Cover Art: My Real Children

This isn't really news because the cover art has been out in the world since September, but the more I see this cover, the more I like it.

I'm absolutely sold on reading the book anyway.  Jo Walton's previous novel, Among Others, was fantastic. 

But this cover from Jamie Stafford-Hill is gorgeous and gives some idea as to what might be going on.  Stafford-Hill is listed as the designer, here, which is a distinction that I might not normally think about, but this isn't a painted cover.  So, as far as I know, there isn't an "artist" in the same way that we get from other cover artists.  Normally I'm not a fan of more photorealistic covers, but this one is gorgeous.

As a side note, this makes me think about artists and the Hugo Awards.  It's easy to tell when Donato Giancola or Jon Picacio has done a cover that that individual is the artist and when we are nominating for Best Artist, we are nominating that individual for the body of work they did in a particular year. 

Designers, however, do more (and different) than the artist.  In an incredibly simplistic reduction, the artist paints a work.  The designer then does the layout of the rest of the cover, including title, author's name, other aspects that they need to put on the cover to make a final cover.  That's my understanding.  I could be wrong. 

So, what happens when there isn't a cover artist in the way we think of Michael Whelan?  The work that Stafford-Hill has done is no less beautiful or striking or worthy of note.  But, would Stafford-Hill qualify for the Best Artist Hugo Award?

I don't know.  I think so.

Regardless, beautiful cover, right?

on libraries

Libraries really are wonderful. They’re better than bookshops, even. I mean bookshops make a profit selling you books, but libraries just sit there lending you books quietly out of the goodness of their hearts.

-Jo Walton, Among Others, pg 59

Also,

Interlibrary loans are a wonder of the world and a glory of civilization.

Shelving Jo Walton

I check my library system’s website almost daily to see about updates on forthcoming books being entered into the system. I want to get that early reserve on the new (insert author’s name here) book. The 1/10 update has Jo Walton’s Ha’Penny listed as General Fiction rather than SFF.

Let’s see, I picked up Farthing in the SFF section of my bookstore, Walton has been published by TOR, she has won the Campbell for Best New Writer (2002), and Ha’Penny is a follow up to Farthing.

My guess is that because Ha’Penny is listed as being published by St. Martin’s Press, it automatically got shelved in General Fiction. But then it isn’t like Philip Roth’s The Plot Against America was shelved in SFF either. Or George Orwell, or Huxley, or...

more new books

With two $10 gift cards to Barnes and Nobles in hand I ventured out into to the store with wild shelves of untamed, unowned books and chose three likely novels.

Dust, by Elizabeth Bear
Farthing, by Jo Walton
Undertow, by Elizabeth Bear

This is my Elizabeth Bear excitement alarm going off. I was all set to get three Bear novels, the third being Carnival, when I decided that maaaaaybe I should support another author too. I've heard good things about Farthing so picked it up instead. Sorry, eBear.

I almost picked up a Heinlein, too, but didn't.

And, in conclusion, if anyone who reads this blog has not picked up anything by Elizabeth Bear...I can do no more to convince you (pssst! Go read Blood and Iron!)

Subterranean #4

Subterranean Magazine #4 is the Sci-Fi cliche issue and was guest edited by John Scalzi. All of the stories in this collection deal with pretty much every cliche the genre has, but puts a new and fresh feeling twist on them. Last Man on Earth? Check. Sentient Computers? Check. The End of Existence? Check. Some of them even cover multiple cliches. As a concept for a themed issue the cliche is a great idea.

But, how was the execution? Overall, the stories were solid and worth the time spend reading. Issue #4 features debut stories by Rachel Swirsky and David Klecha as well as entries from more established authors. While stories like "The Last Science Fiction Writer" and "The NOMAD Gambit" entertained, and "Tees and Sympathy" was clever, only once did I feel that sense of excitement about reading something extra special and that was Chris Roberson's "Last" (the last man on earth story). Roberson's take on the cliche, with the last man returning from a space mission to find everybody dead and dealing with the empty environment and a futile search for a survivor while touching on the clicheness of what is happening really worked and resonated. I think I’m a sucker for Last Man stories, though. What with Richard Matheson's I Am Legend and all. The one story which I struggled through was "Hesperia and Glory". I only read a page or two of that one before I had to skip ahead.

Also featured in the issue were two articles, one by John Joseph Adams and the other by Teresa Nielson Hayden, and some book reviews (including A Feast for Crows and Cell)



Scenes from a Dystopia, by Rachel Swirsky
The Third Brain, by Charles Coleman Finley and James Allison
A Finite Number Typewriters, by Stuart MacBride
Horrible Historians, by Gillian Polack
Hesperia and Glory, by Ann Leckie
What a Piece of Work, by Jo Walton
The Last Science Fiction Writer, by Alan M. Steele
Shoah Sry, by Tobias S. Buckell and Ilsa J. Bick
Labyrinth’s Heart, by Bruce Arthurs
The NOMAD Gambit, by Dean Cochrane
In Search of Ellen Siriosa, by Ron Hogan
Tees and Sympathy, by Nick Sagan
Last, by Chris Roberson
Refuge, by David Klecha
The Infinite Heat Death of the Universe, by Elizabeth Bear

Subterranean #4 is available free online, but it is fun to own a copy of the magazine for the bookshelf.

This was a solid issue and one which did not disappoint, but knowing the overall quality of what I get from Subterranean Online with some of their novellas I had hoped for something extra special in the print edition.