The Hollows is often shelved in horror
Today, I give you my favorite element on the cover. It’s one that I asked for when my editor and I first began talking about what should be on it, the star of the entire show, the T4-Angel tomato, savor of the third world, genetically engineered to withstand drought, cracking, pesticides, and grow tall without staking. It’s truly a scientific marvel of the sixties, and I think it’s a wish fulfillment of me not being able to grow tomatoes well.
Until . . . a governmental virus escapes and spontaneously attaches to it and kills a quarter of the world’s population.
This we know. The truth . . . is a little different, and Trent’s parents are involved up to their little pointy, docked ears.
So I asked for a tomato on the cover, and I got it, but someone had the idea that it was a magical tomato, and had put magical radiating lines coming out from it. It looked great, but the feeling of a magical tomato wasn’t doing it for me. This was the destruction of the third world and the beginning of the Turn in her hands, and it wasn’t magical, it was horrifying. So I doubled down and asked for the “magic lines” to be removed and for the tomato to be black and decaying, putrefying in Trent’s mom’s hands. I wanted to make a ugly, horrifying image to contrast with the flowing beauty of Trisk herself. I think I got it.
I’ll give you the entire cover tomorrow with an explanation of my idea of what makes a good fairytale, but if you want it tonight at midnight eastern time, sign up for my newsletter. They’re getting it first.
