Cover Design, Part 2

Dragonchaser was my first fantasy novel, and it was clear that a different style of cover would be needed from that employed for The Zael Inheritance.  For fantasy, the emphasis is on low-tech, so the kind of glossy image I had used before was clearly inappropriate.  Nonetheless, I wanted to avoid the traditional kind of fantasy cover, partly because square-jawed heroes and winsome damsels aren't really my thing; but also because the chances of finding a high-resolution, copyright-free image of human figures were not high.  Subsequently I've discovered a number of professional fantasy artists who do work in a way that I admire, although even then I suspect that their services would be out of my reach.  Check out Andreas Rocha, for example:

For Dragonchaser, then, I was led towards images from antiquity.  I'd long had an interest in historic maps, and particularly the pioneering 16th century work of Braun and Hogenberg.  Fortunately much of this is available in hi-res, and soon I found this image of Marseille, which topographically was all but identical to Paladria, the city at the heart of the novel (as shown in my original map).

Again some cropping was necessary, the image being both the wrong shape and adorned with the legend 'MARSEILLE',  which was not entirely helpful.

As well as cropping the image, I flipped it over to correspond more closely to the map in my head, and ended up with this:

This is close but clearly not satisfactory.  The text is far too indistinct.  A change of colour is called for, so I darken the text and lighten the background:

And that's what I would have gone with, but my daughter was adamant that the colours were muddy and indistinct, a view that wider canvassing confirmed.  You have to know when to listen to advice, and so a final version with altered colour values sprang forth:

 Voila!

And here are the ones that didn't make it:

None of these need be regretted, although they do all reflect elements of the novel.  The real problem is that they're all photographs, and they simply don't work as covers for fantasy novels.  The photo-cover smacks--with no disrespect to the authors--of self-help "How God Changed My Life" books; a respectable and popular genre, but not one a fantasy novelist is pitching at.

Next - the self-published edition of The Dog of the North, including another bout with the curse of photo-realism.

Kindle Debut

First it was self-published.  Then it came out in German.  Now Dragonchaser is available on the Kindle.  At £1.71 (the US version retails for $2.71), what do you have to lose?

This is my first foray into the ebook market and it will be interesting to see how it goes.

'Serendip' is coming!

Publication of Editions Andreas Irle's Serendip, the German edition of Dragonchaser is nearly upon us.  The proprietor of Editions Andreas Irle--Andreas Irle, as coincidence would have it--has created a page on the EAI website, showcasing some excerpts and a downloadable first chapter.  Those of you of the German persuasion should proceed there immediately, without pausing to mention the World Cup.  The book is now available for pre-order from Amazon.de.

Serendip is the first book of mine to be translated, and it's a strange experience to have book with my name on it, which I can't read.  How do I know the quality of the translation if I don't speak German?  There is no cast-iron assurance: it may be my story, but they're no longer my words.  In this case, I can be confident.  Andreas is a friend of many years's standing from the Vance Integral Edition, but more importantly, he is a well-respected translator of many of Vance's works.  Since I acknowledge my debt to Vance on my own work, it's reassuring to know that my translator has a similar understanding and enthusiasm.

Even if the worst has happened, and Andreas has chosen for his own purposes to interpolate observations along the lines of "Die einzige Sache, die schlechteres als Tim Stretton' stinkt; s-Arbeit ist der Autor selbst"*, at least I won't understand it.  And such a maverick edition would rapidly become an internet phenomenon, and swell both of our bank balances.  Andreas, you didn't...did you?

*"The only thing that stinks worse than Tim Stretton's work is the author himself"

The Name of the R'Ose
What to call your fantasy characters

David Isaak had a predictably stimulating post over on Tomorrowville about how difficult it is to find just the right name for your characters. If you haven't read it, you might want to now, as I'm going to explore the question in the specific, and potentially treacherous, field of fantasy fiction. Val Kovalin treats a similar topic over at Obsidian Bookshelf so thoroughly that I'm not going to retread that ground. Instead I want to look at how I go about choosing names for my characters, and what I hope to achieve in my choices.

My first aim when choosing names is to create a sense in the reader's mind of a coherent underlying culture. I'm looking for names which are 'the same, but different'. In The Dog of the North, for instance, I'd conceived Mettingloom as a frozen Venice, and I wanted the names to reinforce that. It wasn't a great leap from there to employ Italianate names (which also, for some readers, gave these episodes a Shakespearean feel, which can't be bad). So I ended up with names of my own devising, like Fanrolio, Tardolio and Goccio. I also researched Italian names in use in the Renaissance but which aren't popular today (Davanzato, for instance). Then I played with Shakespeare by Italianising some of his names (Laertio, for example). The result, I hope, is a set of names which not only looks consistent to the reader, but also carries some of the connotations of the source culture. It's a short-cut to helping the reader understand from the start that Mettingloom is going to play out like Renaissance Italy.

I also want my names to look good on the page, and to be pronounceable. Using real, or minimally adapted, names helps here (Jehan and Enguerran, for instance); if real people had the name, someone must have been able to pronounce it. In Dragonchaser, I gave a lot of characters Lithuanian names like Giedrus and Skaidrys - these names have a latinate feel (it's only a slight oversimplification to describe Lithuanian nomenclature as latinised Polish) without the overfamiliarity of actual Latin names. I love the look of Polish names but I would never use them because they are just so difficult--and often counter-intuitive--for Anglophone readers to pronounce.

Sometimes there are difficult choices to make. For The Last Free City, where the inspiration was Renaissance Dubrovnik, I wanted to use names with a Serbo-Croat cast. Some of these names are unproblematic (Todarko, for instance, provides no difficulty of pronunciation) but others are trickier. Many Slavic names end "ic" but are pronounced "itch": I chose to avoid names structured in this way. On the other hand, I did retain the "ij" spelling where the "j" is essentially silent: there is a danger here that the reader will pronounce the "j" in the character I've called "Zanijel". I think it's worth it for the look of the word.

I tried to add an additional layer of subtlety in The Last Free City by giving the houses (essentially the family names) an Italian feel, so that they felt different to the personal names: my intention here was to imply a cultural richness and evolution over many centuries. If it works, great: if not, the reader is no worse off.

Sometimes--I freely admit it--I just like to have a little bit of fun. I spent a long time alighting on a suitable name for the eponymous "Dog of the North". I wanted to have something with a French feel (because he comes from the Emmenrule, where I'd used largely French nomenclature) and eventually settled on Beauceron--which, pleasingly, is a breed of dog...

Everyone has their own method for naming their fantasy characters; some are more successful than others. My last advice on the topic is that if you want to use an apostrophe in the name, think very very carefully. The odds are your name will look better, and be easier to pronounce, without it.

More on Dragonchaser

I'm delighted to say that Andreas Irle, proprietor of the highly respected Editions Andreas Irle, has finished his German translation of Dragonchaser. We are now hopeful of a publication date later this year, although Andreas is also busy translating Jack Vance's autobiography for the German market.

We also have a fine cover design now, created by Ralf Kübler. The book has a new title for the German market, 'Serendip' (or Serendipity in English) being the name of the hero's racing galley.

I'm excited to be published by such a prestigious small press, and also to have a greater market presence in Germany, where there seems to be an appetite for my work.

Also available in English!

For those of you whose German is as a rusty--or indeed non-existent--as mine, the option of reading Dragonchaser in English is perhaps more appealing. The self-publication is still available here, in every conceivable format bar e-book. Prices vary wildly with exchange rate fluctuations, but the best value edition is perhaps the paperback omnibus (bundled with the rather different The Zael Inheritance) currently at GBP £15.64.

While Dragonchaser was never successful in attracting a UK publisher, it's a still a book I believe in, and will probably appeal to those who enjoyed The Dog of the North. What's not to like about galley-racing, lethal political intrigues, and a man with a past run ragged by beautiful but manipulative women? Aficionados of familiar Stretton motifs will also enjoy a swordfight or two, a trademark hanging scene, and of course a fire, without which no story could be complete.

Exciting News on Dragonchaser!

The Dog of the North was not the first Mondia novel I've written. Before that, there was Dragonchaser, a tale of galley racing and political intrigue which I'd always felt deserved a wider audience. Sadly commercial publishers never shared that sentiment, but soon the discerning folk of Germany may get the chance to form their own judgement.

Editions Andreas Irle, a small press specialising in the translation of Jack Vance into German, has been working on Dragonchaser in the background for a while. Andreas, an old friend and colleague from the Vance Integral Edition, has now all but finished his translation, and I've also seen a draft of the cover. For copyright reasons I can't share that yet, but it's very pleasing in its restrained elegance. Andreas has used translator's licence to retitle the book Serendip, thereby naming the book after the hero's galley rather than the villain's (or to be more accurate, one villain to another; it's that kind of book).

We are hopeful that Serendip will be on sale in late 2010 or early 2011.