Covering Covers: The Rise of Ransom City - Felix Gilman

The only thing better than a clean, distinct cover is a series of clean, distinct covers. I can respect an art department that picks a direction and sticks with it. These two books will look mighty nice next to each other on the shelf.

The Rise of Ransom City continues Gilman's construction of a re-imagined world very different than our own. If typical steampunk stories are built from brass and copper, his half made world is made from platinum and gold.

In The Half-Made World, Felix Gilman took readers deep into a world on the cusp of forging an identity. The Line, a cult of Industry, and the Gun, a mission of Chaos, were engaged in a war for dominance, one that The Line was winning city by city, enslaving the populations it conquered. A doctor of psychology, Liv Alverhuysen, was caught in the middle, unknowingly guarding a secret that both sides would do anything to have.

Now Liv is lost on the edge of the world with Creedmor, an agent of the Gun, and the powerful Line will stop at nothing to find them.

But Harry Ransom, half con man, half mad inventor, is setting the edge of the world aglow. Town by town he is building up a bank roll and leaving hope in his wake because one of his inventions is actually working. But his genius is not going unnoticed, and when he crosses paths with the two most wanted outlaws in the “unmade world,” his stage becomes even larger and presents an opportunity more lucrative than any of his scams or inventions combined.

The Rise of Ransom City hits shelves November 27th, 2012.