The Covers Are Here to Stay
On August 14, 2017, we were blessed with the title, release date and cover for A Reaper at the Gates by Sabaa Tahir. I held a LIVE show on Instagram and promptly screamed my head off when I saw the new covers. I think it’s safe to say we were all a little shocked when we got them. I remember screaming! Mostly because I had said in a post prior to the release “NO COVER CHANGES!” But that’s because I’ve been collecting all of the editions of AEITA and ATATN and they cost moneeeeeey. I DIGRESS.
Anyways, the post followed with a Q&A with Sabaa Tahir and she talked about what inspired the cover change, and the importance of representation! I wasn’t sure what I wanted to talk about on my blog post for the Reaper at the Gates Campaign but after a lengthy conversation over the mid series change, I thought it was important to highlight the reasoning over the cover change. No one likes mid series cover changes, I understand. But sometimes we have to put our preferences on hold. Matching series are the best, but you know what else is awesome? Seeing yourself represented on the cover of a NYT Bestselling fantasy.
Below is taken from the Mashable article by MJ Franklin:
https://mashable.com/2017/08/14/a-reaper-at-the-gates/#8vbrPTYKNiqi
What inspired the cover designs?
We had been talking about re-jacketing the covers to match how the story has developed and I will be blunt, I really wanted a to see a brown girl on these covers. And I wanted her in a position of power. How often have I seen book covers with a hero dead center? All the time. But how often is that hero a POC? Not often enough. I wanted this beautiful brown girl to be in that classic hero’s pose — center stage, looking right at you, like a badass. And I wanted a brown man beside her, because that’s how I imagined the characters in my head.
So that’s where we started. I’ve always seen Laia as South Asian and Elias as a Middle Eastern/South Asian Mix. The cover artist sought out models who would fit those descriptions. As for the aesthetic, it makes me think of my favorite game — Assassin’s Creed. I play AC religiously and I’ve always loved the game’s covers: that stark white background with a hero gazing out at you.
Last, I hoped we could depict the drama and violence and romance of the book through poses, weaponry, colors and the title font. So really, the books themselves were the inspiration. The cover artist, Shane Rebenschied, and the cover designer, Kristin Smith-Boyle, just knocked it out of the park. These covers are everything I could have hoped for — everything I wanted to see as a kid in my fantasy book covers — but never did.
You’ve mentioned that as a South Asian-American author, it was important to feature brown girls on the cover of your books. Do you think there is a new dimension to that importance in 2017?
Absolutely. My books are inspired by news stories from around the world: extrajudicial jailings, child soldiers, sectarian warfare and, most recently, the refugee crisis. My characters deal with similar issues. In telling their fictional story, my hope is that readers will look at the real-world victims of such horrors with compassion. The same goes for the cover. I hope that in seeing POC faces on the cover, readers might see the humanity in all those people at home or in faraway places who are suffering the terrors of war or violence or oppression, instead of just seeing a mass of faces that blend together. And with both the story and the cover, I hope that those of us who feel invisible, who feel like the stories of our families or our people or our struggles don’t matter — I hope those readers feel seen and represented.
So you can see how important this cover change is. We get many covers with the hero front and center, and 9 times out of 10 they are NOT a person of color. “These covers are everything I could have hoped for — everything I wanted to see as a kid in my fantasy book covers — but never did.” Sabaa may not have been able to see herself in those fantasy book covers but she’s making sure those that come after her get the experience she desperately hoped for.
I think these covers are beautiful. I think the importance of them and Sabaa’s cause is so worthy. We needed this. POC needed this win, and I am so here for it. I think if more people understood the reasoning behind the change the more people will be on board with it, because the angry comments I’ve seen on Penguin’s, even Sabaa’s posts are truly disheartening. I am so sorry to those who genuinely suffer from OCD and anxiety over mismatched covers. A lot is to be said about giving us the representation we deserve in the first place, but that’s a conversation for another day.
NOW.
You may be wondering “What the heck do I do with my old covers now that I’ve got the new ones?!” Well, do I have a list for you!
What To Do With Your Old Copies of An Ember in the Ashes and A Torch Against the Night:
-Use them to create a permanent Elias shrine! Stack them up and set one of the many beautiful Elias fanarts on top. Surround the shrine with Elias inspired candles such as Always Victorious from www.themeltinglibrarystore.com, or even The Soul Catcher from AlchemyandInk.com !
- Make an AEITA/ATATN book Christmas tree! Keep it up all year round!
And my personal favorite, suggested by http://pens-and-parchment.tumblr.com/
- Rip out the pages and perform a sacrifice to our Queen Sabaa Tahir. Cause you know our faves ARE NOT SAFE, and all bets are off. If we make enough sacrifices maybe she’ll go easy on us. Probably not. Very likely not. Cause Sabaa is mean. But I still love her. Mean, but lovable.
If you’ve made it this far, thank you for stopping on by! If you’re participating in the #EmberReread how’s it going? Have you noticed anything that you didn’t catch the first time? Any scenes in particular stand out that raised more questions? Or did you find an clues in AEITA that hint towards events in ATATN? SPOILER!!!! I realized that when Laia is running from the Mask in the beginning chapters, she disappears for a moment. Later we learn in A Torch Against the Night that Laia has the power to turn invisible! That’s just one of the many, tiny clues Sabaa added in book one that pops up in the sequels.
also, last but not least
YALL ARE NOT READY FOR A REAPER AT THE GATES! IT KILLED ME. I AM BROKEN. I WILL NEVER BE OKAY.
catch my mini crying review on Goodreads at: www.goodreads.com/bth3