Like the weather, publishing has its seasons, and to extend the metaphor farther than we probably should, right now the new covers are dropping as quickly as leaves in the fall. Today, we’re showing off another one courtesy of Tor.Com Publishing: The Fortress at the End of Time, a science fiction novel by Joe M. McDermott (the Dogsland trilogy, The Last Dragon), coming in January 2017.

Jamie Jones provides the cover painting and Christine Foltzer the design for this far-future tale, which owes a debt to the work of Ursula K. Le Guin—look no further than the mention of an ansible in the cover blurb. Give it a read, check out the full cover, and scroll down for some thoughts from Joe on the cover’s far subtler reference to UKLG.

Captain Ronaldo Aldo has committed an unforgivable crime. He will ask for forgiveness all the same: from you, from God, even from himself. Connected by ansible, humanity has spread across galaxies and fought a war against an enemy that remains a mystery. At the edge of human space sits the Citadel—a relic of the war and a listening station for the enemy’s return. For a young Ensign Aldo, fresh from the academy and newly cloned across the ansible line, it’s a prison from which he may never escape. Deplorable work conditions and deafening silence from the blackness of space have left morale on the station low and tensions high. Aldo’s only hope of transcending his station, and cloning a piece of his soul somewhere new is both his triumph and his terrible crime.



“It is no secret that Tor.com has quickly established a role at the forefront of illustration and design. I was very excited to see what Irene Gallo’s team could put together with my odd little book about a science fictional military base where nothing happens.

“When the beautiful art from Jaime Jones finally started coming through, along with all the potential sketches, I was reminded a lot of a classic Kaspar David Friedrich painting that (as a print) used to hang in my parent’s house when I was growing up, and that my brother still has over his mantel: “The Wanderer Above the Sea of Clouds.” When I was talking to [my editor] Justin Landon about the cover, initially, I wasn’t thinking about Friedrich, but about a classic cover to Ursula K. LeGuin’s The Dispossessed. A man stands alone above the colony, gazing up at the floating artifact in the sky above. In both cases, the reader is told a story of the interior of the man in the foreground. That man is separated and alone, part of the scene but ever apart from it. It is an apt characterization of Captain Ronaldo Aldo.

“It is no spoiler to say that he is lonely and unhappy at his posting, and that this loneliness drives him to do something very criminal, indeed. He confesses to his action immediately, and he uses the long story of his sense of longing, his loneliness and inertia on the station, as a justification for his criminal act. The book really is about a lonely officer, staring down upon a desert world, and out past it, finding nothing. I love the cover, and I am excited to see what readers think of it!”

The Fortress at the End of Time will be published January 17, 2017.