SciFiGuy.ca posted the cover of Jim Butcher’s Changes, the next (12th) volume in the Dresden Files series.
Changes is a pretty dumpy name, especially considering Buthcher’s novels usually have pretty nice titles (The Summer Knight, Grave Peril, Small Favor, etc…), but I certainly can’t complain about another great cover from Chris McGrath. Certainly a huge step up from the original covers for the series.
From the official blog:
The jurors were impressed with the standard of submissions, and of the many very different conceptions of the award, and were thrilled by how many of the submissions made their shortlist.
In making their decision our expert jury took a wide range of factors into account. Many very attractive pieces of art were rejected because they were too complex to be effective when added to a book or DVD cover. In other cases excellent images were let down by weak typography. The winner, designed by Jeremy Kratz of Arkansas, combined both the necessary simplicity to fulfill our requirements with a good choice of text and pleasing combination of the various elements of the design.
We would like to thank all of the people who entered the contest, and congratulate Jeremy on his win.
It’s a nice design – clean and classic – but I’m a little worried about scalability. With the Rocket being so tall, the lettering could get very hard to read once it’s scaled do small enough to fit on the cover of a book.
In case you’re interested, here’s my submission to the contest:
What do you think of the new Hugo logo?
Add me to the endless list of blogs posting the results of the 2009 Hugo Awards:
Best Novel – The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman (HarperCollins; Bloomsbury UK)
Best Novella – “The Erdmann Nexus” by Nancy Kress (Asimov’s Oct/Nov 2008)
Best Novelette – “Shoggoths in Bloom” by Elizabeth Bear (Asimov’s Mar 2008)
Best Short Story – “Exhalation” by Ted Chiang (Eclipse Two)
Best Related Book – Your Hate Mail Will Be Graded: A Decade of Whatever, 1998-2008 by John Scalzi (Subterranean Press)
Best Graphic Story (212 Ballots Cast) – Girl Genius, Volume 8: Agatha Heterodyne and the Chapel of Bones Written by Kaja & Phil Foglio, art by Phil Foglio, colors by Cheyenne Wright (Airship Entertainment)
Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form – WALL-E Andrew Stanton & Pete Docter, story; Andrew Stanton & Jim Reardon, screenplay; Andrew Stanton, director (Pixar/Walt Disney)
Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form – Doctor Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog Joss Whedon, & Zack Whedon, & Jed Whedon, & Maurissa Tancharoen, writers; Joss Whedon, director (Mutant Enemy)
Best Editor, Short Form – Ellen Datlow
Best Editor, Long Form – David G. Hartwell
Best Professional Artist – Donato Giancola
Best Semiprozine – Weird Tales edited by Ann VanderMeer & Stephen H. Segal
Best Fan Writer – Cheryl Morgan
Best Fanzine – Electric Velocipede edited by John Klima
Best Fan Artist – Frank Wu
The John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer (Not a Hugo) – David Anthony Durham
Glad to see Gaiman, Scalzi and Durham all pick up awards! Other than that, I’ve not got terribly strong opinions about the evening. What do you think about the winners?
Not too long ago, Guy Gavriel Kay finally announced his next project, Under Heaven. Not the most prolific author, but certainly one of the best working in the field, the announcement of a new Kay novel is something that gets me a little giddy.
An official synopsis for the book has hit the Internet:
In the novel, Shen Tai is the son of a general who led the forces of imperial Kitai in the empire’s last great war against its western enemies, twenty years before. Forty thousand men, on both sides, were slain by a remote mountain lake. General Shen Gao himself has died recently, having spoken to his son in later years about his sadness in the matter of this terrible battle.
To honour his father’s memory, Tai spends two years in official mourning alone at the battle site by the blue waters of Kuala Nor. Each day he digs graves in hard ground to bury the bones of the dead. At night he can hear the ghosts moan and stir, terrifying voices of anger and lament. Sometimes he realizes that a given voice has ceased its crying, and he knows that is one he has laid to rest.
The dead by the lake are equally Kitan and their Taguran foes; there is no way to tell the bones apart, and he buries them all with honour.
It is during a routine supply visit led by a Taguran officer who has reluctantly come to befriend him that Tai learns that others, much more powerful, have taken note of his vigil. The White Jade Princess Cheng-wan, 17th daughter of the Emperor of Kitai, presents him with two hundred and fifty Sardian horses. They are being given in royal recognition of his courage and piety, and the honour he has done the dead.
You gave a man one of the famed Sardian horses to reward him greatly. You gave him four or five to exalt him above his fellows, propel him towards rank, and earn him jealousy, possibly mortal jealousy. Two hundred and fifty is an unthinkable gift, a gift to overwhelm an emperor.
Tai is in deep waters. He needs to get himself back to court and his own emperor, alive. Riding the first of the Sardian horses, and bringing news of the rest, he starts east towards the glittering, dangerous capital of Kitai, and the Ta-Ming Palace – and gathers his wits for a return from solitude by a mountain lake to his own forever-altered life.
Ahhh, can’t wait! Like I said in my previous post on Under Heaven: Guy Gavriel Kay plus Asian history and mythology just has me chompin’ at the bit. It can’t come too soon!
Author – Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Hardcover
Pages: 544 pages
Publisher: Doubleday
Release Date: June 16th, 2009
ISBN-10: 0385528701
Certainly the best novel I’ve read this year, The Shadow of the Wind may very well be my favourite novel I’ve ever read. Zafon’s haunting tale of love, lust, revenge and friendship has everything I could want from a novel and more. It’s not often that a novel can actually live up to the hype surrounding it; it’s even less often when a novel can surpass that hype, but that is exactly what The Shadow of the Wind accomplished. I eagerly await the English translation of El Juego del Angel.
So ended my review of The Shadow of the Wind by Spanish author Carlos Ruiz Zafon. Strong words, but sounding no less true from where I sit now, months removed from writing them. In fact, my opinion of the novel has only grown, as I look back on it and reminisce – there’s no quibbling about it anymore, The Shadow of the Wind is my favourite novel, by a fair margin.
So where does that put me now, having finished that novel I was so eagerly referring to in the first review? I’ve read The Angel’s Game (the English title of El Juego del Angel), and have had to sit for weeks, letting my thoughts coalesce into something that I can define coherently enough to call it a review.
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