News roundup: Fantasycon, New cover art and cheap kindling. : Shadows of the Apt

News roundup: Fantasycon, New cover art and cheap kindling.

Latest news from the world of the insect-kinden:

Firstly, I will be at Fantasycon 2011 this year (1) and I've been asked to sit on a panel on Trends in Fantasy Fiction, 10am Saturday. I will hopefully be essaying a reading too, as the five people who came to the last one at Alt Fiction seemed to enjoy it (2). Reading, if it goes ahead, will either be the section of The Air War or a new short story.

Secondly, cheap kindling! In that there is an Amazon offer for the Kindle version of Empire in Black and Gold that can be found here. Ideal present for someone who hasn't read it, might like it, and has a Kindle thingie.

Finally, and most momentously…

NEW COVER ART

Although mentioning the above in the header probably killed that as a surprise reveal, the earlier Shadows of the Apt volumes are getting something of a remodel. The new editions will be trade paperback format (to fit with the the upcoming release of Heirs of the Blade and feature completely new art by Alan Brooks. So far designs for Empire and Dragonfly are in the pipeline:

The new editions should be out around March 2012.

And finally finally finally, and just so I've not been blowing my own trumpet for the whole post, I have just finished reading Dan Abnett's recent novel Embedded, and good lord it is good. Go get yourself a copy if you haven't already.

(1) because being at Fantasycon 2011 any other year would be stupid.

(2) In all fairness that was about how many the room sat.

Posted by Adrian Tchaikovsky on September 5th, 2011

Posted in Art, Blog, Home

Tags: Art, Events, news

7 Comments

7 comments to “News roundup: Fantasycon, New cover art and cheap kindling.”

Moon Kim, September 5th, 2011 at 6:51 pm:

First cover seems to be good (is that collegium in the background?) but the second one seems to be off. At previous UK and the newest US one shows Felise properly. But in the new cover, the sword seems to be a tad bit too short? (The hilt is cut off so that may be why)

Also the font can be slightly confusing, I read it as Dragonfly Battling at first before realizing what it said. Just my 2 cents on the new covers

Embedded is out? Thanks, Adrian will be buying that very soon
innokenti, September 6th, 2011 at 8:13 am:

I like Felise on the Dragonfly cover. It always helps, I think, to have good reference to take you back to the fact that all the humans are human-looking. (Or at least I do).

I agree with Moon Kim, however, that the font is not the clearest to read. Very cool font… probably confuse a lot of people.

Are the rest of the books to be re-released in Trade Paperback at some point? And will new ones start coming out as Trades? And will that in fact ruin my beautiful-looking bookshelf arrangement?
Adrian Tchaikovsky, September 6th, 2011 at 9:56 am:

I think they'll all end up Trade, yes, and certainly from Heirs the new ones will be. And yes, it does screw with your bookshelf somewhat — I remember being put out when they changed the David Gemmell covers on me ages ago. Still, mutatis mutandis. Or something.

And yes, the city on the new Empire cover is Collegium, and on the Dragonfly cover it's Helleron. Yes, Felise was in Helleron, briefly. The new design gives a nice opportunity to show some of the places of SOTA as well as the people. Book 3 will probably have Jerez.
innokenti, September 7th, 2011 at 10:05 am:

Oh well, I'll just have to buy them up again.

I see your evil plan! 😀
O. Leonard, January 25th, 2012 at 12:47 pm:

Please keep the old font from the original U.K. covers. Just my only complaint, that and Feliese's sword is too wide.
drag0nfly Falling, July 15th, 2012 at 9:17 am:

I hate the 'new' covers. Before I even read Empire in Black and Gold I looked at the cover of Dragonfly Falling beside it on the bookstore shelf and I assumed the book was taking place in space.

Thankfully I didn't pick the books up that day, and I managed to buy copies of the first two books with the original cover art at Chapters.

My girlfriend recently gave me Heirs of the Blade as a gift, and now that I've read all the books I thought I'd take a look at the website… and I have to say, the cover art for The Air War is really unappealing to me. The cityscapes aren't bad, but the character art on the covers is horrible.

The original cover art of Empire in Black and Gold was the best cover so far- I for one picked up the series thanks to that cover art. My second favourite cover would be Heirs of the Blade. Even though I thought Heirs of the Blade could have ended better. 😉
Adrian Tchaikovsky, July 15th, 2012 at 2:04 pm:

Well, cover art is subjective. I'm very fond of the Air War cover myself.

Shadows of the Apt