DUNE BLOG

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Jessica of Dune Cover Painting

Another truly inspired job by Stephen Youll. Steve has done the paintings for all eleven of our Dune novels now, and he also did the first five covers for "Seven Suns" as well as my three STAR WARS anthologies, and my standalone novel BLINDFOLD.

JESSICA OF DUNE is the direct sequel to DUNE MESSIAH, beginning immediately after Paul-Muad'Dib walks off into the desert, blind and ready to die. In one scene in the new novel, Jessica goes out to Sietch Tabr so that she can see where he has gone. Steve and I had talked about using that as a cover image, Jessica staring off into the expanse of Dunes, perhaps seeing a line of footprints vanishing into the distance. I sent Steve the draft chapter, but when he read it he was much more interested in an earlier scene where Jessica and Alia walk through a crowded Arrakeen bazaar. After he showed Brian and me his sketches, we agreed that this was a far more interesting cover image. We hope you enjoy this sneak preview -- you can see the painting under My Photos here.

JESSICA OF DUNE will be released on August 3.

-- KJA