Welcome to my
online journal...

My name is Alexander Gordon Smith, and I'm the author of various books including The Inventors series and the brand new Furnace series.

This is my blog, and is where I talk about books, writing and, well, probably other stuff too...

Even More Cover News!

Hot on the heels of the new US cover for Lockdown comes the brand new US cover for Solitary. I think it looks awesome, really great colouring, and they'll make an amazing set. And more good news is the fact that they've removed the tagline from the cover of Lockdown, which is a huge relief! Anyway, as always let me know what you think!

I love them!!



More Cover News!



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?

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