his track record.

Way of Kings is a brand new series. So less will know what it is than will actually know who Brandon is from The Gathering Storm. However, many people will know Brandon from Wheel of Time. You will probably see the book in a bookstore sitting next to Gathering Storm and then if Towers of Midnight is out in the fall next to that.