The Astronomer’s Crypt – 2nd Edition Cover Reveal

Next month, the rights to my novel, The Astronomer’s Crypt, revert to me. One of my jobs this month has been preparing a new edition so its ready to launch as soon as I’m clear to do so. Overall, I was happy with the novel’s first edition and my updated edit has changed very little. I caught a handful of typos that were missed the first time. I’m not sure I believe it’s possible for a truly typo-free book to exist. Also, the editorial process on any book is a discussion between the writer and the editorial team. As the author, I find I agree with many editorial suggestions wholeheartedly. There are, of course, a few editorial suggestions that just don’t work for me and I ask to leave the section as written, or I come up with an alternative revision. There are also places where an editor makes a suggestion and while I don’t agree with it 100%, I still accept it, because I don’t disagree with it or don’t feel it substantially changes things. I’ve revisited a few of those moments in the book.

The bigger change will be the cover itself. Laura Givens who did the original cover is back to do the new take. The concept for the original cover was to present an observatory enclosure on a dark, spooky night like a haunted house. The potential problem with this concept is that unless you’re familiar with observatory enclosures, you might not know what you’re looking at. In fact, tall observatory buildings bear a close resemblance to silos. So when Laura took on the new edition, she wanted to better capture what most people think of when they think “observatory” and that’s the telescope inside. We also discussed it and decided to include one of the monsters from the book. In this case, it’s a creature from Mescalero Apache lore known as Big Owl, or He Who Kills With His Eyes.

One of the challenges of including the monster on this version of the cover is that in contemporary American society, we tend to picture owls as cute or friendly. However, in many Native American traditions, owls are harbingers of death and to the Mescalero Apache, Big Owl was considered an adversary to the first humans. To get to the idea of a scary owl in the novel, I used the idea that modern birds are the descendants of dinosaurs and I began to picture a primordial, dangerous, predatory owl. I think Laura did a great job of capturing that vision on the cover.

Of course, Big Owl isn’t the only threat you’ll meet in this novel. There are drug dealers, ghosts, and a destructive storm as well. The first edition of The Astronomer’s Crypt will still be available for two more weeks. If you want to get your hands on that edition, do it now. Otherwise, I hope to release the new edition of The Astronomer’s Crypt in June.

You can learn more about the novel, watch the book trailer, and read the prologue at: http://www.davidleesummers.com/Astronomers-Crypt.html