Feeling More Upbeat -- and a Cover Reveal!

The White Bird leads Mor'gwai
through the Wandering Rocks
(Click for larger view)

Back Cover, with Map and
Illustration of Is'a'pai'a and Krai'zei
(Click for larger view)

     





















       I've finished the first revision of The Buried Ship at the End of the World, the sequel to the six-volume series The Labors of Ki'shto'ba Huge-Head.  I expect to publish it within a couple of months, so I thought I would reveal the cover art.  I've also done the two maps for the paperback and the colored version for the back cover, but I haven't put them up yet on the Map page.   This will be the cover unless I come up with something better.  The problem is not to give away too much of the plot of either this volume or the sixth volume, so subject matter is limited.  Comments are welcome!
       I was pretty disgruntled when I wrote the blog post back in June,  but things have gotten a little better.  I finally figured out how to adapt the horrific Medea story -- it's still horrific, but more in keeping with the culture and the inhabitants of the world in which I laid it. The style and tone are different from the other six volumes in the series, but that makes some sense since it's not written by Di'fa'kro'mi the Remembrancer.  After all, intelligent termites are just like humans-- no two authors write exactly alike! Besides, we have a different narrator in this book. I like the story pretty well, better than I thought I would when I was writing the early chapters.

       But I can't help being a little sad.  I won't be writing any more books about this particular cast of termite characters and I'm going to miss them so much!  I've pondered several different takes -- a Sherlock Holmes adaptation, even a retelling of Huckleberry Finn, all in the context of the termite culture.  And then there is the possibility of a story laid several thousand years into the future, after the Shshi have become high tech and are about to fly off to the stars themselves.  In the meantime, The Man Who Found Birds among the Stars beckons.  So what will I do next?