That Seventies Cover has a Blurb Now!

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

Mostly just happy I have a blurb, and wanting to share. Also feeling guilty and stupid this isn’t out (or fully revised) yet.

Sufficiently advanced science is indistinguishable from magic.

On a lost colony world, mad geneticists thought they could eliminate inequality by making everyone hermaphrodite. They were wrong. Catastrophically wrong.
Now technology indistinguishable from magic courses through the veins of the inhabitants, making their barbaric civilization survivable—and Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus Kayel Hayden, Viscount Webson—Star Empire envoy—has just crash-landed through a time-space rift into the middle of it all.
Dodging assassins and plummeting from high windows was just the beginning. With a desperate king and an archmagician as his only allies, Scipio must outrun death itself while battling beasts, traitors, and infiltrators bent on finishing what the founders started: total destruction.
Two worlds. One chance. No time to lose.

…. so that’s it. Meanwhile I’m moderating a panel on Space Opera tropes in less than half an hour. I’m in my room, getting some introversion time. Don’t know I’ll hit the parties tonight. Maybe one or two.

And you, what are you guys up to?

34 thoughts on “That Seventies Cover has a Blurb Now!”

  2. Finished a novel draft yesterday – 102K words. Brain still recovering. Will start edits on next Familiar Generations novel tomorrow. Am reading archaeology in between.

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        2. The Gods of the Copybook Headings wanted to give an interview, but we denied them, and they are the only ones who say that.

          As I pass through my incarnations in every age and race,
          I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.
          Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
          And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.

          We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
          That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
          But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
          So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.

          We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
          Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place,
          But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
          That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.

          With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch,
          They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch;
          They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings;
          So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.

          When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
          They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
          But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
          And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “Stick to the Devil you know.”

          On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
          (Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
          Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
          And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “The Wages of Sin is Death.”

          In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
          By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
          But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
          And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “If you don’t work you die.”

          Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew,
          And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
          That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four–
          And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.

          As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
          There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
          That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
          And the burnt Fool’s bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;

          And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
          When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
          As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
          The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!

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  11. Lying on my bed in the hotel room, recovering from day 1of LibertyCon and a late dinner at City Cafe Diner’s new location.

    Liked by 1 person

  12. Nice cover and blurb.

    Great to finally meet Sarah, Dan and several other Huns today as well as several authors. Looking forward to tomorrow. Now for some Advil and Biofreeze and sleep.

    Liked by 1 person

  14. Picked up my 3rd new medication at Costco. Took mom with me.

    Dinner tonight was birthday celebration for son. 36 years ago today Friday (okay, yesterday now), June 20, at 8:20 PM, our only miracle was born.

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    1. Ours are both miracles. older has bday in two weeks and whole family is getting together. It’s more and more rare now, and I like it so much when all of us are together.

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    1. I wish you were here. I also wish I had more energy. I’m still in the room. Dan is in his first panel. I had tea and took a caffeine pill.
      COME ON CHEMISTRY.

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  16. Believe it or not, I’m trying to make the classical derivation of Heron’s Formula clear and sort of intuitive. If the Mathematician asks why, I wanted a challenge.

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  17. Just go home yesterday after being post surgery support for my mom’s hip replacement so I’m missing Liberty Con.

    Excited to see the cover and blurb. I’ve moved twice since I was sent that first excerpt to see if I got it what you were doing.

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  18. Just go home yesterday after being post surgery support for my mom’s hip replacement so I’m missing Liberty Con.

    Excited to see the cover and blurb. I’ve moved twice since I was sent that first excerpt to see if I got it what you were doing.

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  19. As I was imagining writing the book to fit that blurb, my first thought was “ok, I’ll have to remember to put the assassination attempts and the plummeting from windows early on in the story!”

    My second thought was “what are you thinking?!? This is a blurb!!! I can put that stuff anywhere I want in the novel, or even skip it altogether if I feel like it!”

    (And I’m now reminded of my favorite comment made about the movie “Starship Troopers”: “Based on the blurb of a novel by RAH!”)

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      1. Well, in theory, that’s how blurbs are supposed to work. In practice? Sometimes you have to wonder if the blurb writer even read the book! (And in some cases, the answer is even “no, no they didn’t”.)

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    2. As long as it doesn’t serve as a spoiler, or leaving the reader thinking, half way through the book, “Where’s the Big Ka-Boom?”

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