{"id":6730,"date":"2016-06-09T11:23:13","date_gmt":"2016-06-09T19:23:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/?p=6730"},"modified":"2016-06-09T11:29:27","modified_gmt":"2016-06-09T19:29:27","slug":"books-and-banana","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/?p=6730","title":{"rendered":"Books and Banana."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Here&#8217;s the latest in an intermittent series of self-related roundups from around the world, which\u2014 while perhaps lacking a certain focus\u2014 culminates in what has to qualify as The Best Author Photo Of All Time.<\/p>\n<p>But let&#8217;s start small, and build to it:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>It&#8217;s only a Recommended list, not a Required one, but it&#8217;s nice to see that Blindsight made <a href=\"http:\/\/reading.berkeley.edu\/\">Berkeley&#8217;s 2016 Summer Reading List<\/a>. Especially since said list is not even genre-based.<\/li>\n<li>From the ever-growing list of &#8220;Look Who I&#8217;ve Inspired Though Myself They Haven&#8217;t Hired&#8221; game companies: I get name-checked along with Harrison, Moorcock, Simmons, Zelazny\u2014 oh and the &#8220;Heavy Metal&#8221; Movie\u2014 as an influence on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.gamegrin.com\/articles\/torment-tides-of-numenera-interview\/\">Torment: Tides of Numenera<\/a>. Of course, we all take a back seat to Gene Wolfe, but that&#8217;s as it should be.<\/li>\n<li>This one gives me shivers. Courtesy of a dude named Danil Krivoruchko, one of several images which come closer than any I&#8217;ve seen to the actual vision of <em>Rorschach<\/em> that haunted my brain when I was writing <em>Blindsight<\/em>:<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div id=\"attachment_6731\" style=\"width: 623px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/rorschach-quarter-draft-Krivoruchko.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-6731\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-6731\" class=\" wp-image-6731\" src=\"http:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/rorschach-quarter-draft-Krivoruchko.jpg\" alt=\"Embers and lightning. Tweak the allometry a bit and it'll be just about perfect.\" width=\"613\" height=\"344\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/rorschach-quarter-draft-Krivoruchko.jpg 999w, https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/rorschach-quarter-draft-Krivoruchko-300x168.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/rorschach-quarter-draft-Krivoruchko-768x431.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 613px) 100vw, 613px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-6731\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Embers and lightning. Tweak the allometry a bit and it&#8217;ll be just about perfect.<\/p><\/div>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">It&#8217;s only a rough draft, mind you. Still under construction. I can&#8217;t wait to see what the finished product looks like.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>More rough drafts, this time from <a href=\"http:\/\/bureau21.net\/13-manchu\">Manchu<\/a>: a couple of options for the cover of the upcoming <em>Au-del<\/em><em>\u00e0 du Gouffre <\/em>(which I originally took to mean &#8220;Audience of Guff&#8221;, but which is apparently French for <em>Beyond the Rift<\/em>):<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/Beyond-The-Abyss-by-Manchu.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-6734\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-6734\" src=\"http:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/Beyond-The-Abyss-by-Manchu.jpg\" alt=\"Beyond-The-Abyss-by-Manchu\" width=\"632\" height=\"504\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/Beyond-The-Abyss-by-Manchu.jpg 1000w, https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/Beyond-The-Abyss-by-Manchu-300x239.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/Beyond-The-Abyss-by-Manchu-768x612.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 632px) 100vw, 632px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Although these too are preliminary, I&#8217;m pretty sure I&#8217;m not violating any kind of embargo since Le B\u00e9lia\u013e has already <a href=\"http:\/\/forums.belial.fr\/viewtopic.php?p=47084\">polled their forum<\/a> to help choose between them. (I think they&#8217;re both pretty great. I think they should go with both, and release two editions.)<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">*\u00a0\u00a0 *\u00a0\u00a0 *<\/p>\n<p>But Finally.\u00a0 <strong>Finally. <\/strong>The moment I&#8217;ve been waiting to share with you all:<\/p>\n<table class=\" aligncenter\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"319\">\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/BS-Turkish01.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-6733\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-6733\" src=\"http:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/BS-Turkish01-674x1024.jpg\" alt=\"BS-Turkish01\" width=\"299\" height=\"455\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/BS-Turkish01-674x1024.jpg 674w, https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/BS-Turkish01-197x300.jpg 197w, https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/BS-Turkish01-768x1167.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/BS-Turkish01.jpg 1000w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 299px) 100vw, 299px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td width=\"319\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/BS-Turkish02.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-6732\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-6732\" src=\"http:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/BS-Turkish02-670x1024.jpg\" alt=\"BS-Turkish02\" width=\"301\" height=\"460\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/BS-Turkish02-670x1024.jpg 670w, https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/BS-Turkish02-196x300.jpg 196w, https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/BS-Turkish02-768x1174.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/BS-Turkish02.jpg 1000w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 301px) 100vw, 301px\" \/><\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p>You may look over at this cover for <em>Blindsight<\/em>&#8216;s Turkish edition, and wonder why. Oh, it&#8217;s a fine cover, no doubt about it. A bit spaceship-generic maybe but the lighting is nice. It gleams, it pops, it does everything cover art is supposed to do. Still. You may wonder at my excitement, until you look at the back cover.<\/p>\n<p>Until you look at the <em>lower left<\/em> back cover.<\/p>\n<p>The Author photo, if you haven&#8217;t caught on yet.\u00a0 Click on the image if you must; it gets bigger.<\/p>\n<p>I have been trying for <em>years <\/em>to get publishers to adopt <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/?p=2814\">Banana<\/a> as my official head shot. I have sent them Banana when they asked for an author photo. I have set precedent by inserting Banana into my own, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rifters.com\/blindsight\/covers\/covers.htm\">collectors-edition <em>Blindsight<\/em> covers<\/a>. I have suggested and wheedled and begged over drinks.<\/p>\n<p>Finally, success.<\/p>\n<p>The weird thing is, I don&#8217;t think I ever actually asked the Turks to do this. I don&#8217;t even remember having any direct contact with them; everything was negotiated overseas, the whole contract was a done deal before I even knew it was in the works. And yet, somehow they knew. Somehow, the Turks stepped up when others stepped back.<\/p>\n<p>Thank you, G\u00fcrer Publishing and marketing Trade Co. Ltd. I don&#8217;t know you. I don&#8217;t know how you knew. But it was a grand and noble thing you did, for a grand and noble old cat.<\/p>\n<p>If Banana were here today, he wouldn&#8217;t give a shit.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Here&#8217;s the latest in an intermittent series of self-related roundups from around the world, which\u2014 while perhaps lacking a certain focus\u2014 culminates in what has to qualify as The Best Author Photo Of All Time. But let&#8217;s start small, and build to it: It&#8217;s only a Recommended list, not a Required one, but it&#8217;s nice [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36,47,9,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art-on-ink","category-beyond-the-rift","category-blindsight","category-ink-on-art"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6730","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6730"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6730\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6749,"href":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6730\/revisions\/6749"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}