My publishers in the States have just sent me the cover for the paperback version of Lockdown and I have to say I was blown away when I saw it! I absolutely love it. Talking to people who've read the books, most say that the characters who stuck with them the most, who gave them nightmares, were the wheezers – those gas-mask wearing, hypodermic wielding freaks who stalk the prison at night dragging inmates off into the tunnels beneath the cells. So it's great to have such a striking, terrifying image of a wheezer smack bang on the front cover!
Of course some of you might be wondering why this particular wheezer is wearing a full gas mask, rather than the half-mask they do in the books. Well, the answer is artistic license! I don't think book jackets have to be 100% accurate to the story. The wonderful UK covers for the Furnace series certainly aren't. The job of a book cover is to try and sum up the flavour of the story in an appealing, eye-catching way, a strong visual advert for what kind of book it is. For Lockdown, the cover needs to set up an atmosphere of claustrophobia and fear, a promise of terror, and I think this does it absolutely perfectly. I'm thrilled!
I think this new design is being transferred over to the hardbacks as well, which is a shame in a way because I loved the old design too. But this one really is fantastic! The only thing I'm not sure about is the slogan...
What do you think?
