Cover Artistry: 'The Ten Thousand' by Paul Kearney (Solaris, UK)

A couple of weeks ago, Solaris Books unveiled the cover of the forthcoming (September 2008) Paul Kearney novel The Ten Thousand [Amazon] over on the Solaris blog.

Here's the cover art, with illustration by Chris McGrath:

I love the overall atmosphere that Chris has created here: the colour, tone and texture of the piece is just terrific, as is the depth of the image; with several layers of action and interaction, giving the impression of an ongoing action sequence. I like the overall design as well: the composition and layout adds to and enhances the aesthetic of the cover; typography is suitably strong and stark, not fussy or over-fancy.

Paul Kearney writes very gritty, often dark epic / heroic fantasy, with very strong military content and I think this whole package reflects that general approach very well; certainly much better than any the earlier covers for his Monarchies of God series, which played up the fantasy elements much more, or his Sea Beggars books, which I think maybe tried too hard to play down the fantasy elements and disguise themselves as nautical fiction.

I will admit that when I first saw this cover - I run Paul's website, and he sent me the cover a few weeks back to have a look at - I was rather dubious about pretty-boy on the right-hand side there. But I'm sure there are all sorts of perfectly valid, marketing-driven reasons why a cover ought to include a jolly good-looking chap like that. Maybe there are particular market segments that the publisher wants to appeal to, or maybe the cover is also intended for use in the US market, where character portraits are much more commonly used.

But still... surely that guy is just too darned pretty to have fought in and survived the sort of conflicts that the hardened mercenary warriors in The Ten Thousand will have been involved in? Then again, I haven't read the book yet, so maybe he looks exactly right. We'll see.

Although, with reference to my previous post, I do think that putting the main character in a full-face helm, like the ones the figures in the background are all wearing, would have been better. That would have allowed the reader to associate more strongly with the imagery; imagining themselves inside that helm, marching into battle on some far-flung field... rather than wondering who the male model is, and how he managed to wander into the middle of a battle without getting his stubble-jawed head lopped off...

So, to summarise: a very good cover indeed, with terrific artwork and great atmospheric effect. Well-designed and nicely laid out; only slightly let down by the portrait effect and the male-model subject matter. But I'm sure I'll get over it, because I've read the first few chapters of The Ten Thousand, courtesy of Mr K, and the story so far is shaping up very, very nicely indeed...