Here is the North American cover for Under Heaven, the forthcoming new novel by great writer Guy Gavriel Kay!
To say I love this cover is an understatement. It is gorgeous, of course, but I love how subtle it is too. Whereas the UK cover almost bludgeons the reader with the book’s Asian fantasy / mythology content , the US cover takes a Chinese stone horse statue from antiquity and, with warm greens, yellows, and Asian symbols, mysteriously suggests what the book may be about.
The US cover for Under Heaven is one of the more beautiful fantasy covers I have seen.
Nice job, Roc!
To read the dust jacket summary of Under Heaven as well as discover something very cool that Guy Gavriel Kay is doing in support of the book, jump to the next page!
Here is the summary:
In the novel, Shen Tai is the son of a general who led the forces of imperial Kitai in the empire's last great war against its western enemies, twenty years before. Forty thousand men, on both sides, were slain by a remote mountain lake. General Shen Gao himself has died recently, having spoken to his son in later years about his sadness in the matter of this terrible battle.To honour his father's memory, Tai spends two years in official mourning alone at the battle site by the blue waters of Kuala Nor. Each day he digs graves in hard ground to bury the bones of the dead. At night he can hear the ghosts moan and stir, terrifying voices of anger and lament. Sometimes he realizes that a given voice has ceased its crying, and he knows that is one he has laid to rest.
The dead by the lake are equally Kitan and their Taguran foes; there is no way to tell the bones apart, and he buries them all with honour.
It is during a routine supply visit led by a Taguran officer who has reluctantly come to befriend him that Tai learns that others, much more powerful, have taken note of his vigil. The White Jade Princess Cheng-wan, 17th daughter of the Emperor of Kitai, presents him with two hundred and fifty Sardian horses. They are being given in royal recognition of his courage and piety, and the honour he has done the dead.
You gave a man one of the famed Sardian horses to reward him greatly. You gave him four or five to exalt him above his fellows, propel him towards rank, and earn him jealousy, possibly mortal jealousy. Two hundred and fifty is an unthinkable gift, a gift to overwhelm an emperor.
Tai is in deep waters. He needs to get himself back to court and his own emperor, alive. Riding the first of the Sardian horses, and bringing news of the rest, he starts east towards the glittering, dangerous capital of Kitai, and the Ta-Ming Palace - and gathers his wits for a return from solitude by a mountain lake to his own forever-altered life.
No one weaves fantasy and history together like Guy Gavriel Kay. This is a book I will be greatly anticipating. It has a release date of April 27, 2010.
Guy is currently blogging about Under Heaven and the lead up to its release. Click HERE to read about the book, his thoughts on the two covers, and much, much more!
More soon!
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