Sarah Hoyt on covers for Alternate History novels, and for “Operation Flash”

In a series on book covers that is running on Mad Genius Club, Sarah Hoyt explains some of the challenges in designing an alternate history book cover. One of the examples she uses is “Operation Flash”.

I have, btw, recently done this cover for Nitay, who is a friend, but also the first client for my business (Covers Girl.  The website will be up after Liberty con.  I just haven’t been home long enough to devote a weekend to setting it up.)

In this novel someone kills Hitler, and history diverges.  The problem is that it’s almost impossible to convey in a cover, at first sight. I mean, if Hitler had been stabbed that would be doable, but blown up…  well.

So, I tried to convey confusion and that the Nazis still go on.

Sarah’s cover for “Operation Flash”

She told me at the time she was inspired by Harry Turtledove covers. Most of the image was actually rendered in Daz/Poser, with some details added in by hand.
Note she hadn’t read the book: as she discusses here, a book cover needn’t be “the perfect scene from the book”, because that would only make sense to people who had read it! Instead, you’re trying to get people to pick the book up, and so you want to signal the genre and the general setting and subject matter.

Critical praise for “Operation Flash, Ep. 1”

Excerpted from a long review on Goodreads by frequent reviewer Pat Patterson:

By combining historical figures with fabricated point-of-view characters, Arbel gives us a behind-the-scenes look at a history that was ALMOST ours. It’s really a matter of moments that prevented this scenario from taking place, and it’s a story that deserves wider attention.[…]

I’m not sure exactly how he does it, but to me, Arbel seems to be writing of that time as a contemporary writer would. The scenes and characters seem to me to be thoroughly authentic, and NOT 21st century moments rotated backwards 80 years. Some of it, I’m certain, has got to be his familiarity with the language and the scenes, as they were in this period. I will leave it to others to dissect his technique[…]

I was utterly fascinated by this work[…]I devoured it in one session. It’s that good. I am looking forward, oh, yes I am, to more in this series, and I also hope that Arbel’s work gets the attention it deserves. […] it’s just too good to languish in obscurity.

The short book is just $0.99 on Kindle at https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07RK13FDS/

D-Day plus 75

Never forget D-Day. See also the veteran who at age 97 (!) re-enacts his parachute jump with the 101st Airborne Division 75 years ago: https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/2019/06/05/d-day-101st-airborne-veteran-parachutes-normandy/1356323001/

Cat Rotator's Quarterly

Grandpa Carl’s first visit to France began with the emergency bail-out signal. His plane had been hit by flack and the pilots could not keep it in the air (it was sort of on fire.) Windy, loud, dark, and dangerous was his impression of Normandy on June 6, 1944. He landed in a hedgerow, upside-down. Not the best way to begin an all expenses paid walking tour of western Europe.

He said he was lucky – he wasn’t in one of the gliders or in a tank. Tanks attracted unwanted attention.

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