One aspect of the written word that I enjoy is that it allows the reader to form their own mental images of the characters and events in a novel. That said, I know some people would like to have something a little more concrete when it comes to picturing the main characters. Although I am no professional artist, I decided to make a series of pencil sketches that detail the major characters and some of the locations that occur in the novel. I would warn readers though that the images below are major spoilers. Please view below at the risk of ruining the story if you have not read it.
The images are arranged according to the order in which they appear in the novel:
First up is my initial idea for the book cover:
Part of the reason I decided not to use this as the cover or turn it into a painting is because there is that undeniable phallic sense to the illustration. Had to go for something a bit less “erect” 🙂
Some readers of Korean descent may wonder what actress or movie star Min-Hee looks like most. I don’t know anything about Korean stars, so I had to do some searching. (I would have chosen the image of a Korean scientist but not nearly as easy to find such pics.) After some time, I ran across a picture of the actress Jun Ji-Hyun who in this particular picture looks almost identical to how I picture Min-Hee’s appearance:
I picture Wes in my head as looking close to but not exactly the same as Westley from The Princess Bride film (1986):
One of the locations featured in my novel The Song of Kiri is San Francisco, and I decided to do a rough sketch of how I envision the city in the latter half of the 21st century. Right now, something like the Dragon’s Tail (in Chinatown) or the World Tree (visible in the upper right part of the sketch) would be a daunting and expensive undertaking for any client or architectural firm (The Tree is roughly 560 meters high) but mass assemblers and 3D printing of custom composite structures will enable a much faster process several decades from now.
My vision of air cars in the novel is an educated guess based on real world physical, charge density and human behavior limitations. Any aircar that requires people to obtain a private pilot’s license or land at a conventional airport is not headed to mass production. Same for any aircar that people actually pilot. Too easy to fly it into a stadium filled with sports fans. The weak link will be getting enough electrons in a small enough volume, id est, … charge density. The lift system will also have to be multiply redundant and fault tolerant and hence my educated guess at eight lift fans for the graphene aerogel chassis.
Although Ndidi does not exactly resemble Amanda Gorman physically (as I picture Ndidi in my mind), she possesses the same sense of intelligence and ability. As Amanda is gifted with language, … Ndidi is gifted with mathematics. Someone forging a unique path through reality.
The image below is the only one that is based on a work that is not mine. My drawing is based on a previous image that was used for the cover of an old Moby Dick paperback novel. I tried high and low to find the original creator of this image but so far I have been unable to find their name. If someone sees this and has information on the original painter, please let me know and I will list their name here.
One of several early images I drew for the front cover:
