Hierion Tubes

My most recent draft of a fantasy book cover.
See below for information about the images
from diviantART that I used in this composite.

As described in my previous blog post, I've been trying to devise some cover art for Thomas Iwedon's fantasy novel, Daveed the Luk'ie. To the right on this page is my latest incarnation of the book cover.

That's Daveed down there in the lower right corner. He has been carefully crafted to have a human appearance, but he is a Luk'ie, a being with the special ability to communicate with the Sedronic Domain.

The 3 Domains of the Universe
The Luk'ie normally inhabit the Hierion Domain, and in this image that's where Daveed is, but he's just about to cross over into the Domain of we Earthlings. There, just on the other side of the Hierion Tube, is a pek, ready to pull Daveed through the Tube to where she is waiting, on Earth.

Don't be disoriented by the mismatch between the gravitational field of Earth and that being experienced by Daveed. The Hierion Domain is like a bridge that connects the Hadronic Domain of our daily existence to the Sedronic Domain. The Hierion Domain exists outside of the usual flow of time as we experience it here on Earth.

Image Credits

the magical pek

Kayla Davion

As described in my previous blog post, I went searching through the "stock" images at deviantART to find the elements for this new cover image. I modified the image of Kayla Davion to make the magical pek for this cover image.

I modified the eyes, ears and nose to create a non-human elf-like appearance.

The pek are artificial life forms and able to take on any desired shape and form. However, in my attempt to create the feel of a fantasy book cover, I tried to use a well-known fantasy element. I fear that the pointy elf ear is not easy to notice among the decorative leaves on her head. Also, the pointy nose does not show up well unless you zoom in.

stock background image #46 by user lifeblue at deviantART

For the background, I found a stock image by user lifeblue at deviantART. I wanted to use this particular image because it looks like a magical portal between Earth and the artificial Hierion Domain.

There are several other images (including #61 and #70) in lifeblue's background gallery that struck me as possible representations of a portal between our world and the Hierion Domain, but #46 was my favorite.

The large swinging door is what prompted me to tilt the portal by 90 degrees, allowing everything to fit more gracefully onto a vertically-oriented book cover.

jason aaron baca dec3068free vas

To represent the fictional character Daveed, I found a suitable image of Jason Aaron Baca in a photograph by Portia Shao. Jason has a gallery of images that he freely shares for use in non-commercial settings and he also sells his high quality photos for use in commercial book cover art. I needed to find a model who was in a pose that was complementary to that of Kayla.

The vase became a way to magically link the two characters at the interface between the two Domains.

I fear that my instincts are still largely based on science fiction themes, but hopefully my lighting effects are able to pass as magical rather than disrupting the fantasy theme with the feel of SciFi laser beams.

Science and Magic by Thomas

I found an inspirational painting by Thomas at deviantART that helps me think about the difference between cover art themes that are appropriate for either science fiction or fantasy stories.

brooch detail

Does the "Nuclear powered Super heroine Atomic Blonde" use cold fusion? I love the brooch that holds her scarf in place (see image detail to the right, click image to enlarge).

Be sure to take a look at the high resolution version of this drawing that is available for download.

belt detail (source)

Also, take a look at the original "Nucular Lass". I like the belt decoration (see detail to the left). 

 How is this for a super power: "give everyone cancer by talking to them".
Wait...I've known some people like that...

fake magazine cover

I could not resist making a fake pulp magazine cover for the Atomic Blonde. This "Atomic Science Stories" cover (shown to the right) is inspired by a classic pulp science fiction cover created by Lawrence Sterne Stevens for the Super Science Stories April 1949 issue.

source

Why did Thomas Iwedon write A science fiction story called "Atomic Blonde" and how did the drawing "Science and Magic" get used for the cover art of a magazine in in 1957?  I'm imagining that Atomic Science Stories was published in the Ekcolir Reality. Maybe Trysta liked to view the deviantART website in our Reality from within the Ekcolir Reality and she showed "Science and Magic" to Stevens.

Next: another fantasy book cover by Thomas Iwedon's Return to Tar'tron.

More imaginary book covers

visit the Gallery of Book and Magazine Covers

Enlightenment

I've been struggling to construct a space in my brain for fantasy. As part of that struggle to expand my writing beyond the confines of science fiction, I recently blogged about belief in supernatural non-material consciousness as a natural component of fantasy stories. Here, I want to explore enlightenment as a supernatural element of fantasy and relate it to both the Exode Trilogy and my imaginary fantasy novel, Daveed the Luk'ie.

The human brain constantly synthesizes and integrates a lifetime of experience, quickly providing us with an answer to the endless question: what should I do next? Brains are good at white-washing gaps in our knowledge and understanding. A brain is constantly making estimates that are good enough to get us through life, just good enough so that we need not be distracted by our own ignorance.

In the Exode Trilogy, I imagine that the pek have designed the human brain so that it is a trivial matter to regulate human ingenuity and the pace of technological advancement. The pek use nanites to regulate human brain activity, switching off human creativity whenever the pace of technological change on Earth becomes too rapid.

A fantasy story can adopt a supernatural perspective on human enlightenment. Here, I'm using "enlightenment" in the sense related here: "many fantasy novels are simply loaded with existential and/or spiritual enlightenment".

My logical perspective tells me that there is a formula for enlightenment: question everything. Or, as Carl Sagan put it: just combine Skepticism and Wonder.

If stories in the fantasy genre interest readers because "excitement and wonder can be found in imagining impossible things" then does that mean that fans of fantasy prefer to skip skepticism and simply accept anything that a fantasy author sticks in a story, no matter how nonsensical?

Grean the Traitor
In the fantasy novel Daveed the Luk'ie by Thomas Iwedon, Daveed is an analog of Grean, the Kac'hin who puts and end to the Time War that has raged between the Huaoshy and R. Gohrlay. Since R. Gohrlay's positronic robots are programmed to defend Humanity, by siding with the aliens isn't Grean a traitor to the human cause?

Daveed, and indeed, all the Kac'hin, are brought into existence by the pek. Daveed is simply the individual who is selected to be the one Kac'hin who negotiates with Trysta over how to end the Time War. In the fanciful cover illustration to the left on this page (above), Thomas shows Daveed being magically brought into time from out of the Hierion Domain.

Since Grean (re-named "Daveed" in Thomas' version of the story) makes use of the Bimanoid Interface to "channel" the Huaoshy into the Hadronic Domain, how can a reader of the Exode Trilogy know whether or not Grean is just a puppet, forced to to the bidding of the aliens? Teasing the reader with such doubts is about as close as I can come to making Exode a horror story.

dimensional
engineering

If there is a deep literary point to Exode, it is getting readers to question whether we are puppets, whether we Earthlings are unable to conquer our addiction to fossil fuels and prevent global warming and a coming ecological disaster. The Huaoshy follow an ethical code that aims to protect "Garden Worlds" like Earth from ignorant technology-wielding primates. If so, then why do the Huaoshy hand we Earthlings an opportunity to develop a technological civilization on Earth, particularly when they know very well the mess we are likely to make of things here on this fragile little planet?

Part of the answer to that question is that while dealing with primitive primates in the Exode Trilogy, the Huaoshy undergo their own enlightenment. They realize that the discovery of time travel by the positronic robots of Earth is a blessing in disguise. After fighting a long Time Travel War with R. Gohrlay, the Huaoshy finally realize that they can put an end to time travel by altering the dimensional structure of the universe. In so doing, they inactivate the capacity of the "Eternity Device" on the Moon to function as a time travel machine, but it will remain forever as a generator of sedronic matter.

_______________________

source

Image Credits. My image search for "enlightenment" turned up Brad Warner's book (see the pulpish book cover to the right).

by Roman Snytsar

The new version of a cover concept for Daveed the Luk'ie (above, on this page) makes use of a photo by Roman Snytsar. 

The pek are composed of zeptites that confer seemingly magical powers. In this latest conceptual sketch of a fantasy book cover for Daveed the Luk'ie, I try to depict a pek walking on water.

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For the pool I used an image from this blog.

The guy (Daveed) was made using an image from the Serene Dreams website.

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The next round in my attempt to craft he fantasy cover for Daveed the Luk'ie.

visit the Gallery of Book and Magazine Covers