6 Some "Sweet" cover art

1. Moiraine the Midget and Moiraine's Horse the Dwarf Pony (The text refers to the lad being amazed at the sight of the huge horses (plural) ridden by Lan and Moiraine-the biggest he had ever seen.
2. Moiraine's dress is supposed to be a darker blue than her cloak.
3. Lan with a Mustache and Goatee?
4. Lan in Seanchan armor? Lan isn't wearing his color-fading cloak and instead is wearing plate mail. Lan should not be wearing plate mail.
5. Lan with TWO swords?
6. Moiraine is really UGLY and is wearing White eye shadow to boot - ugh!
7. Moiraine's hair is light brown-not dark.
8. All the horses are wearing ornamental bridles/saddles-what nonsense!
9. No saddle bags on any of the horses.
10. Everyone is wearing particularly stupid clothing: Rand with that weird Robin Hood collar, Moiraine in that awful blue cloak, Perrin's feather!?, etc.
11. Rand's face changes from the cover to the inside picture.
12. Egwene on the outside cover is blond. (Everyone except Rand from 2 rivers has dark hair, dark eyes).
13. The Draghkar is just a bat.
14. The moon is portrayed with far too many degrees of arc for the sky.
15. Thom (little itty bitty Thom) is wearing multicolored clothing but not a cloak!
16. Perrin's ax (see inside picture) is the wrong shape. (See the description in the first chapter: two/halfmoon-blade counterweighted).
17. Egwene's hair is wrong (should be braided), and so is Moiraine's (should be loose, not in that elaborate 'do).
18. There's an extra guy in the party! Who is that fellow way at the end? Jain Farstrider? M. Hunter, at a signing reports: "The covers aren't as bad as we thought they were. The 'extra' character in TEotW really was in the book, but was cut out later, because he had too little to do. His parts were distributed out to the other characters, but they never got around to cutting him from the cover."

Timothy Bruening: On the front cover of tEotW, Moiraine is sitting crosslegged on a horse. How does she stay on?

Patrick Nielsen Hayden: Remember all that glue we saved by not attaching the covers firmly enough? Well, it had to get used somewhere.

1. Rand (changing his face again) is way way too short and stocky. He is also wearing a really gaudy sword belt. His hair, for some reason has gotten a lot of body (perhaps all that Clairol) and seems almost curly,and it is not red. His clothes are totally wrong, too. The sword is supposed to be curved, as is the Shadar Logoth dagger.
2. Loial's ears are not hairy, way too large and Loial himself is only about four feet tall!. His boots are just awful: what if it rains? He'd walk around with about a gallon or four of extra water in the decorative birdbaths of those boots.
3. Selene (Lanfear) is wearing one of those dopey dresses - this one with a ton of elastic banding. Do they have elastic in the third age or is this another lost art of the Age of Legends. She is not very good looking.
4. Assuming that this is the scene where Rand steals back the horn from Fain, (a) where is the sniffer? (b) why isn't the horn in a box? (c) where is the (big enormous) box? (d) why has Loial brought some pleasure reading for fighting off Trollocs (maybe its Dickens) (e) Why are the Trollocs humans with horns on their helmets? C'mon! (f) Why are Trollocs so short, well armed and well armored? (g) Isn't it the wrong time of night to have just gotten the horn back anyway?

John Hansen adds:

This can only be the scene where Rand steals back the horn. When he and Loial arrive back at their camp, Rand sends Hurin off the "outcrop" to look at the activity down below. The horn is in a large ornate gold chest that is strapped to the saddle of Loial's huge fetlocked horse. Selene reaches up and opens the chest pushing the lid up and letting it fall open. On her tip-toes she reaches into the chest and Rand quickly reaches over her shoulder and lifts the horn out of the chest. It is full night and the moonlight glimmers on the horn (which looks like it was drawn correctly). No Trollocs are anywhere near at this point. After a moment Rand returns the horn to the chest and after further discussion about the curved dagger, he puts it in as well and closes the chest. So, the scene (if accurate) should have a large horse and a gold chest in it.

1. Rand's now wearing Perrin's headband and has tied his jacket to his shoulder. Boy that must be uncomfortable! And must keep those orthopedic and reconstructive surgeons real busy. He is again really way too short.
2. Mat has picked up archery again along with a different face. Archery?
3. The peddlers seem to have stolen a tinker wagon.
4. Who's the ugly babe making dinner? Aviendha? Wrong hair. Who else would wear a dress? A blue dress? NO! SAY IT ISN'T MOIRAINE!? Cooking dinner for the Boys?! Sheesh. (It could be Isendre but she is way way way too ugly for that). Anyway, she looks like a monkey.
5. Who's that leather guy on the left of the wagon? Where did all that leather come from out there in the desert? And check out the toy Trolloc that someone has stuck in the rocks above Rand's right hand shoulder.

I looked at the cover of LoC in Locus. I think it sucks. It looks like a romance novel. Passion of the Aes Sedai, or Untamed Aiel or something.David Wren-Hardin

1. The flying being in the upper right remains
   1. a draghkar;
   2. a pterodactyl;
   3. Dracula
   4. Seanchan flying-thing.
   I would vote for 1, but, given the influence of Jurassic Park this past year, I would not reject 2 out of hand. [Note that whatever it was, it was not in the depicted scene - pam]
2. From this picture, we can conclude that Rand
   1. plays fullback for the New York Jets (the team that Flash Gordon quarterbacked);
   2. suffers from a mild case of acromegaly, brought on (like hair on the palms and premature blindness) by adolescent channeling ("Look, ma, no hands!") inspired by too many reruns of Weird Science;
   3. is the offspring of a marriage not of Tigraine and Janduin but of Richard Kiel and David Warner.
   4. Has yet another face, this time it is the face of Andre the Giant.
3. The emblem on the back of the black cloak is obviously
   1. a dragon having sex with the Daily Planet's world-globe;
   2. a chapter icon, illegally copied by the Aiel and used on a commercial product (a cheap black cloak);
   3. a mandala from The Dao of Jordan.
   4. some sort of Deadhead sigil.
   5. A Safeway symbol
4. The woman, one supposes, is one of the AS swearing an oath of fealty to Rand. However, she looks more like she is sniffing and calling him a wool-headed, hairy lummox of a man, thinking with the hair on his chest, than like she is swearing eternal obedience.
5. Looking at the cover, I felt the title should have been "The Green Ajah's Burning Desires" or something. The way those two are looking at each other I keep expecting to read about 'smoldering eyes' and 'throbbing loins' and whatnot.Julie Kangas It's not that. It's that Rand is posed like Elvis. Imagine a microphone is his right (clenched) hand, and you can just see him waggling his pelvis. His facial expression even looks like he just said "uh-huh". And Kiruna the Groupie is swooning over the King. Keith Casner
6. The back of the cover, however, is way cool, with all the dead guys and burned wagons. Kudos to Sweet for that one. Tor Should've put that one on front.

Tony : This whole cover art thing has been bothering me since I first laid eyes on the cover of TEotW. Darrell K. Sweet had always been my favorite cover artist! He's done covers for the Lord of the Rings (2 different editions, both which I liked), 2 editions of Thomas Covenant series (all 6), the second of which I thought were incredible; he's done all of Terry Brooks' stuff (I think-most of it anyway). My point is, what's with him? I can hardly tell it's by the same guy! Does anyone know anything about him, and why his work is degenerating so?

For more groovy D.K.Sweet cover art, check out some Piers Anthony books, L. E. Modesitt 's "Recluse" books, some Barbara Hambly books... the man is everywhere!