Tor Books has released the cover art for the upcoming ebook release of The Path of Daggers, the eighth 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 Julie Bell. The ebook will be released on May 18th.

(click images to enlarge)

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:

Still, some hard decisions had to be made. The scenes includes thirteen women working together. If we did a long shot, we could include all thirteen but, then we loose the ability to engage with specific characters. When you add in the thumbnail-size that ebook covers are often first viewed at, I thought it best to focus on a few of the key characters — Elayne, Aviendha, and Nynaeve.

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 |Buy from Amazon
• The Path of Daggers: DM News | Tor.com Feature | Available to buy May 18th
• 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.