I’ve been working on a new print edition of The Rapture Effect—the first print release since the original Tor publication. Following The Infinity Link, The Rapture Effect was my second long novel, about an interstellar war being waged by an AI, which now wants to find a way to stop it. The new print version is nearly ready, along with a reformatted ebook edition. Even better, principal recording has wrapped on a new audiobook—narrated by Stefan Rudnicki. This should really rev your engines. The old audiobook currently in the Audible store is not at all what it should have been, and it will soon be going away. The new version will get wide distribution.
To celebrate all this, I hereby present a brand-new cover*, with wonderful graphics magic by Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff. She found a way to weave a whole new fabric from a collection of images I sent her way. I hope you like it. Yes, this is a cover reveal!
All this should be breaking free in the next few weeks. Check back for updates.
*BTW, I love the old cover, with art by David Mattingly. But it’s had a good, long run, and its sales mojo has sort of run out of steam. It will be retired with honors.
The Infinity Link was my first BIG book, and by big, I mean big in size, as well as ambition and scope. It was my first hardcover, in a handsome edition from Bluejay Books in 1984, and reprinted in mass market paperback by Tor a year later. Both editions featured a gorgeous wraparound cover painting by David Mattingly, and that same cover, thanks to the generosity of the artist, has been gracing my Starstream Publications ebook edition since 2015. I still love it—I have a huge, framed poster of the Tor paperback rendering. The novel itself is one that I’m still very proud to have written. Here’s the cover blurb:
Mysterious travelers…impossible love…
The year is 2034, and at the Sandaran Research Center, a young woman named Mozy participates in a cyberlink experiment via tachyon beam. So intimate is the connection that she falls hopelessly in love with her distant partner, David Kadin, a man she has met only through the link. Upon learning that the project is to be terminated—and wanting desperately to fulfill her dreams—Mozy makes a daring decision.
Her choice catapults her into a flight of astounding discovery—one that puts her squarely in the path of a potential war, communication with the whales of Earth, and secret first contact with visitors from the stars. Are the aliens enemies or friends? No one knows, and now it may fall to this young woman alone to discover the truth. Caught in a telepathic link with the Talenki voyagers, Mozy’s personal odyssey becomes entwined with the fate of all of Humanity.
Combining visionary speculation with passionate human characters, The Infinity Link is an epic work of transcendent science fiction and an exploration into the very nature of humanity. From the Nebula-nominated author of Eternity’s End and recipient of the Frank Herbert Lifetime Achievement Award for science fiction writing.
Times change, and the original cover now seems of a different era. So as I prepared the book for its first new print edition in many years, I decided it was time for a new cover. My designer (Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff) and I worked long and hard on it, to get the look that I wanted. And here it is!
That’s the look of the ebook edition, as well as the trade paperback newly available on Amazon, and soon to be available everywhere. The images are by Kran Kanthawong and Branislav Ostojic via Dreamstime; Maya combined and merged and tweaked and created the type layout. The print version gave us fits, because it turned out to be really hard to get the vibrancy of that blue rendered in the Amazon KDP print-on-demand process. We never fully succeeded. The print edition looks good, I think, but it doesn’t jump off the paper in quite the same way the ebook jumps out of the glowing screen.
For those who are fond of the older version, copies of the original, first-edition hardcover are still available—autographed—through my Etsy shop. (A great gift idea for the upcoming holidays?)
I’m pleased to let the world know that Eternity’s End is back in print—and by print, I mean treebook, paper! For this new edition, I have arranged for the use of the cover painting created by Stephen Youll for the original Tor hardcover and paperback. This time, it’s paired with great type design by Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff. It’s a big book, too—very hefty. I’m extremely pleased with the way this came out.
Click image for a better look.
This cover design will very soon be applied to the ebook, as well.
I did the interior layout myself, using Vellum software, which I thought did a really snazzy job.
With this brand-new print edition of Neptune Crossing, the complete set of The Chaos Chronicles (to date) is available in matched format and design. The previous edition was in a 6×9 inch trim size, while for the rest of the series, I chose 5.5×8.5 inch trim. I chose the smaller size because it feels better to hold in the hand (according to my crack test team), is easier to slip into a bag or backpack, and (I felt) looks a little more professional.
Choosing a trim size is a trade-off, because the cost of printing is based on the number of pages, not on the size of the pages. So a smaller trim size means more pages, and therefore higher cost to print, and naturally, higher sticker price. But the difference was only a dollar or two per book, and I decided it was worth it.
But that’s not the only change. The interior is completely reset, using a font called Merriweather for the main text, which I first used with The Reefs of Time. I find it attractive and readable, and also fairly compact, which helps to minimize the page count in my long tales.
On top of that, my crack cover designer, Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff, redid the titles and byline with a beveled look suggestive of embossed designs, used by most publishers on books they really want to sell. And I’ll admit it! I really want the books to sell! (But you knew that, right?)
Anyway, I’m pleased, and I hope you are, too. I’ve been noodling over the question of how I might sell autographed complete sets online, which I would like to do. (Without the administrative headache of sales tax across different states, etc.) Anyone out there have a good idea?
I told you recently about a new print edition for Sunborn. Now I’ve got an audiobook you just have to have! This fourth volume of The Chaos Chronicles is billowing into the stores, with narration by the incomparable Stefan Rudnicki.
It’ll be in lots more stores soon, including Audible and Amazon. Also Overdrive, so you’ll be able to ask your public library to order it. (Not yet. But they can order the first three books.)
The next phase of my w/o/r/l/d/ c/o/n/q/u/e/s/t/ “Return to Print” campaign is complete! A new paperback edition of The Infinite Sea is now out, with the same knockout cover art by Chris Howard that appears on the ebook. It’s available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and any store (or library!) that cares to order it from Ingram. It’s quite a handsome edition, if I do say so myself. Like Strange Attractors before it, it’s in a companion trim format with The Reefs of Time / Crucible of Time.
The audiobook, with narration by Stefan Rudnicki, is also complete and hot in the distribution pipeline. Barring unforeseen difficulties, it should be showing up in online audiobook stores in the next week or two!
At last! Strange Attractors is now out in audiobook, narrated by the amazing Stefan Rudnicki! This has been a long time coming, and it’s a superb recording from the studios of Skyboat Media.
This took a different route to publication from my earlier audiobooks. I published it through Findaway Voices under the Starstream Publications / Book View Café imprint. It will be available through innumerable outlets, including iTunes, Audible, Overdrive, Hoopla, and many more. Right now it’s migrating through the distribution system. Here’s where it’s available, right this very minute, that I know of:
