S.K. Dunstall's Blog, page 13

Our October newsletter scraped it into October by a bat’s
wing (had to use a Halloween reference here) on 31 October.  For we Australians it was 12:30am on All Hallows
Eve.  Maybe we should have waited till later
in the day, for there’s a mistake in it.

Three mistakes actually and they’re all the same.

The problem with a newsletter is that once you press send,
it’s gone. It’s not like a blog, where you can go back in and make corrections.

We mentioned a book in there. Three times. And we got the name wrong every time.

Michael Mammay’s first book wasn’t Planetfall, it was
Planetside.

We knew that.

Thanks to an eagle-eyed reader for pointing that out. For anyone else who’s interested in the book, it’s Planetside, no matter what our newsletter says.

Okay. 

Today, I want to talk about book covers. 

There’s a lot written about how traditionally published authors don’t have control over their book covers. We have never disliked one of our covers, so we wouldn’t know but we are realistic enough to know that design of the cover is mostly out of our control, and that the designers who work on the covers do know what they’re doing.

We have generally been asked for input on our covers, and
certainly asked if we like them.

As one editor I read once said, and I’m paraphrasing here,
because I don’t remember the actual words or who said it, “What’s the point in
putting out a book cover the author doesn’t like? If they don’t like it,
they’ll bag the book.”

We love our all our covers, including the one for Stars
Beyond, which is released in January next year.

Here’s a brief history of our input on book covers—possibly
not accurate, as I’m writing from memory here, especially for the first two
books, where all our records are archived.

Linesman

Our editor asked us quite early if we had any thoughts about
the cover.  At the time, every US sci-fi
cover we looked at seemed to be orange or red, and always had people on the
cover.

We were both, Sherylyn especially, convinced Linesman
was more of a blue book than a red or yellow book, so we mentioned that we’d
prefer a blue cover if we could get it. 
We also said we didn’t necessarily want people on the cover.

If I recall, we were asked if we had any ideas for the cover,
plus some key scenes that might make an interesting cover image.

One of the scenes we included was the briefing where Captain
Helmo described the Eleven, not that they knew it was the Eleven
at that time. A perfect sphere, the surface a deep blue-black (reflective, but that
didn’t make it onto the cover).

We sent descriptions of the main characters, the various
ships, and the first 50-100 pages of the story. 
We also said it would be good if the artist could include something that
represented the lines.

Here’s the result.

Release date: 30 June 2015

Bruce Jensen, the artist nailed it.

Alliance

The first book sticks in your memory.  Second book, not so much.  It’s all a bit of a daze, and again we don’t
have the records to back it up.  (We do,
but they’re archived, and an effort to get out of archive.)

We think we sent the same sort of information.  The first 50-100 pages, descriptions of
characters and of ships, plus some scenes we feel might have made

Here we have the Kari Wang, about to be attacked.  I say it’s the Kari Wang, for this one of the scenes we sent in. You might think it’s the Eleven.

Here’s the result.

Same artist, Bruce Jensen, and he nailed it again.

Confluence

Now we’re starting to get into a time we still have records.

The publishers already had idea of what they wanted for
Confluence to keep in with the other two books. 
For example, putting at least one spaceship on the cover.

Anne asked for elements particularly important to the story,
any scenes that might work for a cover picture, and any suggestions to the
artist on as to backgrounds or what the spaceships should look like.

We sent three suggested scenes here.

A freighter attacking Confluence stationThe Eleven against five enemy battle
cruisesThe battle where the Eleven arrives to
help out when enemy ships are attacking a world.

Looks like Bruce chose number one.

They’re all amazing covers. We’re super happy with them.

Stars Uncharted

Onto the next series now.

Same process.  Anne asked
for an outline, the first few chapters of the book, and ideas for cover art.

We thought this one was more character-based than the Linesman
series, if that makes sense, because both books are all about the
character, but this is about people, and body modding, and action.

We sent back keywords. 
Space opera, character-based, action, spaceships, space stations, body
modding.

In this one we were less concerned that they might put
people on the cover, so we sent back a lot of information about the two point-of-view
characters, Nika and Josune.  We also
talked a lot about the genemod machines. 
Given that DNA was important to the story, we wanted something relating
to DNA.  We also talked about fights with
people in business wear.

The three scenes we sent back were all fights.  The first on the Hassim, with Josune
and Roystan against Benedict’s people. The second at the space station where the
crew of Another Road are collecting a genemod machine (for the
calibrator).  The third, the escape from
Atalante station.

We rather expected people on the front of this novel—I mean,
how many times can you buck the trend—but the trend seemed to have shifted away
from people on the cover at all.

The cover was nothing like we expected, but we loved it anyway.

Artist on this one is John Harris.

Stars Beyond

Now we come to Stars Beyond.

This time, because of the rewrite, the editor didn’t ask for
pages.  She had a chapter-by-chapter
breakdown.  We gave a quick rundown of
the story, and some image ideas.  These
included the vortex, Alistair’s eyesight, and the ability to seen into
ultraviolet or infrared, genetics and gene modding.

We also said we loved the cover of Stars Uncharted,
and that it would have been perfect for Stars Beyond as well.

We can’t tell you much more, for the book isn’t out yet, be
we think the artist, Fred Gambino, has done a beautiful job.

If you’re still interested in cover design

Chip Kidd talks about some of his book covers for Alfred A.
Knopf and why he designed them the way he did in a 2012 TED talk called What
do stories look like?  It’s worth
a look.

I’m not good at remembering names.

It’s the bane of my work life. 

I can chat quite happily to someone in the tearoom, or while waiting for the lift, over months.  Then, suddenly find I’m working on a project with him or her, and know them, but have no idea what their name is.  Or associate the wrong name with the wrong face and call them by the wrong name until someone gently points it that James isn’t James, he’s Zachary.

Sunday morning Sherylyn and I went to a lovely café for
breakfast. The waiter came to take our order.

“Hello, Karen,” he said. 
“It is Karen, isn’t it?”

I recognised him.  He
worked in our IT department.  We used to
chat.  He and his wife had welcomed their
first baby (a girl), just before he left the company.

Name? Blank. I couldn’t remember his name.

We chatted about his work here at the café, about what had changed at my work. About other things.

His name was Mark, but I had to ask.

So if you and I ever meet at a conference, or anywhere, and I ask your name even if we have met before, bear with me.  Just because I ask your name doesn’t mean I don’t know who you are. It just means I can’t remember your name.

Spring at Chateau Dunstall

It is glorious in Melbourne this time of year. Loving the weather, and daylight saving.

Daylight saving started on the weekend.  I love it, but it takes a week to get used
to.  Suddenly it’s midnight and you’re
not in bed, even though you have to get up at six to get ready for work.

 To make matters
worse, I wake up this morning at five.  Urgh.  I know from experience if I go back to sleep
now, I’ll sleep through the alarm.

There’s a whole lot of must-do’s swirling around in my
head.  Work is so busy right now.  I have reports to complete, figures to
analyse, a presentation to write. Outside of that, there’s the course notes I
need to finish for the course we are running next month.  Not to mention, a novel to write.  What with work and the course notes, I
haven’t touched latest story for three weeks. 
I’m feeling ultra-guilty.

Then, into my head pops a brand new story idea.  I like it. 
No, I love it.

I crawl out of bed and turn on the computer.

Guess which one I work on.

Writers!

Over at Ace Books they’re giving away not just a copy of Stars Beyond, but also a copy of Stars Uncharted.

If you’re interested, and you live in the US, pop across to their site and enter the Another Road sweepstakes.

I love the way they’ve named it Another Road, by the way. That’s the name of the ship the crew has purchased, after their original ship, The Road to the Goberlings (aka The Road) was destroyed.

I still look at bookshelves when I visit other people’s houses. Do they read fiction or non-fiction? What genre do they read in? Do the books look read, or are they there for show? Is their collection eclectic, or is it specific to a genre/subject? Hardback or paperback?

I don’t realise I’m thinking about these things, but I do.

I looked at my own bookshelves today.  Everything in them is old. My paperbacks—science
fiction, fantasy and mystery—are yellowed, and 70s, 80s and 90s vintage. My non-fiction
includes a 1994 ‘C++ How to program’ (Dietel and Dietel, for those older
coders out there), more computer books from the same era, and an eclectic set
of whatever I was interested in around the same time, including a book of
silviculture.

The few new books are mostly unread.  We have one shelf—which used to be double-stacked but isn’t any more—of S. K. Dunstall books (funny that), and various random books we’ve picked up from places or that have been given to us that we haven’t read and probably won’t read because we’re not really interested in them. We keep them for visitors who might enjoy them.

Even our music CDs stop at the nineties.

Frankly, all these shelves are dust catchers now. Not to
mention junk collectors.  As well as
having all these old books, the shelf just next to my desk has two old iPads, three
dead laptops, an unused router, and old computer cables.  I’m sure the cables breed.

Nowadays, my bookshelf is my iPad. I adopted eBooks early, and almost completely right from the start. For a while I’d buy something, read it on the iPad and if I loved it, buy the dead-tree version for the shelves, but I don’t even do that now. No, nowadays I spend that money on another book by the same author.

I think it’s time to accept the future and get rid of some
bookshelves.

I was going to put a picture of a refrigerator here, but they’re super boring, really. I mean, what can you say? A fridge is a fridge. This clip art appealed. I have no idea what it means, penguins coming out a refrigerator in the arctic, but maybe that’s the other end of the dimensional vortex.

There’s a black hole somewhere in my refrigerator.

Dinner last night was a hash brown plus (grated potato with
extra ingredients made into a large flat pancake). I brought out the food
processor to grate the potato and chop the onions.

Lightbulb moment. While the food processor is out why don’t I chop the onions for the big batch of bolognese I plan to freeze? I can cook that tonight, too.

I peel the onions.

It’s late when I started, that’s why I decided on hash browns
for dinner in the first place. It’s a lot later when I finish, because I don’t use
the food processor that often, and it takes time to work out how to set it up. Then
to remember how to chop onions with it.

I fry up seemingly mountains of onion and garlic, but there’s no way I’m cooking the rest of the bolognese that night because I’ll be up till one am, and I’m exhausted already. I put it all into a container and put in in the fridge.

Next day, I take out the makings for bolognese sauce.

Except I can’t find the onion.

I know I was tired last night, but this is ridiculous. It’s not even a big fridge. I go through the fridge. I go through the freezer. I even check the cupboards, in case I was so tired I put it there instead. There is no onion.

It has disappeared into some dimensional hole. I’m sure that
one day that same vortex will spit it back out again and it’ll be right there
in front of me, where it has been all along. I just can’t see it right now.

p.s. Bolognaise or bolognese? I’m one of those who use ‘ai’, and I thought most Australians did, but I notice there’s a trend back to bolognese (which is more technically correct), so I’ve made an effort to use that here. Spell check doesn’t like it either way.

Here Melbourne winter is coming into spring.  It’s warming up, or it should be, and in general the weather is getting better, but I have to say it’s been so cold lately that instead of sitting at my desk to write I’ve taken the little Go (Microsoft Surface) into the kitchen and sat at the table.  There’s a heater vent just underneath.  Only problem is, the heater thinks it’s coming into spring, too, and turns itself off after a while.

My fingers are frozen as I type this.

We’re getting some exercises ready for a full-day course on writing that we’re running in November at the Victorian Writer’s Centre (VWC), here in Melbourne.  (If you live in Melbourne, and want to fine-tune a manuscript, check it out on the VWC website. It’s on the 9th November, and it’s called First Draft: It’s all in the Details.)  This is editing beyond the major structural edits down into line edits.  Really trying to tidy up your story.

One topic we plan to talk about is whether you can tell your
characters apart.  We’re not perfect, we
know, but like most writers, we try.

So, as exercise, if you’ve read our books, can you tell
whose point-of-view we’re in for the following paragraphs.

Character one

Santos Greene wore a company of starched green, with shiny lapels that had been fashionable two years ago. His skin was an even olive that blended with the cloth, like an Antares chameleon, and blended in turn with the grey-green wall behind him.  Even his eyes were green, although a deeper shade, and one eye was slightly darker than the other.  A neat mod, except for the mismatched eyes.

Character two

“Even his cartel master wanted to get rid of him, so he sold the contract to Lady Lyan, and now she can’t get rid of him either.  She’s tried.  Grand Master Rickenback came out to see him and try to get him back into the cartels, but Cartel Master Rigel wouldn’t take him.”

They’re a tad clumsy, sorry, but hopefully you’ll recognise
them.

Some deep fakes

Last week I spent two days at UX Australia,
a conference that talks about user experience. (I work in UX.) This year there
was lots of fodder for science fiction ideas as well, along with some old terms
that seem to be making a comeback.

People grokked things. So much so that I
felt like I was at a science fiction convention sometimes. Especially when
another term that cropped up a lot was the singularity.

If you’re unfamiliar with either of these
terms, both were coined by science fiction writers.

Grok comes from Robert Heinlein’s Stranger
in a Strange Land (1961) and is a term that means to understand
intuitively.

The singularity comes from an essay by Vernor
Vinge called Technological Singularity (1993). 
It’s a term that describes exponential technological change.  At UX Australia the term was used more
broadly, I felt.  Mostly tech, but you could
also say we’re reaching a singularity in climate change as well.

The conference is, and has been ever since
I have been attending, heavy on ethics, which I like. It’s scary, because
working in IT you can see how easily people’s rights are being, or can be,
eroded. It’s good to go to big conferences and have people talk about the
consequences.

Other big topics this year included designing
for disability, and how far artificial intelligence has come without us even
realizing it.  We keep waiting for AI to
arrive, but it’s already here, every time you talk to Siri, or Google Home, or
turn on your keyless car.

Deep fakes.  Oh, my goodness.  They’re amazing.  And they’re computer generated.  You can create a person out of stored images. You can change them to have whatever attributes you like. Scary, though, if you’re looking at videos as a source of truth.