The Saint's Rise (Ignifer Cycle Book 1)
Page 51
In 2009 I commissioned art for each of the six children in the book, from artist Bryan Fowler, and he delivered. Back then the book was stuck in a quagmire of drafts and alterations, and I didn't know quite how to fix it. The manuscript was nearly 200,000 words long, and loath to cut anything I tried instead splitting it into three separate books. But that left me lost as to what the real story was anymore. There was something wrong with the work but I didn't know what, though I still believed in it.
Having these art works produced really helped me keep the faith. The characters were interesting and I wanted to do right by them. In the end I recombined all three separate works, cut some 80,000 excess words away, and came up with the book that went on to become the book in your hands. I'm proud to showcase these images which helped me crack on and move the story toward completion.
SEN
This is Sen in the Abbey graveyard, holding on to the Book of Saint Ignifer. In this art he looks a bit soft, and at the time I had the art done, that matched how he was in the book. He started off soft and had to get tougher fast when the children arrived. In later versions I decided to start with him tougher, as tough characters are more interesting. So Sen as we meet him now is much more focused, and has his plan for how he's going to deal with his scars.
Still, there's quite a lot of this star-gazing boy in the current Sen, thinking about his mother and the past and his heroes in the stars.
MARE
This is Mare in the filth of Indura. You can dimly make out twisted tree houses in the background. She's standing in a puddle of filth. Mare didn't change at all since this art, she was street-smart and a survivor then and she still is now.
Dead pigs. Yeah.
GELLICK
This is Gellick in the Calk, framed by a dolmen/lintel pair, drawing his Hax memory patterns into the constant white-lime dust. He has jewel-green eyes and is massive. I love this image, really shows how much power the Balasts have. Gellick is often a bit of a joker, but looking at this image you can see why the King would want to confine his people to the Calk.
FEYON
This is Feyon in the dollroom, holding the doll of herself- notice that it's wearing the same clothes as her. The expression on her face is perfect, kind of haughty, unimpressed, almost a sneer. Love it.
ALAM
Here's Alam in what really ought to be his father's gear manufactory, but at the time this art was made, Alam was actually a cooper, so his father had a cooper's yard full of wood and barrels. He didn't play quite the role he does in the current version at the end, where the knowledge of cogs is so necessary. He did something else more connected to wood, but I changed that because cogs worked better with infiltrating the Aigle palace.
Accordingly he should have a ratchet, not a knife. That's fine. I love his loooong arms and body. Weird.
Furthermore, his name originally was Alan. I since changed it to Alam.
DAVERON
And here's Daveron, looking positively feral in a room in his father's usury yard, taking slices out a lopped-off arm. We can assume from the fact that this arm has already been detached that this is not actual usury butchery, only training. He's wearing the red though, hmm. I suppose even licensed butchers have to keep themselves up to date on the latest techniques.
PREVIOUS COVERS
As promised, here are the old covers for the book that would become The Saint's Rise, and its sequel, then titled Ignifer's War. My plan is to re-release the sequel in the future, after I can dig in and rewrite it in the same way I've done with Book 1.
I loved these covers at the time, but have since come to think they do not really signal the genre. The illustrated style and close-up of Sen's face are probably off-putting to readers of epic fantasy.
Copyright © 2017 by Michael John Grist
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication my be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the author.
Cover art by Clarissa Yeo.
Old cover art by Alex McArdell.
Character art by Bryan Fowler.
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