The Web Haunt of Ryan K Lindsay

Duane Swierczynski has a new novel coming out soon. That one sentence could be its own post for me. That’s so much information to process that I’d sit back quite content. But, there’s more.

On his site, Swierczynski shows the new cover for the book. I can’t even wait, here it is.

It’s a pretty good cover, it caught my eye from just a small image, so up close it’s very bloody awesome. The guy running is just pure pulp. He’s in a massive chase, either to, or away from, something, and he’s still got his cuffs buttoned. I go to work each day to just teach and I never button my cuffs. They were a different breed back then. If the body wasn’t centre screen enough, then we have the rotating and disappearing squares behind him. Looks like he’s running out of something, it’s a great pattern. But it warrants further inspection.

In the main outer of the cover image we see a modern cityscape, tall and bleak skyscraper. But then there one flash of sepia toned memory in the middle square. Look a little closer, go on, get that hairy nose right up to my screen, yeah, right here. See that? The foggy past is just that, all that is brown is also old. The cars aren’t as streamlined, they’re the bulky vehicles of old. The buildings are a little more squat. The street lamp is very old school. It’s a great cover, I told you.

Now, I hadn’t heard much detail about this novel, but the comments on the site seem to mention time travel, and I guess that mixes in with the date within the title, but that’s not where my mind went first. I looked at the discrepancies on the cover and I didn’t think this tale would have time travel, I went straight to a fractured narrative. Something like the Godfather Part II where the old story informs the current one. I could see Swierczynski trying it, and it would be a very cool noir/pulp trope to exercise. I wonder what it will be in the end though.

Swierczynski also hints that someone has drawn a dozen black and white prints for the book. He had Dennis Calero on Severeance Package, I wonder who he got for this one. I’m going to throw out a name, no certainty to it, but I will say Sean Phillips. Phillips already does Criminal with Ed Brubaker and Swierczynski would have a pretty direct line to him, and it would be wickedly cool.

I’ve read The Blonde and Severance Package, and loved both, so anticipation is high. And it’ll have to stay that way until next April, which kind of sucks.

Oh well, good things come to those who wait, so a great thing like the next Swierczynski novel will surely be mine in no time at all.

Posted on October 28th, 2009 by ryan
Filed under: books