Luna’s Prose Ramblings

After the success of web-based DVD rental services, such as the American NetFlix or British LoveFilm, it is now finally time for an online rental service for books.

BookSwim operates by the same standard as NetFlix; monthly subscription and free shipping both ways. cnet news’ Peter Glaskowsky reviews the service.

Today, Kaleb Nation revealed the entire cover art work for his upcoming novel Bran Hambric The Farfield Curse. It is great see to the whole drawing, since it lets us see all the previously shown art detail in context.

What I had forgotten and should have known is that on the cover, the title of Bran Hambric is written with a crescent moon as the dash in the letter a of Bran. This is a nice complement to the crescent moon necklace that Bran is holding in his hand. I have commented the day before yesterday that the necklace is important, but now that I see the whole image I wonder whether the necklace is Bran’s or someone else’s. Mind you… I haven’t read the first four chapters of the book yet that Kaleb has made available on his site and the answer might just be in there. But the way Bran is holding the necklace suggests that either it isn’t his and he just took it from someone or somewhere, or the necklace is his, but he is afraid to lose it when he wears it around his neck or have it in his pocket. Either way, the necklace is important !

Then the surroundings. By the discolouration of green and orange, I still think Bran is at a warehouse, with big metal doors behind him. Although it might also be an artists’ impression of a big glass shop front. It is a fairly narrow alley, though, rather than a street and that is not the most typical place for a shop front.

Other than that, the pose in which Bran is standing we can now clearly see that he is trying to get away from the person in the background. The way Bran is angled towards the shape suggests that Bran is trying to correct for overbalancing while in movement. So either Bran ran into that alleyway and tries to turn the other direction when he sees the shape further down or he ended in that position of adjustment by jumping down off of or out of the building facing us and starts to move away when he lands on the pavement. Either way, very dynamic pose of Bran’s !

I really like the cover art for Bran Hambric’s first forage into the world and am very impressed with Brandon Dorman’s style. And although I hope Kaleb will be a TwiCrit forever, I can’t wait to see whether my analysis of Bran’s art corresponds to what awaits us inside the cover.

Today Kaleb Nation revealed a bit more of the cover art for his novel Bran Hambric: The Farfield Curse.

In comparison to yesterday’s snippet, this newly shown shard of cover artwork don’t spoil much more. Although I’m not expecting any major surprises, the rest of the artwork will be revealed tomorrow.

I am eagerly awaiting the release of author/TwiCrit Kaleb Nation’s debut novel Bran Hambric: The Farfield Curse.

A while ago Kaleb told us that Brandon Dorman was going to be illustrating The Farfield Curse. Dorman is mostly known for his work on the Goosebumps series.

After showing us the first magnificent drawing by Dorman,

Kaleb today revealed the partially obscured cover art for The Farfield Curse;

I have the preview chapters that were graciously made available by Kaleb, but I haven’t read them yet, because I really would rather just sink in my comfy chair with the book when it comes out. Anticipation… it can kill. But the glimpse of cover art is a nice piece of the puzzle that is the novel waiting to be published.

When looking closely at the partially obscured cover art, my guess is – and it’s an obvious one – that the main eye catcher is Bran in front of a warehouse, probably the same warehouse he is waiting on top of at the start of the book. In this drawing, Bran is holding a crescent necklace. The same crescent that has been a teaser for the book ever since the start of Bran’s steps into the open. The crescent necklace is important.

In the back, there is also a hooded man in a trench coat or cape of some sort. If this art represents part of the opening sequence of the book, it could be the banker or the burglar. I would say burglar by the way he is dressed. So the question that this drawing raises is, is Bran chasing the man or running from him ? For the moment, I would say running… and that would make sense if it’s the burglar who is after Bran.

The burglar is walking towards two lights. Car headlights ? Is it the man’s car ? Or someone elses ? Is the man alone in the background or has someone in the car already spotted Bran ?

Looks like another gorgeous piece of artwork and a nice tantalising way to reveal it. Stay tuned for more artwork of Bran Hambric tomorrow.

It’s not everyday one gets to ponder the importance of The 2009-2014 World Outlook for 60-Milligram Containers of Fromage Frais. And it’s certainly not everyday that a person decides to spend 795 British Pounds to find out more about it. But at least the book, written by Philip M. Parker, a professor of marketing at the French campus of Insead international business school, has attained the dubious laud of The Bookseller magazine’s Bookseller/Diagram Prize for Oddest Book Title of the Year.

Philip Stone, the magazine’s charts editor and awards administrator wrote in the congratulatory statement;

“What does the future hold for these items? Well, given that fromage frais normally comes in 60-gram containers, one would assume that the world outlook for 0.06-gram containers of fromage frais is pretty bleak. But I’m not willing to pay £795 to find out.”

Runners-up for the award were Curbside Consultation of the Colon, The Large Sieve and Its Applications, Strip and Knit With Style and Techniques for Corrosion Monitoring.

The BBC has a wonderful article on the joys of oral histories and a project called StoryCorps, which collects them.

Running Press and author/game developer Jordan Weisman, of the popular series Cathy’s book, have come to an agreement for two new interactive young adult series. Where Cathy’s book already got readers off the page and to designated telephone recordings and websites, the two new series will be even more elaborate.

The first book in the Nanovor series, Hacked, which is set to be released December 2009, will tie-in its story of students finding a virulent life form in their computers, with a specially designed exclusive hand-held computer and game designed by Weisman’s company Smith & Tinker.

The second series Lost Souls will feature three books of which the first, Burning Sky, is set to be released in the Spring of 2010. The game is described as a multimedia adventure and will have readers visiting websites and playing along with an included physical board game.