I'll blog at more length on my experience with Gates of Fire once I've finished it (although for now I can only hint darkly that my pleasure is not as unalloyed as I'd hoped...). For now I'll pause only to observe the similarity between the cover and the paperback of The Dog of the North.
It's an interesting illustration of how Macmillan are trying to pitch my book - that while it's fantasy, they are trying also to convey an 'epic historical' flavour too. For those readers who judge a book by its cover (which, let's face it, is just about all of us when we're browsing in a bookshop), the similarity between the Pressfield cover and mine tells us a lot about the 'contract' Macmillan are offering the potential reader of The Dog of the North.
Now, if only the sales figures were correspondingly similar...
3 comments:
Hi Tim
Didn't think about this until you've posted it - but I can definitely see the similarities! I wonder if that was intentional? If you achieve just a smidgen of Gates of Fire's sales figures then you'll be laughing all the way to the bank - so here's hoping...
(PS: I take it you're not enjoying the book much?)
Yes and no, Matt. In many ways it's highly accomplished, and it's not fair to judge it until the end. Other aspects strike me as clumsy.
When I've finished it I'll put up a post comparing it with Cecelia Holland's "Jerusalem", in many ways a very similar novel and strong in some of the areas where "Gates of Fire" is not.
"...for now I can only hint darkly that my pleasure is not as unalloyed as I'd hoped..."
Uh-oh. Foreshadowing.
Post a Comment