Disclaimer: The cover I am referring to can be found at this link, about a quarter the way down. The following is strictly my own interpretation and not intended to be binding.

http://www.tikit.net/2014%20Large/RBM/StephenBradbury.html

I have to say that I love the original UK covers of the Exiles saga by Stephen Bradbury, he has a beautiful way of painting mountains. Stephen, of course, also did the Galactic Milieu covers as well as the Perseus Spur ones (the colours are delightfully bright).

Anyway, the first time I read ‘The Adversary’ it had what I later recognised as a dodgy, cut-and-pasted clip of the original cover by Stephen. Grr, argh. I suppose this was a mixed blessing because if I had picked up the book with the original cover I would have thought, ‘hello, this is a Marc and Elizabeth book, maybe with romance, ouch!’. I mean, look at Bryan and Amerie, dead at the hand of loved ones. Marc, the infamous Angel of the Abyss,  would have had his own List of Enemies and Elizabeth would have been on it (underneath Aiken and Felice). By the start of ‘The Adversary’, most of Group Green were dead or off the stage – there was no guarantee that the last two would survive. That was the thing about the Exiles books – there was that sense no one was safe and danger was always around the corner. Multiple sources of danger, sometimes.