The Hidden Truth: Pick a Cover!

If you watch this space, you’ll soon be learning more about my forthcoming science fiction thriller: The Hidden Truth. I’ll start serializing it in a few weeks. In the meantime, I’ll provide you with a teaser blurb, a more elaborate synopsis, and ask your assistance on choosing a cover. Here’s the teaser blurb.

Who are they?
What are they hiding?
What do they want?

When a young man in Appalachia uncovers a century-old conspiracy to rewrite the history of science, he’ll need all the help he can get from his friends and family to uncover and outwit the conspirators – because the conspiracy is pervasive, and the conspirators will protect their secrets at all costs.

Here’s a more elaborate synopsis:

It is a world in which Gore defeated Bush, and the 9/11 hijackers succeeded in their attacks on the White House and Capital. President Lieberman has attacked the Afghan training camps and taken on the hijacker’s Saudi financiers. Key Internet infrastructure has been consolidated in a government backed monopoly, Omnitia. Of more concern in Sherman, Tennessee, the carbon taxes enacted in the the Preserving our Planet’s Future Act have devastated the Appalachian coal industry. Global warming deniers are up in arms against what they call the “Gore Tax,” despite the fact that this bold action has caused temperatures to level off in the years since its passage. But all these international and domestic events don’t appear to directly impinge on the life of a high school student. Preparing for debate tournaments, studying for class, and hanging out with a friend watching the second season of Firefly are higher on the agenda.

While studying in an old library, however, our young hero discovers hints that history has been rewritten. An old book doesn’t exactly match the scans available on Omnitia. Who altered it? When? Why? Five brilliant scientists that historian of science Bruce J. Hunt dubbed, The Maxwellians, were responsible for the development of electromagnetics: John Clerk Maxwell, Heinrich Hertz, George Francis Fitzgerald, Oliver Heaviside, and Oliver Lodge. The first three died in the primes of their lives before they could complete their life’s work. Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, but three times is enemy action. But who is this enemy? And why was the history of electromagnetics rewritten?

Answering these questions takes our hero on a quest to discover the hidden truth. He learns that there is a hidden truth, and that ruthless people are prepared to kill anyone who threatens to discover it.

Now that you know what the book is about, I’ve commissioned some potential covers, and I’m seeking feedback.

Covers are difficult – at least I’m finding them so. Fortunately, Dorothy Grant has provided some good advice, summarized in this excellent blog post, “Anatomy of a Cover,” by Cedar Sanderson. Dorothy Grant designed the covers for her husband, Peter Grant’s, superb science fiction series, The Maxwell Saga. Grant’s Maxwell Saga follows the career of a young man seeking to make a better life for himself in the distant future. His series shares some thematic similarities to what I want to accomplish in my own writing. And someone, he manages to find the time to maintain his interesting and frequently updated blog at Bayou Renaissance Man. I’ll have more to say about his writing when Grant finally releases the fifth installment of his excellent series. Soon, I hope!

In any event, I took some of Mrs. Grant’s advice, as well as soliciting some cover art from the gig website, Fiverr. The premise of Fiverr is, you find someone willing to do a project for you starting at five dollars. Of course it ends up being more than that – all kinds of essential deliverables are extras (oh, you want the commercial rights to actually use your book cover? And the editable source files?, etc.), and they add up. But for a not unreasonable amount of money, I got several reasonable options in addition to my own ideas.

I’m soliciting feedback on which cover you find most eye-catching and appealing. Which screams “I want to pick up this book or click through and learn more?” Is there one that almost does it for you but needs some modest tweaks? Kindly suggest, and leave your comments below.

Thanks, and look for The Hidden Truth to begin serialization on my blog starting around the beginning of April.