Stephen Euin Cobb and I have been doing panels together at conventions since probably 2003. He's the guy behind "The Future and You" podcast and I always look forward to going to dinner with him each year at ConCarolinas. He's a big old science geek, and, as you might expect, when he does write science fiction, he writes it hard. I've read his novel
Bones Burnt Black and feel like it's an underrated gem of the genre. There's a mechanic who's been thrown from the ship following an explosion of the fuel tank. She's in a suit leaking air, with her tether severed, and a head injury that's stripped out her memory of how she got stranded in the void. She has to figure out how to get back on to the ship, which is damaged and tumbling toward the sun. Oh, and there's a killer aboard the ship murdering the crew one by one. Even if they figure out who the killer is, it doesn't change the hard orbital equations that there's no way to avoid certain death once the crippled ship's new orbit takes them so close to the sun they're all going to be burnt to ash. To call this novel a page-turner is an understatement.
Last year, I started talking to Stephen about it and seriously considered reprinting the book under the Word Balloon Books imprint I use for my own titles. In the end, I decided I should keep focused on my own publishing efforts, but by then I'd already been daydreaming about how I'd redesign the cover. So, here it is! (click on the links below the covers to be taken to Amazon)
Bones Burnt BlackStephen has two more novels, and while I haven't read them, I learned enough about them that I went ahead and designed covers for them as well so that all three books would share as similar visual style.
Plague at Redhook
SkinbrainThese are the first covers I've ever designed for another author, but hopefully they won't be the last. My years of experience selling books directly at conventions has helped me learn what catches the eyes of potential readers when they see the book in print, but that also works as a tiny thumbnail on Amazon. So, if you're an artist looking for a cover designer, drop me a line!
Published on April 16, 2019 17:15