My cover for Spatiality began as a line of light.
I wanted a symbol or icon that would carry through all the
books. I imagined a vivid slash slicing through the page like a blade. I
imagined this as folded line, a line of light—an architectural gesture, enigmatic
and ephemeral. It could be the edge of a structure or an aperture.
It also represents the fabric of space, the folding between
space—the
way that the Heliod manipulate space, make use of it, control it—exist
within it.
The line is also a portal, a threshold or a rift.
The rift is the element that looms heavily over all the
books; the rift the antagonist seeks to tear into space, to breach into another
space, to free his brethren, to avenge their imprisonment.
It is also a line that both divides the characters from one another and at the same time binds them to each other, a demarcation of their fates.
Following the line of light, I imagined silhouettes etched
into the stars.
I wanted to avoid direct representation. I wanted a shadow,
an impression of the main characters without conveying exactly what they looked
like. I deliberately eschewed that direct representation as I felt it would
prevent the reader from imagining them themselves. Again, I wanted a symbolic
iconography, something not unlike like an 18th or 19th
century portraiture of silhouettes.
I knew she should be sad, not unlike the character of Hannah
as you meet her initially. I knew he should be proud in a way, looking out into
the distance, meeting his fate directly as Ethien perhaps wants to, but may not
actually be capable of.
And then more pragmatically I knew I wanted there to be
space between the letters as the letters in the title fill the negative space
of the slash, the line of light bisecting the main characters. My hope was the
symbol, the silhouettes, the very placement of the title and the nature of the
font and text would convey the key concepts of the books in an indirect way, and
convey some aspect of the characters’ personalities.