I've gotten the high sign from my masters at Pyr (in the person of editor Lou Anders) to share with all of you lovely people the glory that is the cover for my upcoming novel, End of the Century. I've been a fan of Dan Dos Santos's work for years, and when Lou and I first started talking about what sort of cover might suit the book, Dan's was the first name that came to mind. Lou concurred, and then Dan agreed to do the book, and then I settled back to see what he'd come up with.

See what kind of awesome the hand of Dan hath wrought...


I first saw this a few weeks back, during the Clockwork Storybook retreat, and when I showed it to Matt Sturges, he described it as "looking like a poster for a movie I want to see." I couldn't put it better myself. Dan has done a sterling job here of capturing the characters, and his illustration perfectly suits the book, which isn't just the best novel I've written to date, but is I think the best novel I can write at this point in my development.

The 2008-2009 Pyr catalog is being proofed at the moment, and should be going out shortly, I understand, but in the meantime, if you're interested in seeing the full solicitation copy and details, it's as follows:

Three people. Three eras. One city. Endless possibilities. End of the Century is a novel of the distant past, the unimaginable future, and the search for the Holy Grail. Set in the city of London, the narrative is interlaced between three ages, in which a disparate group of heroes, criminals, runaways, and lunatics are drawn into the greatest quest of all time.

Twilight—Londinium, Sixth Century, CE
Galaad, a young man driven by strange dreams of a lady in white and a tower of glass, travels to the court of the high king Artor in Londinium, abandoned stronghold of the Roman Empire in Britain. With the dreams of Galaad as their only guide, Artor and his loyal captains journey west to the Summerlands, there to face a threat that could spell the end of the new-forged kingdom of Britain.

Jubilee—London, 1897
Consulting detective Sandford Blank, accompanied by his companion Roxanne Bonaventure, is called upon to solve a string of brutal murders on the eve of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee. The police believe that Jack the Ripper is back on the streets, but Blank believes that this is a new killer, one whose motive is not violence or mayhem, but the discovery of the Holy Grail itself. And what of the corpse-white Huntsman and his unearthly hounds, who stalks the gaslit streets of London?

Millennium—London, 1999
At the eve of the new millennium, American teenager Alice Fell is on the run, and all alone. On the streets of a strange city, friendless and without a pound to her name, Alice is not sure whether she's losing her mind, or whether she is called by inescapable visions to some special destiny. Along with a strange man named Stillman Waters, who claims to be a retired occultist and spy, she finds herself pursued by strange creatures, and driven to steal the priceless “vanishing gem” that may contain the answers to the mysteries that plague her.

The three narratives—Dark Ages fantasy, gaslit mystery, and modern-day jewel heist— alternate until the barriers between the different times begin to break down, and the characters confront the secrets that connect the Grail, the Glass Tower, and the vanishing gem. And lurking behind it all is the entity known only as Omega.