Lauren Beukes’ ZOO CITY is one of the most buzzworthy and acclaimed novels of 2010. This week, it finally releases as a mass market paperback in North American bookstores. ZOO CITY is a hardboiled urban fantasy thriller [Read it all...]]]>

Cover art by John Picacio for Lauren Beukes' ZOO CITY (North American edition / Angry Robot Books)

Lauren Beukes’ ZOO CITY is one of the most buzzworthy and acclaimed novels of 2010. This week, it finally releases as a mass market paperback in North American bookstores. ZOO CITY is a hardboiled urban fantasy thriller set in a re-imagined Johannesburg. Beukes says, “It’s the story of a girl with a sloth on her back, a dirty 419 habit and the magical ability to find lost things who gets drawn into a case to find a missing pop star.” Indeed, Beukes is from SA — not the SA that most readers of this blog know all too well, but in fact, South Africa.

“In ZOO CITY we have an unfamiliar land full of familiars, a broken Johannesburg of the near future peopled with damaged wonders. Proving her debut novel was no fluke, she writes better than I wish I could on my best day. If our words are bullets, Lauren Beukes is a marksman in a world of drunken machine-gunners, firing her ideas and images into us with a sly and deadly accuracy, wasting nothing, never missing. I’ll follow her career as long as she’s willing to write and I’m able to read,” says Bill Willingham, creator of DC/Vertigo’s FABLES.

SFX Magazine gave the book a 5-star review saying it’s “an energetic and imaginative fusion of sci-fi, fantasy and noir thriller. Beukes has created a convincing and frequently disturbing world, while also looking at the lost and the marginalised through the eyes of a compelling, believably flawed protagonist… ZOO CITY is an absolute must for anyone with a taste for the wilder edges of the genre.”

San Antonio’s John Picacio illustrated the North American cover. He adds, “I was given a solid brief from Angry Robot Books that described what they wanted on the cover. They wanted three main characters, and their pets, to be the focus, and offered a fairly specific way to handle it. I saw the cover a different way that included all of the elements (main characters, pets, setting, mood, attitude). They were terrific and said ‘go for it!’ In light of the ‘racefail‘ cover choices that we’ve seen on some recent sf/f titles, I’m proud that Lauren and Angry Robot vigorously embraced the accurate depiction of race and gender. We were on the same page there from the start. Unfortunately, I think there are still certain marketing and sales forces within publishing that think covers featuring non-white characters, and especially non-white female characters, are a kiss of death for sales. I believe that’s a myth, and a nasty one at that, and I look forward to US readers discovering this book and buzzing about what a brilliant story Lauren has crafted. I’d love for covers like the US edition of ZOO CITY to set a precedent in the other direction, and help change the culture of how those forces look at race, gender and cover art. You’d think we’d be beyond this in the 21st century, but there’s still work to do.”

Visit Angry Robot Books’ site for more on ZOO CITY.

Here’s my recently-completed cover illustration for Lauren Beukes‘ forthcoming novel ZOO CITY. Lauren is the author of one of 2009′s breakout hits, MOXYLAND. She describes ZOO CITY as an urban fantasy — “a muti noir set in a re-imagined Johannesburg. It’s the story of [Read it all...]]]>

Cover illustration by John Picacio for Lauren Beukes' ZOO CITY.

Here’s my recently-completed cover illustration for Lauren Beukes‘ forthcoming novel ZOO CITY. Lauren is the author of one of 2009′s breakout hits, MOXYLAND. She describes ZOO CITY as an urban fantasy — “a muti noir set in a re-imagined Johannesburg. It’s the story of a girl with a sloth on her back, a dirty 419 habit and the magical ability to find lost things who gets drawn into a case to find a missing pop star.”

The finished cover was unveiled yesterday via several blogs and websites, and I posted a bit of background about the making over at my own blog this morning. ZOO CITY will be an Angry Robot mass market paperback release, coming this May, and will be available in both the US and UK simultaneously.