A Dribble of Ink

Jemisin creates a very cool world and a very well-described landscape and characters, and it feels both epic and character-driven all at once. Since it’s the first of a trilogy, there’s even more pressure to get the look right because you have to carry it over 2 more books. We agonized a bit over the right illustrator, and decided on the dark and textural work of Cliff Nielsen. He did a fabulous job of depicting the city of Skye, and got a great rich dark tone set for the cover. We drove him a little crazy I think, poor guy, with color adjustments and revisions…and I hope he forgives us because I can’t wait to see what he does for the next two books.

Once I got the art back from Cliff, I must have gone through a hundred different fonts and layouts for the cover — there’s a lot of text that needs to be there, but of course, you don’t want it to look like there’s a lot of text on the cover, you want the art to be the star. But after a little hair-pulling and head-bonking-on-desk on my part, I think we nailed it.

“Yeine Darr is heir to the throne of the Hundred Thousand Kingdoms. She is also an outcast. Until, that is, her mother dies under mysterious circumstances.

Summoned by her grandfather to the majestic city of Sky, Yeine finds herself thrust into a vicious power struggle for the throne. As she fights for her life, she comes ever closer to discovering the truth about her mother’s death and her family’s bloody history – as well as the unsettling truths within herself.

With the fate of the world hanging in the balance, Yeine will learn how perilous it can be when love and hate are bound inseparably together, for both mortals and gods alike.”

Though maybe not the most original plot out there, the setting seems interesting and I’m always up for a good bout of political intrigue. Certainly looks like a novel I’ll be keeping an eye on.