So, I can’t tell you how much of an honour it is to host the cover reveal for not only the UK version of The Core by Peter V. Brett, but also the American version!

The Painted Man (The Warded Man to you in the US) was the first book I reviewed for Fantasy-Faction and it was this book (along with Brent Weeks’s The Way of Shadows) that convinced me I needed people to talk to about the lives I’d just lived and the worlds I’d just inhabited. How did the world get into such a state? How powerful would Arlen get? How do we feel about this Jardir? Would I survive in such a world? Are the demons a metaphor for terrorists? That damned ending. What happens next?? I couldn’t get these questions out of my head.

In 2010, we didn’t have Goodreads or Facebook Groups, and the forums that existed were heavily slanted towards science fiction. The only thing I could think to do was start my own blog and forum and hope I could convince a few people to come chat with me.

Anyway, back to The Core – anyone who has read the sample chapter on Peter’s blog knows that the world is about to be rocked. In case you’ve not read that chapter, I won’t spoil things for you – but we all know from the ending of The Skull Throne that Arlen and Jardir have found a way to enter the Core and take the war to the demons. Leesha, Inevera, Ragen and Elissa must put their considerable differences aside to bind the people of the free cities and lead them against whatever it is the Arlen and Jardir rouse.

Anyway, we’ve had Arlen, Jardir, Inevra, Renna and Rojer across the US and UK covers, so who does that leave us other than Leesha? Well, prepare yourselves…

Pretty fantastic, right? Leesha actually looks more badass than I thought she would, but I think that reflects the growth we’ve seen in her through books two to four. Leesha has gone from someone who was shy, homeless and likely to spend her life largely unnoticed, to the love interest of both Deliverers and, in her own right, one of the most politically important people in the world. Great choice of model too – I can see why Jardir was so caught up with her, even with his relationship to Inevra.

Okay, now take a breath my friends, because we’ve had all the main human players. So who…or what does that leave?

Oh, yes! That’s the Alagai Ka right there! The big bad! There’s a story behind this one too. As you may know, Larry Rostant uses models to develop his cover art (as opposed to paints or pure CGI). With that in mind, he needed something to photograph and that meant an actual demon was needed.

“One of the most exciting things about working on the new covers was getting the sculpture of Alagai Ka created by the legendary Cliff Wallace at Millennium FX. Cliff – who created prosthetics for the original Hellraiser and has recently worked on Assassin’s Creed – designed the sculpture using a drawing of mine and the results are amazing, especially when you see the finished photographs of the sculpture with the model’s body. The US cover was much more of a traditional shoot, but we used the most fantastic model Fleur Randall who really brought the character to life. It was lovely to be able to shoot another US cover tying into the rest of the series, along with a new approach in the UK.” – Larry Rostant

Oh, any I suppose you want to hear from the author as well? Well, okay, here’s Peter V. Brett on Larry Rostant’s covers and how the decision to feature both Leesha and the Demon was made:

“Artist Larry Rostant really set a high bar with his cover of The Painted Man. I owe much of my initial success to that amazing image, and it set the tone for covers going forward, each a portrait of one of the main POV characters in the series. The difficulty was that I was only writing a 5-book series, and have over a dozen POV characters, each of them cover-worthy in their own right.

Thankfully, with both my US and UK publishers, Del Rey and Voyager, respectively trying to differentiate the books for their own markets, we’ve been blessed by the ability to have more than five characters portrayed. The Daylight War showed two very different sides of Inevera, and The Skull Throne got to feature fierce Renna in the US and the talented Rojer Halfgrip in the UK.

I always knew I wanted to put a demon on the cover of the final book, and with the help of Millennium FX in making props and costuming, Larry was able to create the amazing demon cover that will grace the book jackets in the UK.

But in the US, there was a strong call for Leesha Paper, who was with us from the beginning and frankly deserved the cover treatment long-since, to have her turn. Larry found a simply gorgeous model, Fleur Randall, to play the part, and she did literally hundreds of poses in a photoshoot that must have taken all day to achieve the perfection of the final piece.

Best of all, the markets have agreed to share the art, so underneath the Leesha book jacket in the US, you will find a Alagai Ka, the prince of demons leering at you, and underneath Alagai Ka in the UK you will find Leesha drawing a mind ward of protection.

I couldn’t be more pleased at how this final chapter in the Demon Cycle is playing out. Special thanks to Fantasy-Faction for having my back. Marc and the gang have been some of my biggest boosters from the very beginning, and I couldn’t be more pleased to have them be part of the coming out party. Roll on August 15!” – Peter V. Brett

Peter and I want to know which do you prefer?

Do vote and then leave your thoughts in the comments section below, Peter and I will be reading them all!!!

[socialpoll id=”2422383″]

But I prefer X cover! It’s so damned unfair!!!

Before you go breaking stuff, both the UK and the US versions of the book will come with both covers. The UK version will have the demon dustcover with Leesha printed on the hardback, The US version will have the Leesha dustcover with the demon printed on the hardback.

Anything else you can tell us?

The Core is expected to be Peter’s longest book, at around 20% larger than The Daylight War. We will meet a new character who we believe will be the protagonist of Peter’s next series. The Core hits shelves in the US on August 15th and the UK on August 10th.