See gorgeous The Wheel of Time book concept art for A Memory of Light

The Wheel of Time is one of the biggest shows on Amazon Prime Video. But before that, it was already one of the biggest fantasy book series in the world. Written by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson, The Wheel of Time spans 14 door-stopping tomes and one prequel novel.

The series has produced a lot of gorgeous cover artwork over the years. In the United States, the iconic covers for the first edition printing of the series were done by artist Darrell K. Sweet. However, Sweet passed away before finishing the cover the final book in the series, A Memory of Light. You can actually see a rough version of the cover Sweet was developing for the novel over at the Dragonmount fansite.

After Sweet’s death, artist Michael Whelan was brought on board to provide the artwork for A Memory of Light. Whelan is a cover art legend. He created artwork for Anne McCaffrey’s Dragonriders of Pern books, Tad Williams’ Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn series, and The Stormlight Archive by Brandon Sanderson, just to name a few.

Whelan recently revealed some of his concept art for the Memory of Light on Twitter. Check it out:

The Wheel of Time concept art shows Rand’s journey into darkness

This image is one of Whelan’s preliminary artworks for A Memory of Light, but there are a lot of elements from it which made their way into the final cover. In it, we see Rand al’Thor descending into Shayol Ghul, the cavern which houses the Dark One’s prison. Rand is wearing his trademark red jacket, with the magical blade Callandor held aloft and his arm partially covering his face.

While Whelan has released concept imagery for this cover in the past, this is the first time we’ve seen this particular piece. Here’s the final book cover of A Memory of Light, for contrast:

When Robert Jordan’s widow and editor Harriet McDougal saw Whelan’s finished cover for A Memory of Light, she said, “That is the Rand I have waited to see for 20 years.” And it’s easy to imagine why: the details on this painting are incredible, giving us our closest and most realistic look at The Wheel of Time’s most iconic character at the culmination of his journey.

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