Well I'm excited. As of today, Starshine, Vertigo and Transcendence have new covers:

The art is by the amazingly talented Josef Bartoň, aka "Joey Jazz." You can see more of his work here:  joeyjazz.deviantart.com. For the moment, only the Kindle covers have been updated. The new covers will be rolling out to the paperback versions over the course of the week. [EDIT: All the paperbacks have now been updated with the new covers.]

If you're on the website, click on the individual covers below for gorgeous high-resolution versions:

There have been no content changes; they are the same books they always were. If you own an original paperback, please don't feel the need to buy a new one - and should lightning strike in the future, you'll be one of the lucky people possessing original First Editions ;).

Why did I do this? I adore my original covers; they are and will always be dear to me. But as a digital artist I'm a hobbyist at best. As the reality of needing A LOT of new covers in the next few years sunk in (take that however you like ;) ), I realized my time would be far better spent focusing on the writing that would go inside the covers.

But one of the greatest benefits of being an independent author is freedom and the corresponding retention of control, so I insisted on finding an artist who inherently displayed the style I wanted to convey: simplicity, elegance, images that evoked a sense of wonder and the vastness of space. In my opinion Mr. Bartoň does that in spades; these are covers I would have created if only I had the skill.

I could of course have simply used the artist going forward. But while it retains echoes of the original art, now Aurora Rising will carry the same art style as...what comes next. Which I'm dying to talk about, by the way. But I can't, not quite yet.

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There's other news, too!

• With the release of a new book comes media and press. The lovely ladies at KickAss Chicks named me an "Honorary KickAss Chick" last week. This is a fun, offbeat little interview, so check it out. I also did my first podcast interview, with the web entertainment site itcher Magazine, in which I talk about a lifetime of reading and the great sci-fi authors of the 20th century.

• The Transcendence audiobook is well into production, once again with the fabulous Pyper Down narrating. I hope for it to be available around the end of May/first of June.

• There's a new blog post up today: Interview with Caleb Marano and Noah Terrage. See what happens when they get tackled in the street by a reporter. Well, figuratively 'tackled' - I think we all know what would happen if they were to get literally tackled....

Lastly, I want to express my thanks. I asked you to buy Transcendence on release day, and you most certainly did. I asked you to leave reviews and talk about it on social media, and you have done that with incredibly touching and wonderful words. I'm humbled and eternally grateful to have the best readers in the universe.

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