Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Towers of Midnight Cover Art



By Linda

TOR released the final version of the US cover for Towers of Midnight today:





It's one of the better covers I think. And it shows one of the most hotly-anticipated quests in the series. A good choice of scene!

The Tower of Ghenejei is depicted as stone which gets a metallic sheen when activated, yet in the books it's a tall column of metal.

Thom doesn't have his harp or flute because carrying a musical instrument through the doorway would be an obvious violation of the agreement with the *Finns. The idea is to 'cheat' while keeping to the letter of the contract. (Like most Aes Sedai do with their Oaths...)

Mat carries a bag of tricks - with items that appear innocuous but allow him to get the better of the *Finns. Aludra's matches should be there. I expect Mat can enter the Tower with his ashandarei because the *Finns gave it to him and if they took it back it would violate their bargain with him.

It strikes me that this is one of the few Sweet WOT covers with no onlookers or followers - just the three foreground figures. New Spring might be the only other one.


The changes from the previous version of the TOM cover are:

1) both Noal and Thom (making his mark) have white hair
2) Mat now has his trademark hat and his ashandarei is depicted more authentically
3) the triangle is now point down as described in the books
4) a typo corrected in the word Gathering.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

That's a wicked long blade on the ashendarei

Anonymous said...

Wait...where's Valan Luca!?!?! This cover must be a trick.

Anonymous said...

I see a faun, a statue, and aginor

Chris said...

Is it just me, or does Noal's staff bear a striking resemblance to Moiraine's staff from the Eye of the World cover?

It's good to see that while Sweet is still shying away from painting the most interesting moment, he's at least chosen a significant one this time.

Deadsy said...

I'm pretty sure Sweet doesn't pick the scene. Tor mails a small portion to him. He doesn't ever read the full book.

Anonymous said...

Why does nobody recognize Cenn Buie on the Cover? Everything, including the staff, fits his description.
And I'm pretty confident that the other two guys are Hu and Tad, who stole Mat's and Thom's clothes - this two would really need more time on screen.
Shame on people who think the guy would be Noal (or the more likely Valan Luca).

Ben said...

while in theory the foxhead could be under his blouse, Mat doesn't seem to be wearing it...could this give credence to the theory that he gives it to pregnant Elayne while he's in Caemlyn??

Smoke said...

We know that the Archways have a treaty associated with them; however, this may not be the case with the Tower of Ghenjei. I say this because of Brigitte's comments to Perrin in the World of Dreams that "Once entered, the Tower of Ghenjei is hard enough to leave in the world of men. Here it is all but impossible.". This implies that the Tower of Genji is different in some ways than the Arches. In the arches they had safe passage although Matt had to ask for it in the one in the Aiel Wastes.