Posts Tagged ‘fantasy’

How to create a fantasy book cover: The making of the new-look Terry Brooks

Wards of Faerie - the brand new fantasy novel from fantasy legend Terry Brooks, book one in his Dark Legacy of Shannara series - endorsed by Christopher PaoliniDo you ever wonder what goes into producing the cover artwork for some of the biggest fantasy books out there?

We asked the highly talented illustrator Stephen Youll about how he created the cover artwork for WARDS OF FAERIE (UK |ANZ), the first book in Terry Brooks’s brand new Dark Legacy of Shannara series – out next week on 23rd August.

We wanted a fresh new look for this series – both to appeal to Terry’s die-hard fans and to show that it’s a great point for new readers to get on board with the Terry Brooks phenomenon.

We were delighted with this artwork Stephen produced, so here, in his words, is how it came together:

For Terry Brooks’s first book in the new Dark Legacy series I was asked to create a dragon skull, hanging in a stone alcove with interesting lighting that gave the cover a rich and bold look to it that was different to everything else that was out there. Not much of a challenge?

Step 1: This involves the creation of the alcove shape in the wall. I quickly established the arched alcove with light and shadows on top of  a stone textured background.

step 1- background alcove shape1 - creation of fantasy novel WARDS OF FAERIE by Terry Brooks

Step 2: I added the detailed panels from texture cloned from an old door and colored it to match the stone. (more…)

Trudi Canavan’s Recipe for a Delicious Sequel

THE TRAITOR QUEEN (UK | US | AUS) has gone straight into the Sunday Times fiction chart at number one in the UK, showing that her fans have been desperate for the final instalment in this fantastic series. To mark the publication, we asked her to tell us how she feels about reaching the end of such a beloved series, here’s what she said:


Sequels. Prequels. Love them or hate them, you can’t escape the fact that every author who has a book published will be asked if there will be more. When the last page was proofed of the last book in the Black Magician trilogy I had been working on it for over seven years and I have to admit it, I was tired of the world and (gasp!) even sick of the characters I had lived and loved and cried with for so long. So my answer then was ‘no’.

I’ve learned since then to never give such definite answers to these kinds of questions.

You see, even as I wound up the story in The High Lord, there were little ideas twitching in the corner of my vision whispering, ‘This could be fun to develop.’ Then it occurred to me that the story of the Sachakan War, the impetus for the formation of the Magicians’ Guild of Kyralia, might fill a book. Still, I ignored these ideas, knowing they weren’t substantial enough. Yet.

By the time I had written the Age of Five trilogy, those ideas had grown up, met, had a few parties, married and bred new bold little ideas, all demanding to be written. Enough time had passed that I was ready to venture into the world of Sonea and the magicians of the Guild again.

So first came The Magician’s Apprentice (I am still amazed that nobody had yet written a book by that title), set around six hundred years before the events in the Black Magician trilogy. (It turns out it’s impossible to make it clear in the narrative that a book is a prequel. You can’t have characters thinking that it’s six hundred years before an event that hasn’t happened yet. It really did my head in.) Then came the Traitor Spy trilogy, set twenty years after the Black Magician trilogy. I learned that writing a sequel has its own challenges and rewards. Thinking about this recently, this recipe popped into my head:

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Cover launch! ARALORN by Patricia Briggs

The cover for Aralorn, a fantasy omnibus of Masques and Wolfsbane from Patricia Briggs, author of the Mercy Thompson novelsCalling all fantasy and Patricia Briggs fans! 

I’m delighted to be able to unveil the cover for a very exciting new title to be released in October this year: ARALORN (UK | ANZ).

It’s an omnibus edition of two fantasy titles that are yet to be released in the UK: Masques and Wolfsbane, from the fan favourite (and New York Times bestselling) Patricia Briggs.

Masques was in fact the first full-length novel that Patricia wrote, but since then it’s been revised and updated. It features the wonderfully unconventional heroine Aralorn, a girl who flees her noble birthright and the expectations piled upon her to become a mercenary and shapeshifting spy. 

Patricia Briggs recently revisited the series with Wolfsbane, and so we decided to collect these two novels in ARALORN. With these stories, the author expertly turns her hand to a setting which is a little more historical/high fantasy than urban fantasy – but fans of the Mercy Thompson and Alpha and Omega novels will undoubtedly also love this book.

ARALORN shows off Patricia at her best – with characters that are so intriguing that you’ll never want to say goodbye to them. The relationship between Aralorn and her mysterious companion Wolf, for example, is so deliciously intense that you’ll definitely want to see it through to the end.

Look out for ARALORN (UK | ANZ) this October. And you can find the blurb and a larger version of the cover below. (more…)

Terry Brooks, Patrick Rothfuss and The Measure of the Magic

The cover for the fantasy novel The Measure of the Magic by fantasy legend Terry Brooks, who recently interviewed Patrick Rothfuss

In case you’ve missed it, the fantasy legends Terry Brooks and Patrick Rothfuss have been interviewing each other on their websites throughout July, and it makes for some very compelling reading . . . 

My personal highlights include Terry describing himself as being like the OCD-ridden TV detective Monk, and where Pat talks about skipping his writing teacher’s class to go on a date with that same teacher’s daughter. Very sneaky indeed.

Check out part one here on Terry’s site. Also, check out this awesome cartoon of the two of them.

Don’t forget also that Terry’s conclusion to the Legends of Shannara duology, The Measure of the Magic (UK | ANZ), is released tomorrow in paperback! Read an extract here. And here’s what fans have been saying on online retailer sites about the book:

”Terry Brooks is one of the best fantasy novelists of our time . . . He does not disappoint his many fans with this latest book’ Dee

‘Terry Brooks continues to be my longest standing favourite author’ S. Wilson

The cover for the fantasy novel Wards of Faerie by Terry Brooks, who recently interviewed Patrick Rothfuss‘This is a really great series of books that have haunting and fleeting references to present worldwide problems. Long may he keep on writing these great books’ Colin L. Williams

There’s also not long to wait now until Terry’s brand new series begins with The Dark Legacy of Shannara: Wards of Faerie (UK | ANZ) – released 23rd August. 

If you like what you hear above, this will a great place for any new readers to jump in and experience the Terry phenomenon!

New details emerge about Red Country

We’re super excited to publish RED COUNTRY  this fall. Our new on sale date is October 23, 2012 and we hope you love a sneak peak at this awesome description newly minted by Joe!

They burned her home.

They stole her brother and sister.

But vengeance is following.

Shy South hoped to bury her bloody past and ride away smiling, but she’ll have to sharpen up some bad old ways to get her family back, and she’s not a woman to flinch from what needs doing.  She sets off in pursuit with only a pair of oxen and her cowardly old step father Lamb for company.  But it turns out Lamb’s buried a bloody past of his own.  And out in the lawless Far Country the past never stays buried.

Their journey will take them across the barren plains to a frontier town gripped by gold fever, through feud, duel and massacre, high into the unmapped mountains to a reckoning with the Ghosts.  Even worse, it will force them into alliance with Nicomo Cosca, infamous soldier of fortune, and his feckless lawyer Temple, two men no one should ever have to trust . . .

Get To Know K.J. Parker

Sharps, a fantasy novel by K. J. Parker. Cover shows a fencer standing on cobbled streets, pooled with bloodEn garde! SHARPS (US | UK | AUS) is  a new novel by the K.J. Parker featuring a high-stakes competition that will topple kingdoms. You won’t see action like this in the summer Olympics that’s for sure.

Publishers Weekly described it as “a ripping good adventure yarn, laced with frequent barbed witticisms and ace sword fighting… Parker’s settings and characterizations never miss a beat, and the intricate political interplay of intrigue is suspenseful almost to the last page.”

Collected here are five spoiler-free interviews with K.J. Parker about SHARPS and some of Parker’s earlier novels.

Pornokitsch | Staffer’s Musings | Fantasy Book Cafe | Fantasy Book Critic | Book Worm Blues

 

Why you (yes, you!) should be reading K. J. Parker

Published this week, SHARPS (UK | US | ANZ) is the superb new fantasy from K. J. Parker in which a single fencing tournament could decide the fate of two warring kingdoms.

One of Parker’s most passionate fans is Jared Shurin, half of the team behind Pornokitsch and a judge/administrator for the Kitschies awards. Jared has given SHARPS a stellar review – “Sharps may be the book that fantasy fans are waiting for” – and has just conducted an in-depth interview with the enigmatic Parker.

When we asked Jared what it is about the books of K. J. Parker that he loves so much, and why you should be reading them, he was only too happy to tell us . . .

Jared: As a shamelessly vocal, frothing-at-the-mouth K. J. Parker fan, I may be exactly the wrong person to write a piece on “Reading K. J. Parker”. For me, it is a no-brainer. For fifteen years, Parker has been consistently writing some of the best books in fantasy. Clever, thoughtful, funny, dark, political – stories with empires and sieges and swords and gods and magic – everything I love about the genre.

However, taking a step back, I realise that not everyone’s been obsessively stalking Parker’s creative output. Sharps, as a stand-alone novel – and one of Parker’s best to date – is the perfect starting point for a new reader. But in aid of those who need a little more convincing, I’ve tried to break down the reasons I read Parker. On a long list, here are the top five:

1. Plain-spoken. Parker writes in a straight-forward, direct way. The prose is easy, which lets the reader concentrate on the story and not fuss about deciphering the text itself. There’s no mythic vocabulary, no chanting in italics, no poetry (whew) and not a whiff of Ancient Elvish. Parker proves that you can write about complex, big ideas in plain language. The books are deceptively simple and wonderfully quick to read.

2. Educational. This sounds like a joke, but Parker’s books will open your eyes to the fascinating world of button-making. Also: currency regulation, fletching arrows and, dare I say it, charcoal-burning. Each book has one or more central metaphor: a self-reflective device that’s used to structure the story. As the symbol that ties everything together, that charcoal becomes really important – and, thanks to Parker’s skill as a writer, surprisingly enjoyable.

Still, it isn’t all briquettes and buttons. If you’re nervous that lumber mills and drop hammers aren’t your thing, there’s plenty of excitement. Blue and Gold is about alchemy. Pattern brings in volcanoes (nothing boring there). The Escapement focuses on siege warfare. And Sharps? Sharps is about swords. Another reason that this book makes the ideal first Parker: what fantasy reader can resist a book about sword-fighting?

3. Proper badasses. I don’t want to give you the impression that Parker’s books are all bone-grinding and economic theory, because they aren’t. Some of fantasy’s hardest warriors lurk within these pages – Bardas Loredon, Suidas Deutzel and Poldarn among them. Deadly fighters from all walks of life: highly trained and extremely motivated. Parker’s books also contain some of the most compellingly vicious fight scenes. The sword-monks and raiders of the Scavenger trilogy, the mechanised warfare (and epic sieges) of the Engineer trilogy, the underground battles in The Proof House, and, of course, the swordplay of Sharps. From classic fencing to brawls, pitched battles to lethal duels, Sharps has a glut of action. As always, everything is exhaustively researched as well. (What else would you expect from an author that makes their own swords?) (more…)

Captain America, Bitter Seeds and Nazis in fiction

Promotional poster for Paramount's CAPTAIN AMERICA, a superhero movie based on a Marvel comic of the same name - and its link to Bitter Seeds“I want you to know,” said John, “that you completely ruined Captain America for me.”

This was last summer at our local SF convention, Bubonicon. (Which, yes, is named after the bubonic plague.  But that’s another story.) John and I belong to the same writing community here in New Mexico, so we chat from time to time. But we didn’t see this movie together, or even in the same city. Which made his complaint a bit confusing to me. 

“Oh, about 20 minutes in,” he said, “my wife leaned over and said, ‘Hey!  He looks like Ian!’ So all through the rest of the movie I kept picturing you up there fighting Nazis.”

Steve Stirling overheard our conversation. He joined us, nodding. “Yeah. Me, too.”

And so it became a running joke at last year’s convention. (A joke at my expense, naturally. But I refuse to carry a shield.) Fast forward 10 months to last weekend, when I shared this story with a visiting friend. Corry said, without missing a beat, “We saw it on video recently. I told my husband, ‘That’s what Ian looks like.'” 

The cover for Bitter Seeds by Ian Tregillis - an alternate history novel featuring superhuman Nazis fighting British WarlocksNow, if you ask me, these people are quite mad. There isn’t the slightest resemblance. But when I object, they’re always quick to clarify: No, we didn’t mean the strong, square-jawed, charismatic Captain America. We mean the early version of Steve Rogers. The pre-super-soldier-serum, pre-Vita-Ray Steve Rogers. Of course you don’t resemble the superhero, Ian. We meant the scrawny runt.

Well, obviously.   

Aside from my desperate need for a solid dose of serum and Vita-Rays, I share little in common with young Rogers, much less his superheroic alter ego. I’ve never punched Hitler. Not even once.  (I’m not saying I wouldn’t, but I’ve never had a chance.) I have, however, used Nazis and superpowers in my novels, which meant I was firmly embedded in the target audience for Captain America.

And Steve Rogers and I would surely agree on one thing: Nazis are a pain in the neck. For him, fighting them. For me, writing them.

I expended a fair bit of time and energy ruminating on the fictional superpowered agents of the Third Reich in Bitter Seeds (UK | ANZ). I wanted to tell myself an entertaining adventure story; something chewy and fun, like a good comic book. But I also wanted to tell a story that could be molded around the nooks and crannies of history. So I had to think carefully about the grim realities of the Third Reich, which forced me to consider carefully the portrayal of Nazis in my novel. And I did. I thought long and very hard about how to approach these books before I started.

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Hawthorn Moon Sneak Peek Event with Gail Z. Martin

Gail Z. Martin, author of The Fallen Kings Cycle series (THE SWORN and THE DREAD), unveils her sneak peek of ICE FORGED  Book One in The Ascendant Kingdoms Saga, coming from Orbit Books in 2013.

Gail’s giving everyone a first look at the cover art for ICE FORGED, as well as book excerpts, author Q&As and more as part of her Hawthorn Moon Online Sneak Peek Event.  She’s got exclusive goodies spread out across more than a dozen partner sites, and you can find out about it all on Gail’s site, www.AscendantKingdoms.com.

Here is the cover. Gail also answers some questions about ICE FORGED and about her writing life.

***

Q:  Tell us a little about  how you came to write ICE FORGED.

A: I’d been playing with the idea of what if magic broke (as it nearly did in the Chronicles books), and what if we had a post-apocalyptic medieval world, and what if a world sent its convicts to the northern rim (instead of, in our world, Georgia or Australia)….and I had an idea of where I wanted to go.

I like stories that test the mettle of a character and reveal what he/she is made of.  In Ice Forged, the main characters have lost everything when they were disgraced and sentenced to a harsh prison colony.  When the magic dies and the Continent is destroyed in the war and the resulting apocalypse, the life they’ve made for themselves as colonists is jeopardized.  The discovery that Blaine is the only one who can restore the magic set him and his friends on a dangerous journey that will pit them against powerful immortal enemies.  The fate of their world rests in the hands of a group of convicts.  Succeed, and they win not only their freedom, but the ability to shape the future of the world.  Fail, and face the wrath of the gods knowing you have condemned your world to darkness.

Q:  What is your Hawthorn Moon Sneak Peek Event?

A:  I started doing the Hawthorn Moon Sneak Peek Event back in 2008, and it’s become something my readers have come to expect.  The solstice (aka the Hawthorn Moon) was an important event in my first book, The Summoner, and the name and timing just stuck.  It’s my online unveiling of the cover art for the new book, along with excerpts, interviews, all-new guest blog posts and lots of fun stuff spread out over a dozen or so sites.  To find out all the goodies and all the partner sites, please visit www.AscendantKingdoms.com.

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Behind the Cover Video: THE SPIRIT WAR by Rachel Aaron

Here in the Art Department, we work over a year in advance on our book covers, so it’s a thrill to finally be able to go back and share these process posts with you. Today we have a special treat, because last year when the fabulous illustrator Sam Weber was working on the Eli Monpress series for us, he invited us into his studio in Brooklyn to take a peek at THE SPIRIT WAR in progress.
I have really enjoyed working with Sam on this series because not only does he paint such gorgeous covers for us, he’s also a gigantic geek and loves to read the books as well. It really makes a difference in a cover when your artist really gets into the story and characters…especially in the case of Eli, master thief and scoundrel extraordinaire.

In the video below, Sam walks us through his process from thumbnails to final art. Even seeing him work up close, I still can’t believe he gets the amazing textures and luminosity he creates out of the watercolors. Let me tell you, if you are not an artist or have never tried painting in any medium, never mind watercolors, you have no idea how unforgiving a medium it can be.

I know the sketches and stages he shows go by pretty quickly in the video, so I’ll post a bunch of the cover stages so you can see what he’s describing up close. Enjoy! And look forward to part two, when we move past the process of physically creating the cover, and reveal how big of a geek Mr. Weber really is.

After the jump, see the process images up close and personal…
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