Michael Whelan and Edward Miller are great. So's the artist who did Abercrombie's
The Blade Itself covers, which evoke an old pirate treasure map or ancient parchment kind of feel.
Though not a cover artist by profession, my favourite would have to be Janny Wurts, as she does her own covers, and as a result, the covers match the books perfectly (unless you are looking at some of the translated covers. There are a bunch of translated edition covers that are obviously inferior to Wurts' own, and some are downright horrible). She is an excellent artist. There are three different sets of covers for her big series,
The Wars of Light and Shadow. The old US covers are character oriented, the old UK covers are landscapes, and the new UK covers are very slick, with a landscape behind a portal showing another picture, all on a white background. This link shows the older US and UK covers, and the new UK covers, which apparently will be gracing the US editions to be released this spring and summer:
List of Books
However, she doesn't do other author's book covers.
Too bad more authors couldn't do this, or collaborate with a good cover artist prior to the release of their books. Given the importance that ad campaigns take with image, you'd think that publishers would be a little more careful and try something that would maximize sales. I have passed over a lot of books with crummy covers, at least until I came here and got some good intel on good reads.
The cover is important, plain and simple, especially to the uneducated reader.
