The Original Conundrum

I was visiting the website of Matt Stawicki the other day when I noticed that he had posted the original artwork for the cover of Conundrum. Matt is the artist who created the excellent cover art for both Conundrum and Dark Thane.

As the author, I had very little input into the creation of the cover art for my novels. Early in the process of writing the novel, I was asked for a suggestion or two for possible cover art, along with descriptions of the main characters, and usually I wouldn't see the cover until the book was listed on Amazon.com. It's not like I always thought it would be before I published my first novel, with the author and the artist closely collaborating to achieve just the right look.

Even so, Matt did a wonderful job with both Conundrum and Dark Thane. I couldn't have been more pleased.

With Conundrum, there were two versions. The image below is the original version, and I think it is superior to the version that actually appears on the book, but the editors felt that it was just too silly for a Dragonlance novel. Alas. Thanks to Matt for allowing me to post it here.



Well, let this be a bit of Dragonlance Arcana. The cover for Thieves' Guild was also altered, but not because it was too silly - the original cover, as it appeared on Amazon, had the Tower of High Sorcery visible in Palanthas at a time when it obviously wasn't supposed to be there. A hasty correction was made. I might still have a copy of that cover lying around somewhere. If I can find it, I'll post it here.