Books and Banana.

Here’s the latest in an intermittent series of self-related roundups from around the world, which— while perhaps lacking a certain focus— culminates in what has to qualify as The Best Author Photo Of All Time.

But let’s start small, and build to it:

  • It’s only a Recommended list, not a Required one, but it’s nice to see that Blindsight made Berkeley’s 2016 Summer Reading List. Especially since said list is not even genre-based.
  • From the ever-growing list of “Look Who I’ve Inspired Though Myself They Haven’t Hired” game companies: I get name-checked along with Harrison, Moorcock, Simmons, Zelazny— oh and the “Heavy Metal” Movie— as an influence on Torment: Tides of Numenera. Of course, we all take a back seat to Gene Wolfe, but that’s as it should be.
  • This one gives me shivers. Courtesy of a dude named Danil Krivoruchko, one of several images which come closer than any I’ve seen to the actual vision of Rorschach that haunted my brain when I was writing Blindsight:
Embers and lightning. Tweak the allometry a bit and it'll be just about perfect.

Embers and lightning. Tweak the allometry a bit and it’ll be just about perfect.

It’s only a rough draft, mind you. Still under construction. I can’t wait to see what the finished product looks like.

  • More rough drafts, this time from Manchu: a couple of options for the cover of the upcoming Au-delà du Gouffre (which I originally took to mean “Audience of Guff”, but which is apparently French for Beyond the Rift):

Beyond-The-Abyss-by-Manchu

Although these too are preliminary, I’m pretty sure I’m not violating any kind of embargo since Le Béliaľ has already polled their forum to help choose between them. (I think they’re both pretty great. I think they should go with both, and release two editions.)

*   *   *

But Finally.  Finally. The moment I’ve been waiting to share with you all:

BS-Turkish01

BS-Turkish02

You may look over at this cover for Blindsight‘s Turkish edition, and wonder why. Oh, it’s a fine cover, no doubt about it. A bit spaceship-generic maybe but the lighting is nice. It gleams, it pops, it does everything cover art is supposed to do. Still. You may wonder at my excitement, until you look at the back cover.

Until you look at the lower left back cover.

The Author photo, if you haven’t caught on yet.  Click on the image if you must; it gets bigger.

I have been trying for years to get publishers to adopt Banana as my official head shot. I have sent them Banana when they asked for an author photo. I have set precedent by inserting Banana into my own, collectors-edition Blindsight covers. I have suggested and wheedled and begged over drinks.

Finally, success.

The weird thing is, I don’t think I ever actually asked the Turks to do this. I don’t even remember having any direct contact with them; everything was negotiated overseas, the whole contract was a done deal before I even knew it was in the works. And yet, somehow they knew. Somehow, the Turks stepped up when others stepped back.

Thank you, Gürer Publishing and marketing Trade Co. Ltd. I don’t know you. I don’t know how you knew. But it was a grand and noble thing you did, for a grand and noble old cat.

If Banana were here today, he wouldn’t give a shit.

 



This entry was posted on Thursday, June 9th, 2016 at 11:23 am and is filed under art on ink, Beyond the Rift, blindsight, ink on art. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
13 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Ste
Guest
Ste
8 years ago

Now I’m tempted to attack my Turkish friends with copies of Blindsight.

“Very good book” (or “very tasty book”, possibly…) is half the Turkish I know, so it’s like I’ve been training for this moment my whole life.

Now I only need to learn how to say “Look, it’s got a cat!” and I’m ready to go.

Sheila
Guest
Sheila
8 years ago

I’ve had it in my steam wishlist for a while in case some windows machine drops on me out of the blue. Planescape: Torment was one of the best games I ever played. I loved it.

This is adorable:
“Who are the team’s favourite characters in Torment?”
“[…] the nychthemeron, a floating techno-octopus that is being displayed in the middle of Circus Minor. […]”

eriko
Guest
eriko
8 years ago

My day is made. All hail Lead Author Banana.

Proud Injun
Guest
Proud Injun
8 years ago

Purrfect.

Sheila
Guest
Sheila
8 years ago

eriko:
My day is made.All hail Lead Author Banana.

Request to OGH: publish a paper with Banana the lead author.

Dr.No
Guest
Dr.No
8 years ago

@ Peter
Hummm my newest coworker is turkish… will try to convince him to buy that edition (whenever he goes back to see family on vacation 🙂 if only for the cat mugshot

@ Sheila
Also dunno if it was an internet hoax, but i read somewhere that somebody managed to obtain an official american psicology PhD for its cat…
Bananas does not only deserve recognition for authorship on that paper! lets get him an ex aequo honoris causa!!!!

dhlight
Guest
dhlight
8 years ago

You’ve been namechecked again in ‘Three Bodies At Mitani’ by Seth Dickenson (Analog, June 2015, also The Best Science Fiction Of The Year 2016, Volume I, ed Neil Clarke, Night Shade Books). Interstellar explorers confront the nightmare of a planet of p-zombies, or, as they call it, a colony that has gone ‘Duong-Watts malignant’. Extermination is the only choice.

Swedish Guy
Guest
Swedish Guy
8 years ago

As a Swede I find the Turkish title hilarious. It literally means: “Drive hungover!”

Squidworth
Guest
Squidworth
8 years ago

The cat headshot is a big mistake. Your lady readers love your Harrison Ford haircut. It should be flaunted and disseminated, far and wide.

Sheila
Guest
Sheila
8 years ago

Squidworth,

Banana? Banana Banana Banana. Banana? Banana!

http://youtu.be/eC9rmsI7dnw

Dr.No
Guest
Dr.No
8 years ago

Step one: Banana, banana banana…
Step two: ???
Step three: Profit

also: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZBKX-6Gz6A

Piss
Guest
Piss
8 years ago

Kör Bakis is Swedish for “Drive Hungover” so I’ll do my best to do a booboo in the crime diaper and do exactly that until I die.

Phil T
Guest
Phil T
8 years ago

Funny how a publishing genre focused on exploring frontiers is too conservative to honor an author’s author photo request. Who are we really but who and what we love?

I think it’s an awesome author photo. My cats, of course, don’t give a shit, but they’re illiterate.