magic dirt cover

[adelaidesean]

Below, in all its glory, is the cover of Magic Dirt: the best of Sean Williams. Classy, huh? The photos are taken by Mike Mission, whose extraordinary "asphalt archaeology" snapshots from Manhattan Island were recently featured on Boing Boing. There's a much larger version of the cover here, if you want to see the pictures we've chosen in more detail.

I'm also very pleased to reveal that intro to the book is written by John Harwood, author of the brilliant The Ghost Writer (winner of the International Horror Guild Award for Best First Novel and the Dracula Society's Children of the Night Award, also listed in the very credible Miles Franklin Award and Commonwealth Writers Prize) and the forthcoming The Séance. Because I love the intro so much (and am immensely flattered by the things he says) I've pasted a paragraph below the cover.

The book itself is available in limited and numbered editions through Ticonderoga Publications and will be launched at Swancon. Comes with free haiku!



"Reading these stories is like lucid dreaming, in which you dream that you’re lying awake in your own bed; the room is exactly as it would be in waking life, until the impossible intrudes. Sean Williams doesn’t simply stay one step ahead of his reader; he knows how to make you believe you know exactly where he’s going, while steering you down a far more sinister path. The immediacy of the action is never compromised, but there’s an unnerving resonance, a shadow cast (shadows often carry a particular charge in his work) which doesn’t quite match up with the object supposedly casting it."

Comments

[maelorin]

cool.

[seanwilliams.livejournal.com]

i'm glad you think so :-)

[catsparx.livejournal.com]

Dig the cover! Seriously awesome.

[seanwilliams.livejournal.com]

Hurrah! Russell worked very hard to make it so excellent. He did a wonderful job, I think, and I'm really excited by it.

[norilana.livejournal.com]

Beautiful cover! Love it...

[seanwilliams.livejournal.com]

Excellent! Thanks. :-)

[satimaflavell.livejournal.com]

Nice! I'll add it to my Swancon wish list.

[seanwilliams.livejournal.com]

Hurrah! Russell will be pleased. :-)

[millisynth.livejournal.com]

I would have called it
"Sean Williams : His Best Bits"

Hmmm... I guess that's why I'm not in marketing. :-/

Btw, I love the cover. I keep looking at those weird metallic objects and wondering "I wonder what that actually is?"
(Kinda reminds of the X-Files episode where Dana finds the spaceship on the beach in Africa.)

[seanwilliams.livejournal.com]

"Sean Williams: Choice Cuts"

:-)

Which X-Files episode was that? I stopped watching around season five...

x files

[millisynth.livejournal.com]

Im guessing it was the end of season 6 ("Biogenesis") and the start of season 7 ("The Sixth Extinction"), so I'll leave this threat right here...

[millisynth.livejournal.com]

Im looking at the cover - third picture down:

It's either a roller skate or a robot mouse?

[seanwilliams.livejournal.com]

Are you looking at the larger image? It's a lot clearer.
http://www.seanwilliams.com/photos/covers/magicdirtfull.jpg
Probably won't help you work out what that particular image is, though. :-) I call it "the squid". The one below it looks to me like an anime version of the rock monster from Galaxy Quest.

Really glad you like it, anyway. I think your title would sell a lot more copies!