Tor Books has released the cover art for the upcoming ebook release of A Crown of Swords, the seventh book in the Wheel of Time series. Each month, beginning this past October, Tor will release the next book in the series in a variety of electronic formats. See below for a full list of links to the released books, as well as a schedule of the upcoming releases.

With each eBook, Tor is including brand new artwork for the “cover”. A different artist has been selected for each one, giving the art team at Tor a chance to provide us fans with a variety of styles.

This month, the artwork is by Mélanie Delon. The ebook will be released on April 20th.

Click for larger version

As with the previous covers that were released for the ebooks, Tor Art Director Irene Gallo has done a write up about the process behind creating this image. Be sure to check out the full article. Here’s an excerpt:

Mélanie Delon’s work is exemplified by utilizing detail and soft focus, creating images that blur the edges between realism and fantasy. It was a great match for a moment of surrender and rebirth, a moment when Nynaeve must disengage from her usual character traits and, if just for second, open herself up.

Wheel of Time eBook News and release schedule
Tor Books plans to re-release each one of the Wheel of Time novels as ebooks according to the schedule below. Each will have new cover art, specially commissioned for the eBook format. Each will feature a different artist.

• The Eye of the World: DM News | Tor.com feature | Buy from Amazon
• The Great Hunt: DM News | Tor.com Feature | Buy from Amazon
• The Dragon Reborn: DM News | Tor.com Feature | Buy from Amazon
• The Shadow Rising: Tor.com Feature | DM news | Buy from Amazon
• The Fires of Heaven:DM News | Tor.com feature | Buy from Amazon
• Lord of Chaos: DM News | Tor.com feature | Buy from Amazon
• A Crown of Swords: DM News | Tor.com Feature | Available to buy April 20th
• The Path of Daggers – 05/18/10
• Winter’s Heart – 06/22/10
• Crossroads of Twilight – 07/20/10
• Knife of Dreams – 08/24/10
• New Spring – 09/28/10
• The Gathering Storm – 11/2/10
• From Two Rivers – 11/16/10
• To The Blight – 11/16/10
• The Hunt Begins – 11/16/10
• New Threads in the Pattern- 11/16/10

So what do you think of this new image? Leave your comments below. Remember, we’ll have a more detailed report on the overall future of the Wheel of Time print-edition covers at a later time.

Audio Renaissance, the publisher of Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time audiobooks, is planning to release the unabridged version of A CROWN OF SWORDS at the end of this month.

This is welcome news to many fans because for quite a while there has not been a way to get a copy of the unabridged version of this audiobook. This new version is read by Michael Kramer and Kate Reading, who have read the rest of the series unabridged. Michael and Kate are the husband-and-wife actors who were personally approved by Robert Jordan for the job.

Audio Renaissance was kind enough to provide us with a free 2 minute excerpt of the new CROWN OF SWORDS audiobook. Click here to listen to the MP3 file (less than 1 MB). Let us know what you think by replying to this news article!

As soon as we have more info on the actual availability, we’ll post a link in our online store so you can purchase it.

News from Audio Renaissance. They recently acquired the rights to A Crown of Swords and will be publishing the unabridged audio book this fall. Look for it October 2006.

All of the Wheel of Time™ books have been recorded in unabridged format read by Michael Kramer and Kate Reading and most are now available from Audio Renaissance. They are available in both CDs and cassettes. The exceptions to date are A Crown of Swords, The Path of Daggers and Winter’s Heart. Winter’s Heart is available in unabridged format from audible.com, however A Crown of Swords and The Path of Daggers are only available in abridged format read by Mark Rolston.

The orginal unabridged versions of A Crown of Swords and The Path of Daggers published by Books on Tape occasionally show up on the secondary market but they are uncommon and expensive. We’ll update you whenever we learn more!

Update: Thanks for catching that, Tom! The abridged versions of A Crown of Swords and The Path of Daggers were available until a few weeks ago but not any longer. Amazon.com still lists them but the links now go to an error page. You can still find them for sale on EBay and other secondary markets.

More info

[ Audio Renaissance ]
[ audible.com ]
[ Books on Tape ]