It’s my pleasure to announce that Michael Whelan will be creating the ebook cover art for A Memory of Light, the final volume of The Wheel of Time.
It has been a privilege to work on our WoT ebook project this past year and a half—although deciding which artists to include is as much a heartbreak as it is exciting. There are so many wonderful and talented artists I would love to work with.
With such a powerhouse roster to begin with, the pressure is on to end with a bang. Few can argue that Whelan is just the guy to pull it off. His resume is impressive—multiple Hugo, Spectrum, Society of Illustrators, and Chesley awards, to name just a few—but it’s the admiration he has garnered among fans, artists, and authors (not to mention WoT co-writer, Brandon Sanderson himself) that makes Michael the obvious choice.
This is so cool I don’t even know where to start…. I think maybe a fanboy shriek is in order.
The Wheel of Time has certainly earned a Whelan cover.
There are several books out there I read almost purely because they had his covers. Win.
epic win.
“Win” doesn’t even begin to describe just how cool this is! Whelan is probably THE guy who should have done the artwork for the series from day one!
Irene, it’s already hard enough waiting for the book, and now you have to take it up another notch. This is great news.
So can we hope to see the cover at least a month before the book? And will you then tell us how we can buy a complete set of all of the covers? Please?
Whoot! Hopefully he reads a bit of the books before doing his magic. This just goes to show that if you pray hard enough, Jesus hears you… am now going out to buy a lottery ticket ;)
Woof™.
Mind = Blown.
Now, do we know if the ebook is going to drop day-and-date? I’ll gladly pay for both since otherwise I’ll have to buy two hardcovers anyway (one for me, one for the wife) and having two different versions would be the way to go for that.
-Beren
woohoo!
I do believe this rates at least a “Booyah” and possibly even a “Squee!”
Congrats, Irene, for all the amazing work you’ve done in pulling these wonderful artists together for this project. It’s an achievement to be proud of, and you’ve made many a WOT fan very happy because of it. Go you!
Mike Whelan is my master now.
Thanks for all the love, guys. I know Michael will be thrilled to see the support. We have a ways to go, of course, but when the time comes, you know I’ll share as much as I can. ;-)
Holy freaking awesome sauce, Batman!
There were soooo many books back in the day that I picked up just because of his covers.
So which scene will be depicted? :)
This is so awesome. Too bad it will just be a little square. I hope he does the rest of the Stormlight Archive too.
Will Tor ever fix The Great Hunt ebook (for Kindle) so the cover is actually on the ebook (instead of the generic red cross with the Tor logo)?
Squeeeeee!
So many of my favourites in SF are indelibly associated, in my mind, with Michael Whelan covers. This is indeed awesome news!
~lakesidey
thanks
Calender for these covers plz. >
woohoo. Wheel of Time gets a Whelan cover. That is awesome!!!!!
Can’t we just have him do the Hardback cover as well?
Yes please! Whelan covers for hardcover, US ànd UK editions!
Oh. My. God.
This is too frakkin awesome.
YES! He is my favorite fantasy artist. About bloody time!
Brandon begged you, didn’t he? He loves telling of how he came to admire/trust/worship Whelan’s fantasy covers as indicative of a worthwhile story, and that his opinion of how to know he’d “made it” was to have a Whelan cover on his own work.
So why didn’t you include the cover from The Way of Kings in the Whelan art sample? Surely you didn’t have to worry about the rights…
Whelan will knock it out of the park as always. And Irene, a wonderful climactic crescendo in the ebook artwork symphony you have conducted. As always, very well done.
Thanks, Freelancer. And we still have the Young Adult versions to go so it’s not truly the last you’ll see from me on the subject. So, yay!
On this, though, I think the begging was on my end — trying to get some early info out of Brandon. ;-) Whelan really was the obvious choice because of his standing in the field and, yeah, because Way of Kings turned out so freaking well.