One of the things I looked forward to back in the beginning of my publishing career was the opportunity to see cover art for my books and, once in a while, be involved in their creation. I confess, I have often bought books based on their covers. I am a visual person. A great cover, justifiably or not, has always biased me toward a book. If it “deserves” that fine a work of art, it must, I thought, be a worthy book.
Naturally that did not always turn out to be the case, and over time I evolved better metrics for choosing what I paid for. But a good cover can be a joy in itself. (Same, obviously, can be said of album sleeves.)
The first novel published with my name on it was a franchise, Mirage, part of the Asimov’s Robot City universe, and I had zero input. Still, I was okay with the results. When the same publisher then put out my own, original novel, Realtime (not my title, but that’s another story), I was less thrilled about what went on the cover, but again, I had no say.
When it came to the Secantis Sequence, things changed. At the 2000 worldcon in Chicago, the art director for the publisher asked me flat out what I wanted on the cover. Time was short, they needed to first find an artist, and second develop a concept. I offered to draw something. I ordered a scotch, went to my hotel room, and more or less sketched the scene that appeared on the Meisha Merlin edition of Compass Reach.
But before all that, there was another publisher who almost did the book. White Wolf had acquired the three books in the series. I was excited, it was finally going to happen! There was a catalogue with the book listed. And, I found out, there was a cover. White Wolf had contracted Greg Spalenka to do it and it was some time, well after the entire thing collapsed, before I saw what he had done.
I love it. This would have been so cool. All I ended up with finally was a xerox, which I have since enhanced ed a bit to bring out the impact. Spalenka is one of the field’s best illustrators.
But this is a might-have-been that I wistfully fantasize about. White Wolf went through some major restructuring and I was cut from their catalogue and the books reverted to me.
What ended up on the Meisha Merlin edition, then, as painted by Ed Cox, was largely my concept. I like it a lot. The execution, I thought, was excellent.
Now, after more than two decades, Compass Reach is being re-issued by Histria Publishing. In this instance, I had considerable input. Artist John Kaufmann did the covers for all three of the new editions and we spoke quite a bit during the process.
I am a fan of the photorealistic school of visual art, so the gods of my particular pantheon are those artists who achieve that in their work. Top of my favorites list are Michael Whelan, Jim Burns, Chris Moore, Donato Giancola, Boris Vallejo and the like. John’s work is consistent with that ideal and I was very happy about having him do the covers.
I also have a fondness for the older style SF covers. Abstract work is fine and I enjoy things like Paul Lehr and Richard Powers and Rick Berry, but I kind of default to the Seventies and Eighties with a nod toward the great magazine cover artists of the Forties and Fifties. It might seem a bit “dated” but I like the feel of this kind of work. So the new cover…
I’ve been noodling at some personal art based on the Secant. I’ll be posting it from time to time. Nothing as good as what I’ve been gifted so far. It’s a rich universe, if you don’t mind me saying so, and I approached it with a very visual idea throughout.
The release date is soon to be upon us. June 3rd. I’m jazzed about this. Partly, it has been a surprise, this coming to be. But so far, it has been a pleasant experience, which one can’t always say about publishing. Be that as it may, I’m looking forward to new readers. All three of the previously published novels are set to be re-issued. Fingers crossed, there may be more stories from the Secant in the future.
I hope you like the new covers as much as I do.