Chaz'z US publisher, Ace Books, felt that the three volumes of the British edition were too bulky to be successful in the US mass-market paperback format, and decided instead to publish the series in six volumes of approximately equal length. Chaz has made the necessary changes himself, including - in the case of Hand of the King's Evil - substantial revision of the text, and is pleased with the result. The additional titles have been taken from chapter headings in the original text, passing up the chance to reinstate the title intended for the (never written) Book IV: Fold of the King's Eye.
This has, however, created some confusion in bookshops, particularly online bookshops, which may offer UK and US editions side by side; they do not always make it clear that the three additional titles do not contain new material, or that the three "Books of the King" titles may refer either to the longer UK edition, or to the subsequent US edition. It is safer not to rely on the bookshop's attribution of a volume number, which may be incorrect, but instead identify the different editions by publisher (Orbit in the UK, Ace in the US) and by cover design.
Rita Frangie's cover designs for the US edition retain John Howe's original illustration for Tower of the King's Daughter, now the second volume, and draw on his portfolio for The Devil in the Dust and A Dark Way to Glory.
Her designs for Feast of the King's Shadow and Hand of the King's Evil reframe the original illustrations by Barbara Lofthouse, but she returns to John Howe for the final volume, The End of All Roads.
Ace Books, now a Penguin Putnam imprint, was founded in 1953 as a publisher of science fiction. During almost half a century of operation it has published some of the best, and some of the best known, authors in the field - including Samuel R. Delany, Philip K. Dick, Ursula K. LeGuin, and Robert Silverberg. Many SF fans, however, will associate the company with its series of "Ace Doubles" - paperbacks containing two novels bound back-to-back: when you finished one, you turned the book upside-down and started again at the other end. Chaz remarks that he knew about Ace Doubles, but that his books are being published as Ace Halves!