The Russian cover is soooo unpopular on the poll, I thought I’d blow up the pix so you can have a better look.

Given that I wrote a book – in fact a whole trilogy – that never had a single horse in it anywhere, don’t you just love this? Of course I never had pterodactyls, or strange land beasts either. And Blaze wouldn’t be caught dead in an outfit like that. Still, it’s not all that bad is it??

I love my Russian publisher. They pay up no problems, and each book I sell, they pay more than the time before. And looking forward to what they put on the cover is part of my enjoyment of being a writer.

Now I know I have put up the cover of the Russian translation of “Gilfeather” before, but that was when I pinched it off a Russian online booksellers website and it was a poor res pix.

Yesterday I received a copy of the book, and I just can’t resist putting it up again in all its glory.

First let me point out that the printing at the top is actually in glittery glossy red, and the two gentlemen are equally shiny glitz – they look as if they have been stuck on. Unfortunately the shine didn’t scan very well.

And that top text is my name. Yep, that’s right, I have my name in BIG SHINY print. The bottom little print is the name of the book which translates – I believe – as Smell Evil .

Let me tell you about Gilfeather. The hero is a simple country doctor who spends most of the book chasing assorted villains through the countryside and across seas for rather complex reasons, and generally having a harrowing time. He does briefly land up in the ruling house of a island (hardly more than a rock stack covered in nesting birds and sheep) where the ruler is a woman, and I guess there are a few uniformed guards scattered about. They certainly aren’t dressed like space opera dudes, or 19th century military regimes, and there’s no guy sitting on a throne, it’s a gal.

I guess I should be glad that I didn’t get a pole dancer, like Jenny Fallon did on one of her Russian titles…

I received copies of each volume of the Isles of Glory (The Aware – published 2003, Gilfeather and The Tainted – both published 2004) in a new Australian edition. Which means folk are still buying.

And I also heard from my agent that the Russians are buying The Tainted. I was hopeful about that, having noted that my name was bigger than the title on the cover for Gilfeather (aka Smell Evil) – which is supposed to mean that the author is becoming a brand name. [And if that doesn’t convince you that I am a typically anal pathetic author looking for clues to how well she is selling, nothing will…]

And if you are wondering why the Russians are buying one book at a time, well it’s what happens sometimes with books that are going to be translated. The publisher has to pay the translator up front, so they like to keep the advance costs down. If they buy the whole trilogy, then they have to pay an advance on all three books. Besides, if they buy one at a time and the first book doesn’t sell, they can always forget about buying the rest!

The Russian translation of Gilfeather (Book Two of the Isles of Glory) is out…in, well, I suppose Russia.

I know this because I found an online site advertising it. They have the blurb up too. So, of course, I babelfished. And found out that in Russian, it is apparently called…