The New Description for THE CITY DARKENS

Well, as I mentioned, I have spent a chunk of time reworking the description of The City Darkens. I got a lot of help from my good friend Kathryn, as well as the awesome folks over at AbsoluteWrite. After pulling out most of my hair as I struggled to string coherent sentences together, here is the new description:

In an island metropolis, where robots serve the wealthy and glittering skyscrapers light up the night, a woman from a country estate, unschooled in the ways of the court, fights to get back her son and resist the tyrannical new order.

After Myadar Solboi's efforts to navigate the perils of the court lead to betrayal, she becomes an urban incarnation of a legendary highwayman, pursuing revenge on those who wronged her as well as on the capital itself. The city's underclass stirs in response, but before she can rouse them to revolution, she falls into a peril she cannot escape.

This twisting tale of the struggle against the birth of a new, violent age is dystopian decopunk inspired by a 1920s aesthetic. A world of fanatical rulers, ambitious priests, seductive courtiers, shining robots, and a nearly forgotten people living under the city in the sewers... all seen through the shocked eyes of a determined heroine.


That last paragraph may seem like it's all tell and no show; I decided to include it to state my novel's genre in the clearest terms I could come up with, after running into several people who had never heard of dieselpunk, much less dystopian decopunk. Which is a genre I have just coined. I expect all future writers of dystopian decopunk to pay me royalties for coining it, by the way.

What with the new description giving away that Myadar goes all Robin Hood (sort of) I think my cover doesn't quite fit as well. I'd asked the artist, Dolly G, to have Myadar holding this red piece of cloth, so that when people read about Myadar's red silk mask, they'd go, "Oh! That's what she's holding on the cover!" Dolly did a wonderful job, and she really listened to me, so I am grateful to have worked with her. It's just that since the whole mask piece of the story isn't a surprise anymore (can you tell I'm conflicted about this?) it seems like the cover ought to highlight the action aspect more. Hence, I covet a cover (that's fun to say out loud) by Benjamin Carré. Here's one of his works, from his website:

This is the cover to Tim Aker's The Horns of Ruin. I haven't read it, though it's on my ever increasing to-read pile.

I've written Carré twice and he hasn't got back to me. There's an immense chance I couldn't even dream of affording him, but I just wish I could know for sure. Sigh.