Empire in Black and Gold
by Adrian Tchaikovsky
by Adrian TchaikovskyCover Illustration © Jon Sullivan
Jacket Design by Jacqueline Cooke
The city states of the Lowlands have lived in peace for decades, bastions of civilization, prosperity and sophistication, protected by treaties, trade and a belief in the reasonable nature of their neighbours.
But meanwhile, in far-off corners, the Wasp Empire has been devouring city after city with its highly trained armies, its machines, it killing Art . . . And now its hunger for conquest and war has become insatiable.
Only the ageing Stenwold Maker, spymaster, artificer and statesman, can see that the long days of peace are over. It falls upon his shoulders to open the eyes of his people, before a black-and-gold tide sweeps down over the Lowlands and burns away everything in its path.
But first he must stop himself from becoming the Empire’s latest victim.
What a great coloring job on this one – the full spread looks terrific.
Thank you. I am VERY happy with the final result.
That cover would definitely catch my eye on a bookshelf! The entire cover, not just the front, is gorgous. And I see that the spine carries your new "spine theme" and leads me to believe that this will be a trilogy. Most excellent cover indeed. You should be VERY happy with the final result.
I'm curious though – what genre would you call this?
Yep, and would you believe how many spines we went through to get it right? Over 13 iterations!
It's actually one of four we've picked up. There is a natural break at book four, but the series will continue past that.
Genre: it's epic fantasy with a steampunk angle. Steam Fantasy!
Is this the one done by John Sullivan? Or did you inject pure metal into the cover?
Both.
Jon did the UK covers from books two forward. I love his work, but was torn because I wanted to give US readers a reason to wait for our edition. So I asked Jon if he'd be willing to do full scenes using the character designs he'd already worked out. The result is absolutely stunning. We've shown book two's front cover already but nobody but the audience at OryCon has seen the AMAZING cover for book three.