Usually fantasy art destroys the sense of wonder you get from a book. You imagine scenes in your head and when you see them portrayed you are always deluded by the result.

This is a rare exception. I’ve read the news from Most Popular fantasy blog, Martin is at work to make a sourcebook/encyclopedia on “A Song of Ice and Fire” and there will be 13 illustrations by Ted Nasmith to give life to some key locations in the books. One artist I’ve never heard about but obviously talented.

You can see eight of these masterpieces on the artist’s website, by clicking on one of the small images at the top, then clicking the image appearing for a full-size version.

This *does* justice to Martin’s work. It is as powerful as you can imagine, and actually adds to it. These illustrations wouldn’t be out of place inside the books themselves, they would complement them perfectly. As opposed to WoT’s sourcebook, where the illustrations would kill every attempt at keeping things cool in your mind. Awe-killers. Too often no art is much better to something mediocre.

Not in this case, those paintings would make some gorgeous covers for the books themselves. Why we never get cover art this good?