SUNSHINE
So, anyone who maybe has a life, or some remnants of old-fashioned focus, and who doesn’t obsessively check their Twitter feed every [ ] minutes, may not be aware that
***SUNSHINE MADE NPR’S FINAL TOP 100 BEST SF&F BOOKS***
It’s # 92 but, as I said in my original tweet, ask me if I care. It’s in the top hundred! IT’S ON THE FINAL LIST!
Squee squee squee squee squee squee etc, in a manner highly unbecoming to a cranky (pink-addicted) 59-year-old hellgoddess. I’m sure if Tolkien were still alive he’d be saying, oh, number one again? YAAAAWN. Pass me the teapot/chocolate biscuits/single malt Scotch/knitting needles.*
But I don’t get on this kind of list. Aside from the fact that I’m in that vanishing minority of writers who do manage to make a living** at this story-telling lark***, I’m a fairly small deal. Yes, I’ve been on the NYT best seller list just often enough that my publisher gets to plaster it on all of my books, but the NYT best seller list doesn’t necessarily mean as much as you probably think it means. Uncle George and the Lawn Mower of Doom could get on the NYT best seller list on a slow week. I was amazed and delighted enough to be visible (as well as popular) enough to have got on NPR’s long list and while sure, I was out flogging everyone who reads me anywhere on line to go vote for SUNSHINE, after the flurry was over I’d put the whole thing firmly out of my mind because I wasn’t going to make the final list. When it was so long ago that I wasn’t going to be disappointed any more I’d go have a look at what/who did.
And then I signed on this afternoon—and the ME is not in a good mood, so it was pretty well taking me both hands and a hellhound or two to press the necessary buttons—and found a sheaf of congratulations in my Twitter feed. WHAT?!?
Beam beam beam beam beam beam beam.
So I thought, what better excuse for a tiny restrospective? SUNSHINE through the ages. Er. Through the last almost-decade anyway.† Some of these you’ve seen before. But hey. I’m in a laurel-resting mood.
And yes, those probably are bats flying around. Sssssh.
The original US cover illustration is still my favourite. (The original mass market paperback used the same art.)
Tag lines. Gah.
Have I shown you the ARC before? ‘A mesmerizing novel of supernatural desire’? What? I like the I-stake though.
That's my chair, and if you think you see a pink iPhone bag hanging off one side and a pink iPad bag hanging off the other . . . you'd be right.
The British went all architectural. The one on the right was the original art—and has to be one of the ugliest jackets ever designed. The first try at the house looked like the little house on the prairie gone horribly wrong. This one looks like it’s going to be about a suicidal housewife. They finally decided not to use it, and we ended up with the one on the left. I liked this one—I thought it was atmospheric—but Merrilee felt it didn’t have that pick-me-up! quality—and evidently she was right, because it sold three copies and died. At least it was a dignified death. The one on the right would not have been a dignified death.
. . . I like the wall.
Then we got to the girl in chains. Siiiiiiiiigh. Berkley had tried for a girl in chains for the first edition—the one that became the dark red with chandelier that is my favourite—and while they were futzing around with girls and chains some inspired designer came up with the chandelier just as a sort of throw-off, I think, my editor nailed it, I said YES!, and we were all happy. But reissues are one of the ways your publisher tries to keep your backlist alive . . . so we came back to the girl in chains. This one, I’m afraid, is becoming standard: most of my foreign editions are some version of girl in red dress with chains. I did at least keep her face out of it—one of my bugbears. Readers are supposed to be allowed to use their imaginations about what characters look like. And I did ask them to take the gigantic gravity-defying breasts and gym-bunny arms off the first artwork. Gah.
The right’s the American jacket. Left is the British.
Hee hee hee hee hee hee
And now . . . and now . . . I’ve been saving this for a special occasion. The Japanese edition of SUNSHINE. I love this so much. As I’ve said (often) I hate having characters illustrated on the covers—but the Japanese comic-art fashion (this isn’t genuine manga, I wouldn’t have said, unless all Japanese cartooning counts as manga by definition; this is just fooling around) is kind of a law unto itself. Sunshine is kind of a snore—what is that weird padded shirt she’s wearing, with the round cushions sewn in over the chest—but Con—! Every time I see this I fall down laughing again. Con! My dear! I’m sure he’s rolling over in his, er, grave. . . .
* * *
*No, actually, I doubt if Tolkien was a knitter. Or anyway I don’t remember any mention of it in Humphrey Carpenter’s biography. But then I wasn’t knitting yet myself then, so I might not have registered. I have no idea if he liked single malt Scotch or chocolate biscuits either.
** Some years better than other years
*** And anyone out there who doubts it . . . although I doubt very many of them read this blog . . . yes it is a real job. Some years better than other years.
† It does amuse me a trifle that the new sparkly gold edition that was produced specifically to try to grab the YA market is the one that shows up as the cover illustration. The NPR intro specifically states no horror and no YA: that those are going to be lists for other summers. Although this means that I’m even more pleased to be on this list. SUNSHINE was published as adult, although that lots of teenagers read it is just fine^; and it is emphatically not horror—I do hate it when it gets shelved in horror, because I feel that the majority of its audience won’t find it there. I still haven’t gone thoughtfully through the rest of the list but I’ve noticed at least one other vampire book, so these list makers do know that vampires don’t automatically mean horror: and good for them. But I agree with those of you who say yeep, who came up with the blurb? Did they read the book? Yes, the blurb is cringe-makingly bad. But SUNSHINE is on the list.^^ YAAAAAAAY.
^ And that we should try and sell them a few copies is also fine.
^^ http://www.npr.org/2011/08/11/139085843/your-picks-top-100-science-fiction-fantasy-books
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