…is a curious thing. I’m often struck by the different approaches by publishers to promote the same book. A good example are the approaches taken by the UK (left, below), Australian (middle, below) and US (right, below) publishers of Garth Nix’s new novel, Drowned Wednesday. I think the US cover is wonderful, eery and suggestive. The UK cover is consistent with a strong branding approach the publisher has taken. I am unable to explain the Australian cover, which seems to involve computer art.

It is interesting, though, that the book title is most prominent in the UK, where presumably the branding identifies the author to interested readers, and that the series title doesn’t appear on the cover. In the US the Author’s name is most prominent, with the title next, followed by the series title. And, in Australia, the series title is most prominent, followed by author name and series title. From this I’d guess, and it is a guess, that Nix sells best in the US.

For what it’s worth, I’d give the tick to the US edition and can’t wait to read it, or the new collection.

So maybe you’re wondering. You come along to this blog every now and then, and you actually read the sidebar to keep track of what I may or may not be reading, and are wondering what’s happened when books just fall off the list or sit there for weeks on end. Does it mean the book’s rubbish or just that I’ve been slack in updating things? It really depends, but in the case of the latest book on the list, I thought I should clarify.

When Charles was here a couple weeks ago he was saying very complimentary things about Liz William’s novel Banner of Souls, so I became very interested in reading the novel. Unfortunately, it isn’t on sale in Australia. I even called my local specialist SF bookshop who clarified just how ‘specialist’ they are by letting me know they’d never heard of Liz Williams, this despite the fact that I’d actually bought a copy of Nine Layers of Sky from them last year. Pfeh. The obvious solution was to get in touch with the indefatigable Justin at Slow Glass in Melbourne, who has arranged for a copy to wing it’s way here in a while.

I am, however, not a patient person. This is a failing (one, admittedly, of many). So, I emailed my friend Jeremy and let him know that I’d heard he was publishing this book by Liz called Snake Agent which sounded pretty cool, and could I check it out? Being an all-round swell kind of guy, Jeremy arranged to get a copy of the novel into my hand’s ASAP. It then sat in my office at home for a few days over Christmas and during Charles’ visit, but I picked it up about a week ago. The publisher’s website describes it thus:

“You were supposed to go to Heaven, but ended up in one of the many Chinese hells instead. Who you gonna call? Nobody, you’re dead. Luckily, in future Singapore, Detective Chen is on the case. Specializing in supernatural crimes, Chen finds himself in hell teaming up with a demon cop to solve the mystery, return a lost soul to its rightful reward, and restore harmony between Heaven and Earth.”

Which does a good enough job, I guess, though it doesn’t let you know that it’s a delight to read, fast and fun and engaging and well worth any trouble to read and absorb. At least, so far. I’m half way through, and need to pay attention to work-ish things so I’m not reading as much as I’d like. But I will, and then I’ll post here in detail about the book, but I already suspect you should get it when you can. I’m not sure when it’s being published – I’ve heard several different dates – but make sure you check it out.

Things you must never do on the net #1. Go to google. Enter the search criteria “symptoms” + “whatever physical ailment or disfiguration is bothering me today”. It will drive you crazy. It will not help. Ever. If you have an ailment or disfiguration, go to a doctor. They will actually examine you and diagnose what might be wrong. They should prescribe something to fix your problem. You can then go and google about what you’ve actually got. That can be informative, and being well-informed is a good thing. Googling first will only lead to insanity, or blindness, or whatever it is you get when you do things in the dark by yourself way too much.

It’s been an interesting morning so far. I woke up at 3.30 am to the smell of smoke filling the house. Perth is currently surrounded by raging bushfires lit by some sick idiots, so I knew it was almost certainly just smoke from the distant fires being blown our way. Still, I had to check.

Got up, walked around the outside of the house in my underwear in the dark checking the whole building for any signs of fire or fire hazard. It was all okay, but I couldn’t get back to sleep. Tossed and turned for a couple hours, got up, had breakfast and checked email. Yay. There were a couple of work emails that had to be dealt with, both of which brought deadline awareness crashing back in on me.

Even though we haven’t actually inked the contract, I got an email from my editor at the SFBC asking when he might see the ms. for Best Short Novels. My first thought was GAH! My second was, isn’t this early? We hadn’t agreed on a delivery date. I was sleepy of course, so I checked. The date was “mid-January” and I looked back at last year and saw that I delivered on the 14th. I’ve sheepishly asked if I can send him the ms. on Monday, which will give me a chance to work out a running order for the stories and put the ms. together. I’ve got ten stories – everyone said yes, which is cool – so that should take a little while. Then I’ve just got to finalise contracts, payments and write the intro and story notes. A busy weekend beckons.

I then noticed an email from my agent, so I called him in New York to go over some details. There was contract stuff and the usual, but it also became pretty clear that there’s been stuff going back and forth – email and packages – that haven’t reached their destinations. Very weird. We talked about it, so it should all be fine, but it was odd.

I’ve also had a story sitting around that I need to re-read to get back to the author about for a while. I’m going to go over it at lunchtime, and then I need to fax New York. Yay!

I can’t keep track of all of the stories being published all over the place, and neither can you. The fun folk over at the BBC Cult website just published five new stories online. They are:

“The Spy’s Retirement”, by Jon Courtenay Grimwood
“The Lady Downstairs”, by Christopher Fowler
“The Lost World” by Dominic Green
“A Shambles in Belgravia”, by Kim Newman
“The Deer Stalker” by Paul Cornell

I need to read ’em, and you should probably check them out too.