Friday, September 5, 2008

International Covers and Process: The Gone-Away World

I'm currently reading THE GONE-AWAY WORLD by Nick Harkaway which, might I say, is one hell of a page turner. Here's the description:

There couldn’t be a fire along the Jorgmund Pipe. It was the last thing the world needed. But there it was, burning bright on national television. The Pipe was what kept the Livable Zone safe from the bandits, monsters, and nightmares the Go-Away War had left in its wake. The fire was a very big problem. Enter Gonzo Lubitsch and his friends, the Haulage & HazMat Emergency Civil Freebooting Company, a team of master troubleshooters who roll into action when things get particularly hot. They helped build the Pipe. Now they have to preserve it—and save humanity yet again. Equal parts raucous adventure, comic odyssey, geek nirvana, and ultra-cool epic, The Gone-Away World is a story of—among other things—love, pirates, mimes, greed, and ninjas. But it is also the story of a world, not unlike our own, in desperate need of heroes—however unlikely they may seem.

I'm reading the standard version which has this dust jacket:


Pops out at you right?! What's really cool and is not reflected in the photo is that all of the pink areas are actually felted with velvet material. So on top of being bright it's fuzzy too!

However, their is another cover floating around that I believe is the UK version, seen here:

The book has it's own website (which in it's own right is pretty fantastic) and they offer up a link to show the process of designing the UK cover! Well worth the visit.

Anyway, I highly suggest picking this up. It's been one of the better books I've read in a long, long time.

NOTE: Info on the designers from the author himself!

"The Knopf jacket is by Jason Booher. The Heinemann one is by Glenn O'Neill. There's also a painfully sexy limited boxed edition in black and red. I'm fairly sure that one's Glenn, too."

For more background info from Nick Harkaway's mouth to your eyes, check out the comments for this post.

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3 comments:

Nick Harkaway said...

*grin*

The Knopf jacket is by Jason Booher. The Heinemann one is by Glenn O'Neill. There's also a painfully sexy limited boxed edition in black and red. I'm fairly sure that one's Glenn, too.

When we were talking about design (a topic about which I know nothing and something at which, as I've noted elsewhere, I suck) the only thing I could contribute was that I wanted a book which was special as an object as well as as a book. I was thinking of Glass Books of The Dream Eaters, which had translucent blue covers and looked decadent and sinful.

I had no idea I was going to end up with a book you could stroke...

My friends keep asking me which one I prefer. It's like being asked to choose between twins. (Or triplets.) And it's only going to get worse with the paperbacks.

Glad you're having fun with it, anyway!

NH

Pretty Dead Trees said...

That's a first! The author commenting on me talking about them!

Thanks for the behind the scenes info and feedback, Nick, and I'm looking forward to your next book!

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