UK Under Heaven cover

Canadian fantasy author Guy Gavriel Kay has revealed the new US/Canada and UK draft covers of his new book, Under Heaven, which is due to be published in April 2010.

The book will take place in a world inspired by the Chinese T’ang Dynasty of the 8th century, focusing on Shen Tai, the son of a general who led the forces of imperial Kitai in a war twenty years before, in which forty thousand men were slain alongside a mountain lake. More details are available from a Penguin press release.

“This is a next-to-final version, minor tweaks will be done before release in April,” wrote Kay on his Bright Weavings site. “… it [has also] been confirmed that the Under Heaven cover will be the front cover for Penguin Canada’s catalogue this spring. Really nice news, to my mind as much a tribute to the look and design as to anything else. (They did this for Ysabel, too, actually.)”

Kay has published eleven fantasy novels, commencing with his applauded trilogy The Fionavar Tapestry. He has won a number of major awards and been nominated for many more. All of his works have a link to the world of Fionavar, the first of all the worlds, of which the rest are merely echoes.

US/Canada Under Heaven cover