I was really intrigued when I saw you mention the Thieves World volumes, because I didn't know that they had assembled them all in a larger collection. I still have some of the original paperbacks, but several others were loaned out and never returned, lost in relocating, etc.; so, I have been hoping to find something like you've mentioned here. Many thanks for bringing it to my attention :)

I can warmly recommend that edition - it's standard library quality, but still better than the softcovers. Look if you can get them in "mint" condition, though, because,
since I didn't want to spend big money for books I hadn't read yet, I got the cheapest offers on amazon, and all the books but one really look tattered. I paid about 15$ for each,
for about the double you should get them.

But say, do you happen to know the revival novels that Lynn Abbey put out in the 2000s? I have heard NOTHING about them so far, which is surprising, given how high-profile that publication likely was.

By revival, do you mean a return to the Thieves World setting? If so, I seem to recall reading something about plans for it, but never really saw anything come of it. On one bibliography I saw only 4 novels listed as released after 2000 : Out of Time, Behind Time, Taking Time and Down Time. But, this bibliography seems much more complete:

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?Lynn_Abbey

I hope that helps :)

I googled a bit, it being late where I live and all, and I found that Abbey has authored one more novel, as well as edited two more anthologies for TW, them being "Sanctuary",
"Enemies of Fortune", and "Turning Points". (The titles you named are from her "Orion's Children" series, which I don't know. :) )

They sure sound interesting, though I am getting the feel we're up for a cliffhanger - nothing has happened to TW for seven years by now, so, it's likely dead.

Also, and that I found really annoying - the TW books by Green Ronin, which otherwise are very strong RPG books, and which are among the few RPG products that I thoroughly enjoyed,
they paint a rather bland picture of Abbey's setting, which is situated about sixty years after the novels. Most of the more interesting characters are dead or removed from the setting,
which has to do with the copyright issues that halted TW in the late 80s, as well as with a very obvious consideration that all too powerful NPCs would sort of elminster the player characters.

But the downer about this is that almost all of them get killed off, or have really bad lives after the end of the original novels. Which is sort of unnecessary, given the tone of the original books,
and because I think the setting would have worked very well without it. Also, the new surrgoate Hanse really sucks. :wink:

...Though, yeah, sooner or later, I am gonna read them, too. TW, one of the few true favorites I have in fantasy literature. :)

That's too bad that they phased those characters out. One of the things I always liked about the first run of the TW books was that the cover art summed up a lot of RPGers vision of thieves and assassins. I felt that many of the authors lost their way as the series got caught up in the 80s publishing scramble for the fantasy dollar, but always enjoyed the gritty and strange anti-heroes they gave us to start it all.

Walter Velez, wasn't it? One of my all-time favorite artists, among other things, because he can transmit different feelings through his paintings,
and doesn't just play safe with every illustration. Like, Keith Parkinson's pictures are ALWAYS epic, Larry Elmore's paintings are ALWAYS sexy,
and Wayne Reynolds' pictures are ALWAYS superdynamic.

Velez is one of the few guys in the business that manages to paint pictures with different basic concepts, and completely different emotions on each.

Like, if I ever did a kickstarter for Mordred, we could also simply call it "Let's collect money so I can afford Walter Velez to do a cover". :D

I'm not sure who the original artist was, to be honest. I agree with your assessment of those artists, though. What a lasting impression those guys made, eh? Here's one of the original TW covers I was talking about:

Yepp, that's Walter Velez. He has quite a good gallery online. Check it out! :)

FWIW, my favorite cover is the one for the second quarter anthology, "Cross-Currents". :)