Elizabeth Barrette (ysabetwordsmith) wrote,
Elizabeth Barrette
ysabetwordsmith
  • Mood: busy

Chasing the golden thread...

My short story "Goldenthread" is still slated for anthology publication in March 2009, which is encouraging.

The book's title has changed again, though. First it was The Age of Blood and Snow, which was really cool and memorable. Then it was supposed to be The Scorched Earth, which I thought was kind of meh. Now it's going to be Dead Souls, which I find actively off-putting.

The cover ... well, maybe other folks will like it. I'm putting it behind a cut because I would so not pick up a book with that cover unless I had a compelling reason to do so. I'm just not a horror fan, and the farther this project goes, the less it seems like dark fantasy (the original target, and my story's genre) and the more it seems like Horror. Along with the cover is the publisher's blurb, subject to change, but an advance peek at the tone and theme.





"And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep."

Genesis 1:2

Darkness was first, before God brought the light, yet the light could not cover all, for shadows remain. They grow and fester and infect.

Dead Souls contains tales that explore the darker side of the soul, those that could not escape the shadows that followed them and even those that embraced them.

From the human being, inherently cruel, to the perceived influence of another, to a physical malevolent force, Dead Souls explores the depths of humanity as a lesson to the ignorant, the naive, the unwary.

The light is a temporary grace given to us by a benevolent force that will ultimately fail us, for the darkness is stronger and our souls... our souls are truly dead.
Tags: fiction, reading
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  • 8 comments
glitteringlynx

glitteringlynx

October 5 2008, 04:08:11 UTC 12 years ago

Quite frankly, I wouldn't want religion being brought up in an introduction to a book containing fiction. If the book contained a lot of Christianity or stuff of similar significance that would be different. The publisher's note alone would be off-putting for me.

The cover is okay, but doesn't seem to make sense with the title of "dead souls." What does a spider on an eyeball (presumably a corpse) have to do with souls?
glitteringlynx

glitteringlynx

October 5 2008, 04:09:41 UTC 12 years ago

Re the publisher's note:

They could start with "Dead Souls contains..." to the end. That would be sufficient, would it not?
ysabetwordsmith

ysabetwordsmith

October 5 2008, 04:12:00 UTC 12 years ago

Oh, the religion thang? *chuckle* My story draws on Hindu and Kashmiri culture for its setting, and English folk ballads for its plot dynamics. Perhaps the Genesis reference matches some other batch of stories in the table of contents.
glitteringlynx

glitteringlynx

October 5 2008, 05:35:12 UTC 12 years ago

Okay, that makes a bit more sense. If he'd mentioned religious subjects from a couple of the stories and pulled it in, it would not have seemed so striking I suppose.

*pushes the context sensitive button to make sense of things*

*apologies to any non-gamers who don't get the reference*
alaneer

alaneer

October 5 2008, 05:08:32 UTC 12 years ago

I think the cover nicely illustrates "Dead Souls" as the eye doesn't blink. I like it.

Congrats on the sale!
themaskmaker

themaskmaker

October 5 2008, 13:51:21 UTC 12 years ago

oh, ewww. No, if I saw this book on the shelf, I wouldn't buy it.
minor_architect

minor_architect

October 5 2008, 14:52:17 UTC 12 years ago

I agree, the cover shown here just screams, "Horror anthology ahead!" (Pun intentional. ;) It also looks as if the editor sifted through a bunch of stock photographs for the cover art, instead of designing something more fitting to the book's theme.
talithakalago

talithakalago

October 6 2008, 02:22:44 UTC 12 years ago

I like the eye and the spider. I think they look neat, but I'm a horror fan. Not sure about the black edging and I agree with you on the titles. 'Dead Souls' sounds more like it would appeal to a tweleve year old--I would have thought it was cool at that age. Grin.