Count to a Trillion cover art
Well, the Internet is an odd and sometimes wonderful thing. I just found the cover of my latest forthcoming book.
Here it is:
Count to a Trillion
The book description (which I did not write):
ISBN: 0-7653-2927-1 / 978-0-7653-2927-1 (USA edition)
Publisher: Tor BooksJohn C. Wright burst upon the SF scene a decade ago with the Golden Age trilogy, an innovative space opera. He went on to write fantasy novels, including the popular Orphans of Chaos trilogy. And now he returns to space opera in Count to a Trillion.
After the collapse of the world economy, a young boy grows up in what used to be Texas as a tough duellist for hire, the future equivalent of a hired gun. But even after the collapse, there is space travel, and he leaves Earth to have adventures in the really wide open spaces. But he is quickly catapulted into the more distant future, while humanity, and Artificial Intelligence, grows and changes and becomes a kind of superman.
Not exactly how I would describe it, but not really inaccurate either. I like the cover art: the artist took the time to read my description of the Night-to-Lightspeed sailing vessel Hermetic and follow the description.
I asked my editor to put a big breasted bimbo in a metal bra on the cover of the book specifically, but he shook his head sorrowfully, “Mr. Scalzi,” he told me sternly , “If you want to have a busty bimbo on the cover, you must write said busty bimbo into the text of the book!
“The main concern of the art department is technical accuracy following the author’s exact visual descriptions from his work: we have no interest in packaging the book handsomely, informing reader by visual images what kind of book it is, or alluring readers to buy it!”
This is the Version I Demanded!
I asked him if I could have a winged unicorn on the cover instead. He threw me out of the office, which is in the Flatiron Building in New York. But he did pause to tell me how much he enjoyed OLD MAN’S WAR and THE GHOST BRIGADES.
You might ask, how would you describe this book?
Good question! I would say it was a cross between Harry Potter and Twilight : a teen tale of love and anguish at a vampire academy called Hogblood.
You might ask: Hey! I bought this book, and there is nothing like that anywhere! There are no teen vampires or schoolgirl romances here! It’s just annoying space stuff! Why did you fib such a big fib at me?
Again, good question! But you did say you bought the book, right? BWAHAHAHA!
You might cry: Dare you deceive me, your entirely fictional customer! Fie! I will never buy one of your books again!
Once more, good question! The answer is that you are an entirely fictional customer who does not exist, and, by the logic of Descartes, therefore you cannot buy books. I know you are fiction because no one in real life says ‘Fie!’
You: Fie!
Moving on to the next topic, I must admit one the atoms in the large long-chain molecule composing the many reasons why I dislike politicians is that twice now their shenanigans have undercut my books.
In this case, I first picked the title to this book back when the word ‘trillion’ was relatively rare, used by astronomers and mathematicians, but not widely known. It took me several months to write the manuscript, but during those months there was an crash, and a depression, and an election, and some of the most outrageous example of the abuse of power over the economy since the day when the Praetorian Guard auctioned off the office of Emperor to the highest bidder. During those months, the National debt rose into multiples of this amount, this word only astronomers used: trillion.
So the title now seems a little dull.
The other time I was undercut was when I wrote what I thought was a racy, perhaps even scandalous, scene of a married couple striping for copulation in the Oval Office right on the Presidential desk. After it was written, but before it was published, the scene was already out of date: an unmarried couple had done as much, or worse, and did not do anything as natural as copulation. A particular small but loud minority agreed that all and sundry had all agreed that we all commit unnatural adultery with daughter-aged interns, and we all lie about it, and every president since George Washington had done the same and worse, and that it was ergo passe and trite to show remorse, or even interest, in such matters.
Thus, by the time that book hit the shelves, the scene was not only not racy, but quaint and dull.
The culture had deliberately made such a seismic shift to the dank side, that at least one hollow-eyed yet overweight science fiction fanboy with whom I spoke was suddenly yet totally unaware that, only a few months before, the culture and the attitude of the culture had been different.
I admit that said hollow-eyed yet overweight fanboy gave me the willies. It was as if his memory of world before two years ago had gone down the memory hole, and minitruthed out of reality. Oceania is at war with Eastasia. Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.
So you see, there are not only sober and objective reasons for disliking politicians which make profound and sound good sense, there are also silly and selfish reasons which don’t make sense even if you grade on a curve.
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
