Transformation: New Cover

I'd been staring at the second chapter in part 3, Bardo for half an hour, and as the words wouldn't flow, I decided to fix something that's been nagging me for a while - the draft front cover for Transformation.

The covers for Integration and Long Division are all based on the same image of a corridor, warped slightly, given a different hue, and then with a subtle overlay of something important to the story.

For Integration, the logo of The Stream can be seen flowing out from the centre. For Long Division, symbols relating to the resistance movement can be seen. For Transformation, however, all I'd done was warp the background image out of all recognition, and went a little too far in the process.

Hence I decided it needed revisiting. I've gone back to the original base image, warped it a little, applied a similar purple hue but also have now added a story-relevant image right in the centre of the cover.

It's a star field emerging out of nowhere, surrounded by a smoky haze. The meaning of this will soon become clear when you read Nevin's experiences on Juno in part 1, Proselytism.

Yes, I know, the execution isn't that great, especially the smoky ring around the stars. I'll work on it, but it's a much better placeholder for now, and actually means something from the story perspective. Sort of.

Right, back to writing chapter 2 of Bardo. Just did a minor rejig after chapter 1, so now there's a mere three chapters in this part: Rescue, Reality and Reincarnate. Any more would just be self indulgence and not to the benefit of the story. It's plenty weird enough as it is.

[Update] After about half an hour, the original smoky effect was starting to offend me, so I've updated it a little. That'll definitely do for now.