RMS Cover Inks: No Way Is This Canonical

In this strip the narrator declares that perhaps the book "had a really shiny cover, and you bought it, and after reading it you looked back at the cover and thought hey... that wasn't even in there." Ever since writing that bit of narrative I've known that the cover for Resident Mad Scientist would be special. I couldn't just settle for something that was "in between panels," like an extra-rendered action shot. I needed something that simply could not have appeared in the book. Something to pay homage to some of the great (?) covers of the silver age comics, where the cover was nothing more than bait, or to the covers of pulp fiction in which similarly eye-catching art has nothing to do with the story. So here are the inks. At no point in the RMS storyline do Captain Tagon and General Tagon meet. And that Ninja? He's only in the bonus story. By the time Pranger meets no-glasses Kevyn, Kevyn-with-glasses was a head-in-a-jar. Gav and Pranger never met (though I suppose there are enough Gavs around that one could have wandered in.)

And for all that non-canonical stuff, it's very true to the spirit of the book. I'm excited to be sending Resident Mad Scientist to print soon, and I'm confident you'll love it. Travis Walton lovingly re-colored everything. Dan Willis and I co-wrote the Bonus Story, "Mad Scientist's Residence," which Brandon Sanderson and Daniel Wells then helped fine-tune. It's one of the best things I've ever done. I can't wait for you to read it.

But I'll have to. No, pre-orders aren't open yet. Hopefully we'll be able to open them in late April or early May.