Shadow of Victory, book jacket

So anyone want to take a stab at describing the event and particulars the SOF book jacket art is referencing? Beowulf? Earth? Rescuers; invaders? Police cruisers; troop shuttles; attack craft?
To me the scope of the action implies a large scale terrorist action meant to injure rather than destroy. Perhaps "5th columnists" from the League?

npadln wrote:So anyone want to take a stab at describing the event and particulars the SOF book jacket art is referencing? Beowulf? Earth? Rescuers; invaders? Police cruisers; troop shuttles; attack craft?
To me the scope of the action implies a large scale terrorist action meant to injure rather than destroy. Perhaps "5th columnists" from the League?

Because the craft have wings they must be assault shuttles or pinnaces, the large buildings would appear to be large residential towers, so it could be forces from 10th fleet arriving at Mendel.

npadln wrote:So anyone want to take a stab at describing the event and particulars the SOF book jacket art is referencing?

Judging from the blurb at Amazon and the first snippet, I'd say another revolutionary group promised Manticoran support by "Firebrand" or one of his compatriots is actually getting Manticoran support in the form of Manticoran Marines in assault shuttles.

Can't say if it is one of the worlds we've already glimpsed or some new world we haven't seen yet.

Weird Harold wrote:

npadln wrote:So anyone want to take a stab at describing the event and particulars the SOF book jacket art is referencing?

Judging from the blurb at Amazon and the first snippet, I'd say another revolutionary group promised Manticoran support by "Firebrand" or one of his compatriots is actually getting Manticoran support in the form of Manticoran Marines in assault shuttles.

Can't say if it is one of the worlds we've already glimpsed or some new world we haven't seen yet.

IIRC, RFC said something about two worlds that Firebrand was stirring up, neither of which had figured in earlier stories. I seriously doubt if there are going to be large-scale action by assault shuttles on Mendel. Although I wouldn't be at all surprised to see some action to oversee the withdrawal from the tower and extract Victor Cachet and Thandi Palain.

JohnRoth wrote:
IIRC, RFC said something about two worlds that Firebrand was stirring up, neither of which had figured in earlier stories. I seriously doubt if there are going to be large-scale action by assault shuttles on Mendel. Although I wouldn't be at all surprised to see some action to oversee the withdrawal from the tower and extract Victor Cachet and Thandi Palain.

Why? In CoG the last info we as readers heard from Thandi an extraction under fire would be superfluous.

My money is on one of the Firebrand worlds, most likely Swallow as there is no mountains in the image.

npadln wrote:So anyone want to take a stab at describing the event and particulars the SOF book jacket art is referencing? Beowulf? Earth? Rescuers; invaders? Police cruisers; troop shuttles; attack craft?
To me the scope of the action implies a large scale terrorist action meant to injure rather than destroy. Perhaps "5th columnists" from the League?

My honest opinion? Based on some of the previous covers, it's a fair bet that nothing resembling this event will happen in the book.

I mean, looks at the most recent covers:

1. A Rising Thunder had Honor debarking into a building with lighting in the background. While one can postulate (arriving at HQ post-Filareta is my take), it certainly isn't in the book.

2. Shadow of Freedom. Hell of a good-looking cover showing battle scenes in a conference; but it shows an event that would fit perfectly on a cover for "A Rising Thunder", but bears no resemblance to any event in SoF.

3. Cauldron of Ghosts. Went for a generic cast of characters with buildings. Nice enough setup, but certainly didn't describe any scenes in the book.

So...the artist probably has read the previous books and figured that something planet-side was going to happen, much like with Therekov and Mobius in Shadow of Freedom and drew that, figuring he had half a chance of being right.

Guess I'm getting cynical in my old age...

Hutch wrote:

npadln wrote:So anyone want to take a stab at describing the event and particulars the SOF book jacket art is referencing? Beowulf? Earth? Rescuers; invaders? Police cruisers; troop shuttles; attack craft?
To me the scope of the action implies a large scale terrorist action meant to injure rather than destroy. Perhaps "5th columnists" from the League?

My honest opinion? Based on some of the previous covers, it's a fair bet that nothing resembling this event will happen in the book.

I mean, looks at the most recent covers:

1. A Rising Thunder had Honor debarking into a building with lighting in the background. While one can postulate (arriving at HQ post-Filareta is my take), it certainly isn't in the book.

2. Shadow of Freedom. Hell of a good-looking cover showing battle scenes in a conference; but it shows an event that would fit perfectly on a cover for "A Rising Thunder", but bears no resemblance to any event in SoF.

3. Cauldron of Ghosts. Went for a generic cast of characters with buildings. Nice enough setup, but certainly didn't describe any scenes in the book.

So...the artist probably has read the previous books and figured that something planet-side was going to happen, much like with Therekov and Mobius in Shadow of Freedom and drew that, figuring he had half a chance of being right.

Guess I'm getting cynical in my old age...

My take on the ART cover is it would've been better as the cover of Mission of Honor. Honor arriving on Haven.

My take on Shadow of Freedom is that the could be discussing Spindle.

JohnRoth wrote:
IIRC, RFC said something about two worlds that Firebrand was stirring up, neither of which had figured in earlier stories. I seriously doubt if there are going to be large-scale action by assault shuttles on Mendel. Although I wouldn't be at all surprised to see some action to oversee the withdrawal from the tower and extract Victor Cachet and Thandi Palain.

If we're gathering around the "Spoiler Craps" table, I'll put my chips on the Seraphim System with Indy and Max. It seems to me we've spent a lot of viewpoint time with them and little payoff, yet. Besides, I'd like to hear more of the menu at The Soup Spoon.

I sound like a Solly, but I need a scorecard to tell all these Verge systems and their jackbooted thugs apart. I wish they had more vivid nicknames. All the "System Police" and "Liberation Fronts" run together worse than rebels from _Life of Brian_

Methinks it is just a picture from a set of previously rendered pictures that looked good to RFC and the Publisher.

Norm.bone wrote:

JohnRoth wrote:
IIRC, RFC said something about two worlds that Firebrand was stirring up, neither of which had figured in earlier stories. I seriously doubt if there are going to be large-scale action by assault shuttles on Mendel. Although I wouldn't be at all surprised to see some action to oversee the withdrawal from the tower and extract Victor Cachet and Thandi Palain.

If we're gathering around the "Spoiler Craps" table, I'll put my chips on the Seraphim System with Indy and Max. It seems to me we've spent a lot of viewpoint time with them and little payoff, yet. Besides, I'd like to hear more of the menu at The Soup Spoon.

I sound like a Solly, but I need a scorecard to tell all these Verge systems and their jackbooted thugs apart. I wish they had more vivid nicknames. All the "System Police" and "Liberation Fronts" run together worse than rebels from _Life of Brian_

Well, it's no worse than the way they name these things in the Real World (tm).

By the way, Hutch, I thoroughly agree. The cover art was probably produced without reading the first draft, given that there wasn't a first draft at the time the artist had to start work.