This post is inspired by Karen Miller’s blog the other day, when she said how she loves getting the flats for a book. (That’s the cover, already printed, without the inner pages.) She put her latest in a frame on the wall…well, I don’t think I’ll be doing that with The Shadow of Tyr.

The other day someone left something on my gate that vaguely resembled a letter. I opened it up and there it was – the flats from Orbit for The Shadow of Tyr, out in December in UK.

And here’s the picture of what it looked like, crumpled and filthy, envelope included. It had obviously been kicking around in a ditch for some time – in fact the envelope looks as if it has had a hole burned in it.

The postal pixies had obviously had a field day – especially as the letter inside was dated August…

Fortunately I had already received (safely) the whole book, so I wasn’t too upset – but one wonders about the Malaysian postal service! I suspect the person who put it on my gate was a kind neighbour who found it somewhere or other after, I suspect, the postman had not bothered to put it into the postbox properly.

Anyway, don’t forget, you UK readers – the book should be hitting your bookstores in a couple of weeks – and the cover looks a whole lot better than the above picture…