Illustrators are Wizards

Books with beautiful illustrations have arrived in my mailbox. First came Nomad and the new paperback edition of Ambassador:

Ambassadors

Shoutout to the great Stéphanie Hans for bringing Gabe and Kaen to life. She’s best known for her work at Marvel. Behold her mighty Thor:

THOr wip4

 

Nomad will be published one week from today. I am nervous and absurdly proud of this book. It finishes the story that Ambassador began.

Signed and personalized copies can be ordered here. Other sorts of copies can be ordered from pretty much anywhere. The audiobook, read by yours truly, will be downloadable from this bit of the internet right over here.

Japanese translations of Goblin Secrets and Ghoulish Song have also just arrived, and they are absolutely gorgeous and filled with internal illustrations that remind me of Studio Ghibli concept art and and and and… just look at them.

JapaneseTranslations

I’m still trying to learn the illustrator’s name. I don’t read Japanese, so I can’t figure it out from the books themselves. And I very much wish I could read these copies. That might sound odd, since I already know what happens in them. But I don’t know what new shades of meaning the stories have picked up in translation.

This is masked Rownie while he gathers up an audience:

Procession

The new title for Goblin translates as City of Masks, which I love. The one for Ghoulish is Song of the Shadowless. “Shadowless” or “shadeless” implies a sort of bodiless-ness in Japanese, which perfectly echoes Kaile’s loss of self and shadow in the story. Here she is with two shadows in the burned-out house on the Fiddleway Bridge:

Shadows

(Thanks to my friend Rio Saito for translating the titles, and to Michiko Saito for translating the actual books. They aren’t related. Saito is a pretty common name.)

This is Graba in watercolors on the back of the Goblin dust jacket:

Graba

While I’m gushing about gorgeous illustrations, here’s a shoutout to Jeff Crosby. His version of Zombay can’t be found in any physical copy of the books, but they are part of his website portfolio:

goblinsecretsint31In other news, these books are long-listed for the National Book Awards and they are magnificent. I’m especially happy to see VCFA colleagues Kekla Magoon and M.T. Anderson.

This reminds me that I should be reading VCFA student manuscripts right now. Back to work with me.

ypl_nba2015pg