At the end of 2010 Fantasy-Faction heard, from Peter V. Brett, of a novel worth looking out for. This novel was Control Point and it was to be published in 2012 by a début author known as Myke Cole.

I looked him up and it quickly became apparent that this gentleman, Myke Cole, was an interesting character. In fact, so much so that I had to double check that this was the author and not one of the characters set to be featured within the novel:

“As a security contractor, government civilian and military officer, Myke Cole’s career has run the gamut from Counterterrorism to Cyber Warfare to Federal Law Enforcement. He’s done three tours in Iraq and was recalled to serve during the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.”

With an author who, let’s face it, sounds that damned cool and a recommendation from one of fantasy’s most popular modern writers, I couldn’t help myself but e-mail and ask for an advanced copy to review. Myke quickly got back to me and promised to send a copy of the book from the United States over to the United Kingdom for me to read.

Now, I will be the first to admit that had it not been for Peter’s recommendation, I may not have picked up a book labeled as military fantasy. I tend to be more of a traditionalist who enjoys those epic or high fantasy adventure type books. What I found within Control Point though was an amazing, game-changing book. I won’t go into too much detail because I plan to release my own review around the time of UK release in August/September. What I will say though is that the tens of 5 star reviews on the internet that have come as a result of the early American release are not unjustified.

So, once I received the book was it really perfect? NO! There was a problem…a HUGE, HUGE PROBLEM!!! It arrived, as all advanced reader copies do, with just a plain white jacket.

Now, this wasn’t Myke’s fault. It was my fault, because I was too impatient to wait for the real release date. So, if you, like me, are in England reading this post – you are probably thinking “Where/when the heck can I get this book!? And will it have a cover!?”

Well, the bad news is that the book is not released in the United Kingdom until late summer 2012. The good news is, it has a cover! And the extra-good news (yes, on Fantasy-Faction we have three types of news) is that the UK Publishers, Headline, have decided to give us a preview of it and oh my is it beautiful!!!

If you already know what the book is about feel free to skip past the following blurb. For those who haven’t heard of the book, please allow us to put the cover into a bit of context for you:

Army Officer. Fugitive. Sorcerer. Across the country and in every nation, people are waking up with magical talents. Untrained and panicked, they summon storms, raise the dead, and set everything they touch ablaze. Army officer Oscar Britton sees the worst of it. A lieutenant attached to the military’s Supernatural Operations Corps, his mission is to bring order to a world gone mad. Then he abruptly manifests a rare and prohibited magical power, transforming him overnight from government agent to public enemy number one. The SOC knows how to handle this kind of situation: hunt him down–and take him out. Driven into an underground shadow world, Britton is about to learn that magic has changed all the rules he’s ever known, and that his life isn’t the only thing he’s fighting for.

Pretty damned awesome, right!? I loved the USA cover, but I do think the portrayal of Oscar Britton as a little younger and slightly less stern looking really works. Mainly, because there are so many scenes of growth and emotion within this book that I think this character looks fairly capable of going through – in addition to all the ass kicking, portal summoning and general ensuing chaos! It’s not all about the character though, right? The beautiful blue and grey abstract background also works really, really well with the texts and shades of the overall character – overall a pretty amazing cover that I think gives readers a good idea of what the book is all about. More importantly though, it is certainly one I’ll be picking up to replace my white proof cover. 😉

So, how about Myke and his publishers? How do they feel about the cover? Well, we got in touch with Myke Cole and he told us:

“Rostant’s iconic image of Jardir on the cover of Peter V. Brett’s The Desert Spear is one of my favorite covers in fantasy. It’s an absolute honor to have his work on this edition of Control Point and I am proud to say he’s done it again.”

And John Wordsworth, Myke’s UK Editor, added:

“I was thrilled when Larry Rostant – who’s behind many of my favourite covers – agreed to work on the UK edition of Control Point. There are various schools of thought when it comes to cover design, but I’m happy if they reflect the content of the book, appeal to the right readers, and, crucially, look great. Done, done and done!”

For anyone who has seen the American cover, they will find this cover very different. Well, that is because there are big differences in what sells in the United Kingdom vs what sells in the United States. Strange, but true! This is something we are looking to investigate in the near future. We want to find out what actually goes into designing a cover, how difficult it is to plan a cover design and how authors feel about the designs once they come through. So, keep checking back with Fantasy-Faction because over the coming weeks we are going to be speaking with a number of people who are working within the publishing industry and getting these incredible covers onto our bookshelves.

For now though, we’d like to congratulate Headline on an incredible choice of artist, the artist himself, Larry Rostant, and of course Myke Cole who gave everyone a book to cover!

If you’d like more information on Myke Cole and the Shadow Ops series, you can check out our interview with Myke here, and our reviews of Control Point here and here.