Dearest mailing list members,
November's mailing list sort of tobogganed into December's mailing list, but that just means you are getting an extra large mailing list this time around! The artists are working feverishly to finish up the last of their projects, I've got one last chapter (on submarine launched rockets) to finish up and then I've got a whole bunch of editing to do.
I received word from my friend Jeremie at the publisher that the cover has been printed and it looks awesome. Josh Hass and Jim Boswell did such an amazing job designing the cover that Kensington decided to emboss the text and make it extra fancy. I would like to show you loyal folks on the mailing list the cover. Imagine the title text sort of bumping out at you in three dimensions, because it is going to be totally radical!
Speaking of totally radical: Josh has just completed work on his color illustration for German infrared equipment. In this case it's an illustration of an SS soldier fighting with a Vampir lowlight scope outside of the Reichstag. I really wanted Josh to capture the apocalyptic final battle of Berlin, and yet not take away from the focus of the invention in the image. It was a tall order and I think he did a fantastic job. To show you, once again, the kind of work that has been going into the illustrations for the book I put together an animated GIF that shows the various drafts of the illustration for the Vampir.
Right now Mike, our technical illustrator, is working on the "gadget" and delivery mechanisms for a German fission/fusion bomb designed by Kurt Diebner. This chapter will actually share a color illustration with the chapter on submarine launched rockets. Do you think you can solve the mystery of what that picture will be about? You can check out Mike's rough sketches of for the atomic bomb here:
Finally, I promised you guys a PDF download and I am delivering a PDF download. This is a chapter design mockup from Suji Allen using the second draft of my chapter on the P.1000 Ratte and Mike's completed illustration. This is how the book is going to be laid out in the final version, but this chapter still needs a bit of editing work.
Download Chapter (PDF Format)
My decision to add vignettes of action and a bit of a narrative to the book came fairly late in the process of writing. I still have to go back and link older chapters to the newer ones, but the idea sprung from, of all places, the old Battletech Technical Manuals. Yes, I am a huge nerd. I remember loving the stories about how the giant robots destroyed the other giant robots and I thought that sort of pulp action would fit right in with a book about amazing inventions. It was also another way to try to stimulate the reader's imagination with what it might be like if these dinosaurs walked the earth today.
Thanks for sticking with us throughout the project. The release date is going to be some time in October of next year, so we've still got some waiting to do. But I promise to update everyone regularly with more info and more cool stuff from the book.
Love always,
Zack
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