100 Deviations

Image credits: see this page.
 Special thanks for Leah01 by Eclesi4stiK
available under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0
Special thanks to Mirish for stock images.

Shown to the right is the 100th "deviation" that I uploaded to the DeviantArt website. That "first draft" book cover for The Alastor Network was quickly replaced by a wraparound book cover (see below). I like to celebrate arbitrary numerical milestones, so although I just recently blogged about DeviantArt, I'm going to take this opportunity to reflect on 1) my experience with DeviantArt in general and 2) the challenge of making an interesting book cover. 

Having recently written The Alastor Network, I began trying to imagine how to visually depict a forming mind clone network. I've also been trying to select a key scene from the novel that might be encapsulated in a single memorable cover image. I also wanted to include a few fussy details on the cover such as giving Jack Vance credit for his literary creation (Alastor Cluster) that is the setting for The Alastor Network and selecting an author. I decided to go with Glisty Raven, the pen name of Glisten Ravensroke who is one of the characters in the story.  

100 deviations

It took me seven years to create and upload my first 100 deviations to the DeviantArt website. I also have many other images that I make for use on this blog, some of which I put in the Gallery of Book and Magazine Covers. 

One of my most unusual DeviantArt uploads was on 2/7/2021 using the "literature" option which allows a PDF file to be uploaded. An older "literature" upload (Man Bin) from 2014 was not formatted as a PDF file.

see: High Policy

The PDF that I recently uploaded to DeviantArt includes the image shown to the right which is meant to depict another great literary invention of Jack Vance, the first issue of Extant, an imaginary magazine of the future.

Besides those two "literature" uploads, all my other deviations are images, although a few were experimental .swf animations. Most of my deviations are made with an old copy of Photoshop 3 from the 1990s running under the Mac OS-9 operating system. Many of my uploaded photo-manipulation files are imaginary books and magazines. Apparently the most popular (based on being claimed as a "favorite" by other DeviantArt users) is Foundations of Eternity. which was made for use at this blog page.

Wraparound cover for The Alastor Network. This was made using SciFi02 and Leah01 by Eclesi4stiK
which are available under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0. For additional DeviantArt stock image credits, see this page.

  

cover art by Darrell Sweet

After making the two very "busy" cover images shown above, I wanted to make a more classical cover image. By "classical" I mean something like the Darrell K. Sweet cover for Marune that is shown to the right.

I like how Sweet was able to include so many key elements of the story in this single image. On the left is a Fwai-chi native of the planet Marune. At the front lower right is Efraim, pointing at the globe. Efraim is the main character in the story and he was born on Marune, but this scene takes place on the planet Numenes. Efraim is on Numenes seeking a cure for his amnesia. I like to imagine that the Fwai-chi can control Efraim's memory and cognitive functions because they have access to sophisticated nanotechnology: infites. I also allow myself to imagine that the Fwai-chi painted by Sweet is carrying a nanite containment vial.

image credits

A major problem that I've struggled with for years is how to illustrate stories that are about telepathy. One strategy is to give telepaths some unusual feature such as glowing eyes (see the image to the left). I don't really like this approach although on the planet Ottengla, the telepathic human residents are mostly blind.

image credits

In one of his stories (The Palace of Love), Jack Vance included a "white eyed" man as a character. That character was able to see, but I'm experimenting with white eyes as a way to create a special appearance for a family of telepaths. To the right is a "white eye" test image for Eynta, a telepathic character in "Meet the Phari" who lives with Lora on Yerophet for many years.

Cover Elements

In the image below, item #1 is meant to represent DNA. Within the structure of the helix are the figures of men and women. The Alastor Network is concerned with genetically engineering humans to have improved telepathic abilities.

21 elements in the wraparound book cover for The Alastor Network.

Some characters in the story are aliens; hermaphrodites with telepathic powers such as Grean (#16). Their gene patterns are being used to "upgrade" human telepathic abilities.

Item #2 is an embroid. The embroids on Brevik (#3) have been designed to function as integral biological components of artificial cyborgs that have telepathic abilities. All five of the planets are linked to the central Lavany embryo (#9) by the word "Alastor". 

The tryp'At Guide to Oxypathin

Lavany mind clones are soon to be born on several planets including Numenes (#18) and Yerophet (#7) and they will form a mind clone network. The larger network is the Phari Network which links together telepaths on all planets of Alastor Cluster. 

Eleyn Ursht (#8 in the elements image, above) has a large number of Asterothrope genes and she has a second row of breasts that produce the psycho-active hormone, oxypathin. Eleyn has visited Earth and found ancient sources of information about human variants such as the Asterothropes and the tryp'At who can respond to oxypathin with boosted telepathic abilities. Eleyn is holding up the issue of Future Science Fiction magazine (item #4) that contained fictionalized accounts of how the tryp'At made use of oxypathin.

Image source (credits)

Element #5 is meant to depict an alien who is monitoring the pregnancy of a human (#6) after alien gene patterns have been inserted into the woman's developing embryo. One of the common chromosomal variants used in some human variants is the "H-chromosome" (item #12).

Item #10 is the metallic container for QB5 the telepathic embroid. If QB5 is attached to a source of nutrients then travel outside of the Pegasus Embroid Project's laboratory facility on Brevik becomes possible.

There are several characters in The Alastor Network who are robots. Most of the robots in Alastor Cluster were manufactured on Triskelion (#17). The robot in this cover image, Vacu, (#11) has long been stationed on the planet Yerophet and plays an important role in The Alastor Network.

Lady and Lord Gensifer

The faces of Lord (#14) and Lady (#13) Gensifer are shown at the upper left corner of the wraparound cover. They are from the planet Yrinna (#15), one of the few planets in Alastor Cluster that does not bend to the authority of the Connatic. Lady Gensifer has a strong telepathic connection to the native Pheni of Yrinna. This becomes important in The Alastor Network when QB5 must be brought back from the dead.

Yurahs and Lo playing dress-up games.

Item 18 represents the planet Numenes, the home of Yurahs (#20) and Lo the robot (#19). In the scene shown to the left, Yurahs is dressed as a man and Lo is dressed as a female, even-though Lo was designed on Triskelion so as to be an anatomically male sex toy for Yurahs.

The final item in the wraparound book cover image for The Alastor Network (#21) is the star-filled background which is a reminder of the bright night sky of Alastor Cluster worlds. The sky is crowded with stars and "star watches" are a popular pass-time for evening gatherings on planets such as Trullion.

4x4 Telepathic Human-Alien Hybrids

Mixing gene patterns from the alien Plesypy and the Asterothropes is central to the story in The Alastor Network. Shown below, I made a wraparound cover with a family in which the father is a human-Plesypy hybrid (with 4 legs) and the mother is a human-Asterothrope hybrid:

This wraparound book cover image was made using EliseComfy10 and KayleeRelax13 by Eclesi4stiK
available under this Creative Commons license: CC BY-NC-SA 3.0

Lora?

The cover image above is in this family's mudroom in their home on Yerophet. Only one of the two children inherited genes for making blue skin and hair; this might be what the young Lora looked like.

Next: part 3 of "Meet the Phari".

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