Special edition illustrations for Endymion

I started this post several days ago. By the time I publish it, the info won’t be brand-new.

On social media, I follow several publishing houses whose books are of interest to me. However, I am not the person to actively seek out book news and announcements. I mostly happen to stumble onto a post and be like, “Oh, wow, great news”. You know, scrolling on social media sometimes produces some interesting discoveries.

Today, that’s the case. I just saw a post by The Broken Binding from two days ago where they share the illustrations for a new edition of Dan Simmons ‘ Endymion. I got instantly hooked!

The artwork is part of the upcoming special edition of Endymion. It is comprised of several black and white digital pieces done, but with a distinctive amount of textures – just the way I like it. At first, I didn’t even pay attention to the page or the edition it mentions; I just fell in love headfirst with the illustrations.

Here are the two I liked the most:

The compositions strongly rely on using negative space and silhouettes, which brings some uncanny feelings to the whole set. The Hyperion Cantos is a well-known masterpiece of speculative fiction, celebrated for blending space opera, philosophical fantasy, and “temporal horror”. The complex structure of the books is visually represented in each of the artworks.

You may know the name of the artist – Raymond Swanland. He has worked on Marvel’s cinematic universe, Star Wars and Magic: The Gathering (that’s where I personally know him from; Ugin and Ajani are some of my favourite characters in the game). I’ve always been obsessed with his “spiky” signature style and that moody, high-contrast lighting that makes his art pieces so epic and gritty. He has this incredible gift for making even a still image feel like you’ve caught a split-second of a massive, world-ending battle.

The truth is that I still haven’t read the Hyperion Cantos cycle (it’s on my TBR list, I swear). But I am sure everyone can feel the epicness of the source materials in each illustration.

What pulled me to these artworks is the fact that they are in black and white and encapsulate some nice echo of traditional printmaking (for which I mostly “blame” the textures).

Sometimes I just sit and think how happy I am that more and more publishers spend time and money on real man-made illustrations and beautiful book editions. It will feel amazing to have a copy of that book.

Previous editions

Although I haven’t read the books, I am familiar with the artworks for the Hyperion Cantos.