Friday, 14 October 2011

Elephant Talk

You'll have likely seen this already but here's the cover of the new book:


I'm delighted with it; I think it does a fabulous job of not only capturing the main themes of Blue Remembered Earth, but also of hinting at the elements (should that be elephants?) that will come to play an increasingly significant role in the successive books. And the colours are gorgeous. I've seen a door-sized blow-up of this cover and it's a thing of real beauty.

As for the next book, I'm well into it. It's a skewed take on very slow interstellar travel, picking up the threads of BRE a few centuries down the line. The main character, like Geoffrey and Sunday in BRE, is an Akinya - but it's a bit less straightforward than that. It's also about humans and machines, longevity, memory and identity, alien intelligence, exoplanets, and elephants.
Posted by at

20 comments:

  1. Sean Dynan14 October 2011 at 02:57

    I can't wait for this to arrive in Audible. Any chance of keeping the Steampunk to a minimum..?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Leonie14 October 2011 at 03:35

    Amazing cover art! Having read House of Suns, Pushing Ice, Zima Blue and Galactic North, I'm now working my way through the Revelation Space series: I'm taking it slowly and really savouring it so I'm reading a couple of other things in-between. Revelation Space itself blew my bloody head off; I was reeling for days after. It's really rather comforting to know I still have several your works to read, once I'm through this series.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Unknown14 October 2011 at 06:15

    Very excited to read this! I just re-read Revelation Space, great stuff, I'm looking forward to this series!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous14 October 2011 at 20:14

    Pre-ordered my copy along with Stephen King's and Vernor Vinge's new one.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Chris J.15 October 2011 at 06:20

    I'm going to pre-order a copy of this soon. I can't wait to read it! As much as I liked Terminal World, I'm very much looking forward to you returning to space opera type sci-fi.

    By the way, is the title of this a reference to 80's King Crimson? If so, I hope that the second novel isn't the "Beat" of this series!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Al R16 October 2011 at 05:16

    I love Beat!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Jimmy Bing16 October 2011 at 18:11

    I'm really excited for this one. A few days ago, Gollancz tweeted that "after some delicate tweaks and subtle additions" the book was finally going into production. I may be getting a galley copy of this. Is there any noticeable difference between those and the final product (beside the expected spelling and grammar corrections)?

    ReplyDelete
  8. Anonymous17 October 2011 at 11:39

    Great looking cover. I've noted that most of AR's books have really good looking covers and often wondered how it is that other Sci-Fi authors end up with such cheesy ones. I have to assume there is little say in the matter for the person who writes the book.

    PK in SF

    ReplyDelete
  9. Unknown17 October 2011 at 13:07

    I like the cover art. But I'm really excited about the new series (take my mind off Saturdays rugby game). It takes me so long to read any of your books as I find myself frequently staring into space, imagining!
    Thank you.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Anonymous18 October 2011 at 03:35

    Jimmy Bing or Al:

    How does someone get a "galley" copy?

    I just can't wait for BRE.

    Gus

    ReplyDelete
  11. Anonymous18 October 2011 at 06:59

    I CANNOT WAIT for this! Is there any chance the Amazon release date might slip or is that really how long we have to wait?

    ReplyDelete
  12. Xavier21 October 2011 at 08:11

    Really nice, but stop teasing us !!

    ReplyDelete
  13. Nathan Fowkes21 October 2011 at 23:50

    Very much looking forward to it!!

    ReplyDelete
  14. J22 October 2011 at 02:55

    All Al's books have a symbol on the spine- if this one doesn't have an elephant I'll be extremely disappointed...

    ReplyDelete
  15. Anonymous23 October 2011 at 04:00

    Would be nice if they could pull the publishing date forward to December. Would make a nice xmas present to self :)

    ReplyDelete
  16. Anonymous24 October 2011 at 08:27

    Is there going to be a book signing session to go with this major release?

    ReplyDelete
  17. Al R24 October 2011 at 09:34

    You'll need some track record of reviewing to get a advanced reading copy (ARC), generally. Publishers want to ensure that reviews are in hand before the book appears, but they obviously don't want to pre-empt any excitement that may be associated with the official publication.

    There isn't normally a big difference between the ARC and the final book but in the case of BRE the changes are perhaps more substantial than usual, as I added quite a few bits and moved some stuff around.

    There'll likely be some signings, yes - in the UK at least. I've done very little signing in the States.

    ReplyDelete
  18. The Prefect27 October 2011 at 04:26

    Cant wait for it ! I am having A.R. serious Sci-Fi withdrawl...let the beat go on......

    ReplyDelete
  19. Scott Hughes10 November 2011 at 14:51

    When they changed the font for your name on Terminal World I was mildly irked - The almost OCD fan in me screamed that it didn't match the others on the shelf. Now they've changed it back again so TW stands out like a sore thumb! I demand a new dust jacket for TW...:-)

    ReplyDelete
  20. Unknown20 November 2011 at 11:34

    ooh aliens! I loved the one time you really went into depth with aliens (pushing ice) Al, really looking forward to it!

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)