Reposting from my blog:
I was just on my way out the door, heading over to the university so I could get some writing done in the quiet of one of its libraries (something I often do when I really need to focus on my work without the distractions of the Internet, TV, etc.), when what should I see resting against my door but a box bearing the Simon & Schuster label? I opened it to behold this:
Well, plus one more, but after I put it on my shelf I didn’t want to bother to replace it just for the photo. The cover is darker than the images online have led me to believe:
There it looks mostly orange, but those hues are more muted on the actual cover, with the dominant color being the deep brown of the background, a hue that reminds me of dark chocolate (yum!). It makes for a subtler, less flashy cover, which is fitting, but still a striking one. And it diminishes the resemblance to the cover of last month’s TNG: Indistinguishable from Magic by David A. McIntee, which used similar colors and design elements (and whose cover also looks brighter onscreen than in reality).
Unfortunately, it seems we were too late to correct an error in the back cover copy. It opens with “There’s likely no more of a thankless job in Starfleet than temporal investigation,” when it should say “in the Federation,” since the DTI is a civilian agency. A major aspect of the book is that it approaches things from a civilian perspective rather than a Starfleet perspective, so I was really hoping we could get that fixed on the actual cover, and not just on the catalog page. But I have been assured that it will be fixed if the book goes into reprints.
On the plus side, there was a continuity error that I only discovered very late in the process, and I’m relieved to see that the correction I requested did actually make it into the final version. Which underlines how different the pacing of production is between covers and interiors of a book. That’s kind of wild.
For a while now, this book has been referred to as Star Trek: DTI: Watching the Clock, but the cover spelled out “Department of Temporal Investigations.” I was wondering how that was going to be handled in various places, like on the spine of the book. Apparently it’s now been decided that it will be consistently referred to as Star Trek: Department of Temporal Investigations: Watching the Clock. That’s what it says on the front, the spine, the title page, and now the catalog page, as well as the Amazon.com page. The page headings within merely say “WATCHING THE CLOCK.” But for convenience, I’ll probably continue to use the DTI abbreviation when I discuss it.
Now, for the rest of you, the book probably won’t be available yet for another 2-3 weeks. But don’t worry. As Einstein said, “People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.”
(By the way, does anyone know why Facebook wouldn't let me share this post? The original has links to Amazon.com and Simon & Schuster's catalog -- maybe Facebook interpreted it as spam?)
I was just on my way out the door, heading over to the university so I could get some writing done in the quiet of one of its libraries (something I often do when I really need to focus on my work without the distractions of the Internet, TV, etc.), when what should I see resting against my door but a box bearing the Simon & Schuster label? I opened it to behold this:
Well, plus one more, but after I put it on my shelf I didn’t want to bother to replace it just for the photo. The cover is darker than the images online have led me to believe:
There it looks mostly orange, but those hues are more muted on the actual cover, with the dominant color being the deep brown of the background, a hue that reminds me of dark chocolate (yum!). It makes for a subtler, less flashy cover, which is fitting, but still a striking one. And it diminishes the resemblance to the cover of last month’s TNG: Indistinguishable from Magic by David A. McIntee, which used similar colors and design elements (and whose cover also looks brighter onscreen than in reality).
Unfortunately, it seems we were too late to correct an error in the back cover copy. It opens with “There’s likely no more of a thankless job in Starfleet than temporal investigation,” when it should say “in the Federation,” since the DTI is a civilian agency. A major aspect of the book is that it approaches things from a civilian perspective rather than a Starfleet perspective, so I was really hoping we could get that fixed on the actual cover, and not just on the catalog page. But I have been assured that it will be fixed if the book goes into reprints.
On the plus side, there was a continuity error that I only discovered very late in the process, and I’m relieved to see that the correction I requested did actually make it into the final version. Which underlines how different the pacing of production is between covers and interiors of a book. That’s kind of wild.
For a while now, this book has been referred to as Star Trek: DTI: Watching the Clock, but the cover spelled out “Department of Temporal Investigations.” I was wondering how that was going to be handled in various places, like on the spine of the book. Apparently it’s now been decided that it will be consistently referred to as Star Trek: Department of Temporal Investigations: Watching the Clock. That’s what it says on the front, the spine, the title page, and now the catalog page, as well as the Amazon.com page. The page headings within merely say “WATCHING THE CLOCK.” But for convenience, I’ll probably continue to use the DTI abbreviation when I discuss it.
Now, for the rest of you, the book probably won’t be available yet for another 2-3 weeks. But don’t worry. As Einstein said, “People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.”
(By the way, does anyone know why Facebook wouldn't let me share this post? The original has links to Amazon.com and Simon & Schuster's catalog -- maybe Facebook interpreted it as spam?)
