Why I’m so excited by the covers for my new SF novels

 

My new novels have covers! Look! Look at the link and then come back and I’ll explain why I’m so excited by these.

Cropped portion of THE FATED SKY cover, featuring the silhouette of an astronaut against an orange sky. Navigational diagrams are in the background, with the word Mars.

Have you looked?

Okay. Amazing, right? Irene Gallo, art director at Tor, has knocked this out of the park. Those cover designs by Jamie Stafford-Hill, with silhouettes by Greg Manchess is so perfect for the tone of the books that I squealed when I saw them. Followed by tearing up a little and doing some happy dancing.

And then being intensely frustrated because I couldn’t show them to you. But now you can see the covers, and they are amazing!

Here are the reasons I love them.

  1. That group on the cover of The Calculating Stars represents an ensemble cast, centered on the women in the early space program.
  2. It reminds me of Hidden Figures., Funny thing, Calculating Stars was already turned in when the first trailer for Hidden Figures came out. When I saw it, I jumped in the air because it was like watching my book.  Except, you know, with 100% less asteroid strike and global catastrophe. But ladies! Doing science! In taffeta! And pearls! And slide rules!
  3. Jamie Stafford-Hill included vehicle names from the book in the diagrams.
  4. The diagrams match up when you put the books side by side!
  5. Mars. Oh my God. Could The Fated Sky say Mars more clearly?
  6. It’s a space suit, not a “lady space suit.”
  7. Then there’s the font, which straddles the line between History! and Science!

I could probably go on for a couple of days. Suffice to say, I’m incredibly pleased with these covers.

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12 thoughts on “Why I’m so excited by the covers for my new SF novels”

  1. Alyshondra Meacham

    “…I squealed when I saw them. Followed by tearing up a little and doing some happy dancing.”

    Beat by beat, this is exactly my reaction. I want to frame them and put them in my house. Or maybe on a billboard.

  2. Those look fantastic!

    Does this mean your Guest of Honor stint at Bubonicon will be like a launch party for the second book?

  3. Wonderful covers – I want them for my office wall! And I’m so happy the two books are coming out so close together so I won’t have long to wait for the second one!

  4. Can I just say how much I love the “O” in “astronaut?” For me, that small typographic touch is the thing that ties the whole design of these covers together.

  5. I love these! So Hidden Figures. I was wondering why they are both coming out in the same summer, rather than a year apart – is there a specific reason for that?

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