Showing posts with label book covers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label book covers. Show all posts

Friday, December 27, 2019

Marcella's Top Three of 2019

In the liminal space between Christmas past and the New Year, we're posting our best three of 2019. Here are mine. Three new book covers in one year. I couldn't ask for anything better.






Sunday, May 5, 2019

When Book Marketing Betrays the Reader

Recently an old family friend asked me for advice. She was coming out with her first book, had hired someone to help package for it - formatting, cover, uploading, etc. But she wasn't happy with what that person advocated for the cover. She wanted an image that represented her author's vision of the story, which was her coming to peace with a problem, whereas the designer's cover images all focused on the problem.

I gave her my pick from the choices, and then explained that it's not the job of the cover to express the author's vision. The entirety of the INSIDE of the book does that. The cover has two jobs: 1) to entice a reader to look more closely, and 2) to convey the genre and kind of story it will be. In her case, a cover that transmitted the problem was what she needed, so readers would understand what the story would be about.

The cover above is one of my least favorite because it fails on both parts of its job, in my opinion. I don't think it's particularly enticing, as the guy looks ill enough to be mostly dead. Also, nothing about this cover communicates erotic paranormal. The font looks like something post modern, and he... well, NOT sexy. MASTER OF THE OPERA is actually a modern retelling of The Phantom of the Opera, set at the Santa Fe Opera. Kensington published it as a six-act serial novel starting in January 2014. Those covers are marginally better - at least giving a Phantom of the Opera vibe - but I think the genre communication is murky still. Also they didn't do the marketing the way a serial novel needs to be promoted.

Anyway, the zombie cover (though Assistant Carien says I'm insulting zombies by calling it that) was on the print version that brought all six acts together in one place, which came out in the fall of 2015. I asked then if there would be a digital version compiling all six and they said no.

Then, last week, I got tagged on new release congratulations for ... the digital version compiling all six acts, complete with zombie cover and a release date of April 30, 2019.

Surprise!

So, no. This isn't really a new release at all. It's barely a new format. Coincidentally enough, our topic at the SFF Seven this week is marketing suckering readers into reading a genre they don’t enjoy.

In this case, I'm irritated by the marketing attempt to sucker readers into thinking this is a new release from me. The cover mostly just fails to do much of anything, really.

It's even worse, however, when the marketers decide to cash in on, say, the Romance audience. I think this mainly happens with Romance, though I'll be interested in the takes from the others in the SFF Seven if they've seen it happen in other genres.

What happens in Romance is, a story with a love affair in it gets marketed as Romance, but then has an ending that doesn't satisfy the Romance promise. The affair ends in some way - with a death, a sacrificial parting, or a permanent parting of the ways for one reason or another.

It happens a lot in Romance for two reasons: 1) The Romance audience is huge, avid, and passionate, therefor a tempting market, and 2) marketers (and some authors) regard Romance readers as kind of silly and short-sighted in their desire for a happy ending to the love affair. They think the readers don't know what they really want and that this book will change their minds because it's just THAT good. Either that or the marketing folks don't care past getting that one sale. The advertisers of widgets can be like that, not understanding that the book is not simply a one-sale product, but the beginning of a lasting relationship.

(Of course, this is also why the big box bookstores failed. They never understood that readers have relationships with the books they buy that goes far beyond something like acquiring groceries or the latest tech gadget.)

The thing about reading is we do it for pleasure. We scour covers, copy, and reviews to find the story that will sing to us. If we get suckered in by misleading marketing and are disappointed in the end?

UGH.

(But MASTER OF THE OPERA is a Romance and the story is way better than that cover. Just saying.)


Friday, August 31, 2018

Cover Artist Praise


 Danielle Fine does most of my covers. It's a good thing, too, because on those forms for authors, when cover artists ask if you have a vision for the cover, I always do.

And it pretty much sucks. 

For Damned If He Does, I'd figured on some artsy cover because the hero is a frustrated artist. And maybe because I grew up with those kinds of covers out of the 70s and early 80s with geometric shapes in once bold colors that inevitably faded by about the third year the book had been on a shelf. 

Danielle kindly led me down the path of PNR reader expectations for this cover. And even if the cover seems to promise something the book doesn't deliver (I had concerns this cover conveyed a really hot read and well - the heroine is ace so while the story has its share of flames, they aren't the sexy kind, much) this book is already one readers either love or think should have been a short story. So eh. Point of interest. Danielle found the models for the cover and she NAILED that heroine.

She found the heroine image for Emissary, too. After I'd looked and looked and looked. This heroine isn't 20. She's at the end of her soldiering career and I really wanted someone who looked like she hadn't just skipped class at the local high school. 

I think my favorite thing about Danielle's work is that whether models match my particular internal vision or not, Danielle always manages to convey the mood of the story. Every single time.


The two Nightmare Ink covers were done by someone at Berkley - I'm ashamed to say I don't know by whom. Because both books are e-only, the covers are simpler and with the first book, the editor and marketing staff chose to go against the UF tide at the time. Most UF covers at the time these came out were barely clad heroines in ripped jeans and leather. Some gorgeous covers came out of that, but Isa wasn't that kind of bad ass heroine. She has her strengths, but fighting isn't one of them. At least, not physically. The only issue we had with the covers, in my opinion, was that the first book didn't actually convey any hint of magic. I think the Bound By Ink cover does a better job of that. It's more atmospheric, too. But this is the difference between publishing through a traditional publisher and publishing your own work. With a traditional publisher, covers are collaborative to a point. Past that point, you can't ask for further changes in the cover. On books you publish yourself, you can pursue THE perfect cover to the limits of your budget. I have a dream to be able to commission original artwork for book covers. Just because I love painterly covers and if I could pay an artist whose work I love - everyone wins.


Wednesday, August 29, 2018

Why Perfect Gravity's cover does not feature a shirtless cowboy and robot cat

I've never worked directly with a cover artist or designer. I've never had any say in a cover once it was done.

Aaaand now you're thinking: this gal is completely unqualified to talk about awesome cover designers. You are, as usual, completely correct.

At my level of power in the biz (i.e., none), I don't talk to artists, designers, or art directors. I don't offer feedback on final designs. I don't get a yes or no. If there's something truly wrong about a final cover, I can point out that detail and it may or may not change. I think the reasoning here is that I don't know markets or reader expectations nearly as well as the people who are in charge of bringing my story to the public. So I bow to their experience and expertise.

However! What I can show you is a peek at the one thing I do get to contribute to the cover-design process: an information packet that describes the characters and setting. I send these in at product launch time, right at the beginning, and they are supposed to function as a cheat sheet so the designers and artists don't have to slog through reading the whole book.

I love filling out these things and sharing my inspirations and wishes; it's one of my favorite parts of book production. Here's what I sent Sourcebooks for Perfect Gravity (note that the images I included are all copyrighted, so I can't post them here, but I've included a short description of each in [brackets] and I'm sure your imagination or Google-fu can illuminate the rest):


Hero (Kellen Hockley)
Race:  Texan (okay, not a race, but definitely a type)

Complexion: Tan from spending a lot of time outside

Age:  30

Body (height/build):  He gets a lot of exercise. Um, I used this image for inspiration:

[pic of Scott Eastwood shirtless]


Hair color/length: dark blond

Eye color (one word):  blue

Facial hair?  Nothing really in the story, though he does go a few days without a shave there in the middle and could definitely be scruffy.

Clothing: He wears jeans and boots a lot. Stetson sometimes (outdoors only, because down-home manners!). A belt buckle. At the very end of the book, at a fancy-dress shindig, he wears a tux. Thusly:

[pic of Scott Eastwood in a tux]

Signature Accessory: A cat. He rarely goes anywhere without Yoink, a cloned, bionic kitty. She’s cinnamon-and-white striped and has metal horns protruding from her wee skull, near her ears. The details aren’t hugely important. If y’all decide to put a cat on the cover, I don’t think it matters too much what kitty looks like.

[pic of shirtless cowboy holding a cat]

My dream cover for this book would feature a shirtless cowboy holding a bionic cat. But probably that stock photo would be really, really hard to find.

Heroine (Angela Neko)
Race:  Bengali/Japanese

Complexion: more South-Indian than Japanese, so kind of latte

Age:  early 30s

Body (height/build):  short, slight, in command (of everything). Bit Napoleonish.

Hair color/length: Black. Can be in any style: she goes from having a super fancy updo to being bald to having a short pixie cut at the end.

Eye color: dark brown

[pic of Priyanka Yoshikawa]

Tattoos, body marks or piercings? Nothing that you’d want to feature on a cover.

Clothing: Conservative high-fashion futuristic chic. Tailored to within an inch of her life, but with flights of couture weird. In terms of style and deportment, I think of her as a mashup of Huma Abedin, Padme Amidala, and Alexander McQueen.

[pic of Huma Abedin in her wedding dress]

[pic of vaguely steampunk long-sleeved Alexander McQueen dress with buckles and frogging on the bodice]

[pic of Padme Amidala in her heavy velvet addressing-the-Galactic-Senate costume]

Key Accessory: Elbow-length biodeterrent smartgloves. (That, uh, just look like regular gloves, those heavy-duty long things the Victorians wore to keep the whole world off their skin.)

Setting/description
(similar to first book in series)
The year 2059, so near future. Look should be futuristic but gritty.

Western U.S. desert (so, lots of scrub-brush flora and bumpy horizons) with an unexpected giant megastructure (an arcology, like those mongo buildings in BladeRunner) jutting out of a vast, dark nothing. 

Also scenes in post-apocalyptic underwater Galveston and a futuristic Guadalajara.

Design ideas/inspiration
This movie poster sums up the mood nicely:

[pic of Cowboys vs Aliens movie poster featuring Daniel Craig's backside]

Also has cowboy, futuristic-looking tech, impending doom clouds. Nice.

Cover descriptive words
Techno, sexy, old-west, bleak, futuristic



And this is the cover they came up with:


I think the cover is gorgeous. Does it match my vision? Not really. But it fits smoothly into that urban-fantasy kickass-heroine market, which is where I suspect the publisher was trying to place it.

So, yeah, it's probably best I don't have a lot of control over covers. There are people who are much better at this than I am.

But, just the tiniest bit, I do mourn the shirtless-cowboy-with-a-robot-cat cover that never was.



Wednesday, February 22, 2017

COVER REVEAL

In case you've missed it...

Here is the cover reveal for Jovienne, 
which will be available May 9, 2017 
from Ragnarok Publications. LINK




Hot Topics

Recently, my ears had the displeasure of hearing some folks actually say out loud that they "wish the actors would just shut their mouths and get back to their job entertaining the rest of us." 

-insert "What you talkin' 'bout, Willis?" meme here-

Why should any citizen’s opinion be worth more or less than any other, especially when you can trade the job title ‘actor’ for any other occupation?

How can anyone be okay with silencing the political views of one group based on their job?

I mean, it’s just a step away from that to say ‘authors’ should shut up and just entertain us. Authors are people who are trained to plot ahead, to logic out the possible next steps and follow that rabbit trail to its best and worst conclusions. And, to me, only bullies and tyrants want to shut people up. Diplomats welcome the conversation because they accept the way is and will always be flawed, but are eager to make it as good as possible.

FWIW, My facebook page is mine. I put on it what I want. My facebook fan page however is strictly business, no personal stuff.

Friday, August 26, 2016

Cover Lottery

File covers under: You win some, you lose some. Sometimes all on the same cover(s). Book covers have a lot of jobs. Entice a reader to pick the book out of all the books on the shelves in order to read the back cover blurb. Convey what kind of read to expect - genre, tone, what have you. And hopefully, if you're really lucky, the cover will get the hero or heroines hair color right. Ish.

Wins on my first two covers: Really pretty. Amazing artwork. The heroines are mostly right. Ari's book (yellow one left) makes her far too put together for her particular circumstance, but oh well. Jayleia's cover (green below) gets her right.

The losses on these covers: Neither one says SFR. They both, to my eye, convey urban fantasy, instead. Compounding that problem? They were shelved in romance. Also, that background scene for Ari? Doesn't exist. No where in the books. Jay's background? Well. Maybe. There is a temple on her home world that gets attacked and she gets to be all bad ass about. So okay.

These covers came from a traditional house and when they were presented to me, there was very little room for alterations or changes.


The next two covers were also from a traditional house, but were for their E-book only imprint. Both were for urban fantasy novels, which I think they convey reasonably well.



I think you get UF from this cover. And maybe you get that the heroine isn't exactly a kick ass supernatural. She has skills, yes, but swinging swords or staking vamps might not be among them. The piece missing for me is a hint of magic - which really defines Isa's books. I do love that she's more than half dressed. But without the hint of something mystical, this could also pass as a cover for a cozy mystery. Which makes it not as cool as it could be. The only other issue is that this cover isn't all that great at conveying the tone of the story - the fact that there's some torture and overall angst. The problem is that ebook covers have to do all the work that print covers do - but they have to do it in thumbnail. That shit's HARD.
The second book in the series did a better job, I think.

In this cover, I got the hint of magic and with the background, I think you get a taste of this story not being all sunshine and roses. Maybe. So. Ebook covers - but ebook covers still presented by a traditional house with their own agendas and ideas about what changes might be made when and where. Which is to say - not many.

The really interesting cover, for me, is the most current one. It's for a light paranormal romance. The story was a complete departure for me. There are no dead bodies. Well. None that die on screen, anyway. It was my first venture into self publishing. Therefore the pressure I put on getting the cover right was enormous. I had several ideas for how the cover could look. In the end, I won a Twitter contest for a free cover from the awesome Danielle Fine. I told her my cover ideas.

She shot me right down. And explained WHY she'd nixed my cover. Her experience with romances novels and with paranormal in particular told us that paranormal readers expect the couple on the cover. Well okay. I was so relieved to have some guidance, I instantly sent over all of the particulars about Fiona and Darsorin. Danielle mocked up several different covers. We sat with them, hemming and hawing. I picked one I liked, but asked for a few changes in the hero. Discontent with the covers, Danielle went back to the drawing board and sent me a cover that made me gasp when I saw it because it was 100% right.

The characters are dead on. The single issue is that the flames surrounding them (while entirely appropriate to a theme that runs through the book) suggests this is a hot read. And it ain't. See. While Darsorin is an incubus and feeds on sexual energy, Fiona is asexual. So sure fire happens in the book...but...you know. Anyway. I hope to heaven it's not misleading. Or if it is, the story is enjoyable enough as is. Because, boy, do I love this cover.

Given my druthers which cover process do I prefer? Oh, this last one. Hands down. Getting to strive for a cover that does the matches the story is a huge win. Even if it means brainstorming several times before you finally find the right fit - that was something that simply wasn't an option with any of the traditionally published titles. That isn't to say I wouldn't work with a house again. I would. For the right book and circumstances.  But there's a lot to be said for having control over the face your stories present to the world.

Wednesday, August 24, 2016

Birth of a Book Cover

Recently, I got to preview the cover for my book coming in May 2017…it is GORGEOUS!!! But I can’t reveal it yet…so I’ll talk about another cover. (Tease, I know...)

In my experience, Editors generally ask an author what they anticipate the cover would look like. It is largely, I suspect, a courtesy. I also suspect that many authors site a certain scene from the story, and comment on the hero/ine’s ethnicity, hair color, age, etc. and any ‘props’ the character should have in the image.

I also suspect that a minority of authors have actually worked as graphic artists or in other directly creative positions. 

Because I am one of those few, when my editor asked me specifically about ARCANE CIRCLE, I went to the internet and searched for people with awesome ink. ARCANE CIRCLE was largely about ‘unlocking’ the power bound in Johnny’s many tattoos, so I wanted to represent that on the cover. I found a photo of a woman whose back had a fabulous dragon and foo-dog image and I copied it to my computer. Then I searched for images of a woman with one arm raised. Scored another win in a picture of some young lady with her arm up, elbow bent, and forearm lazily draped across the top of her head. After saving it also, I opened up Photoshop.

I added a wand in the female’s hand, made the tip glowy and ‘magical.’ Then to I took the tattoo image, erased everything but the actual dragon and foo-dog, then adjusted the opacity until I could see through them just enough. This all took me less than an hour to search, find and complete my ‘mock up.’ It was rough, to say the least, but let me reiterate…it was a ”MOCK UP.” I proudly sent it off to the editor.

Her response was something along the lines of, “Do you seriously expect me to show this to the senior editor, coordinators, and/or sales staff?”

As this was the fourth book in the series and I was pretty confident that I’d have the same artist (Don Sipley) for this as I had for the previous ones, my reply was basically: “No, I expect you tell them whatever they need to hear…then send this image on the sly to the cover artist. He’ll know what to do.”


Indeed he did. WHATS MORE, the building in the background has the same overhang feature as a prominent building in the story, so the artist either got super lucky, or (more likely) he did a little research. (Respect!!!) And in turn, I modified one of the scenes to reflect Persephone's outfit as he portrayed it. This one of my favorite covers...the colors, the moonlight... What do you think?



Tuesday, August 23, 2016

A Cover Story

The absolutely wonderful Glendon at Streetlight Graphics did the covers for my Fire Born series. He's designed two already and I hope he'll continue for the remaining three. Not only did he do the covers, he did the map and the formatting. In essence, I handed him my Word doc and he gave me back a completed book in multiple ebook and print file formats (optimized by vendor).

Going into the Great Cover Artist Hunt, I knew I wanted an illustrated cover. Matter of fact, I knew exactly what I wanted on the cover--her hand holding the snowglobe nation with just a hint of her unusual face. I also know that being that particular about a vision can often lead to disappointment.

It didn't.

I love working with Glendon. I found his company, Streetlight Graphics, through a Google search. Yes, I reviewed hundreds of potential artists' sites before contacting Streetlight Graphics. It's a case of being 85% sold purely based on their website. Their site isn't particularly whizbang. It's actually quite a simple site while being very informative, which told me they understood the value of restraint in design and respected the self-publishing author. Once I contacted them, Glendon closed the deal with his personable professionalism.

Glendon sent me a worksheet to complete that asked for everything from title, tagline, back copy, comparables, likes and dislikes, etc. From there, it was a matter of approving initial concept sketches (which he nailed out of the gate, btw), then minor tweaks. I had no changes to the spine and back cover design for the print version.

Same story for the second cover, which I'll reveal...after I write the book. (DOH!)

Yeah, if you need a one-stop-shop that does amazing work, I highly recommend Streetlight Graphics.


Sunday, August 21, 2016

Crafting the Cover

A timely topic for me this week as we just released book two in my Sorcerous Moons series, ORIA'S GAMBIT, which was a bit later going up than originally planned because we were tweaking the cover.

Okay - because I asked for a huge change after I saw the final cover. Here's the story.

See, I'm still new at designing my own covers. With my traditionally published books, like The Twelve Kingdoms and The Uncharted Realms, the covers are presented to me as a fait accompli. I get a little input at the beginning, but that's it. Because I'm publishing the Sorcerous Moons books on my own, I work with my cover artist, the amazingly talented and infinitely patient Louisa Gallie to come up with just the right cover.

We started with me sending Louisa the draft of the book. She read it (one of the perks for her, she claims) and sent me some initial sketch ideas.



I liked all of them, but none felt exactly right. This is the hard part for me. I have a really hard time envisioning what I think it should look like and communicating that.I kept coming back to look at them over several days and ended up saying:

I think none of these really sing to me, though I totally see what you’re going for. I like the action of #1, though not the exact pose. LOVE Chuffta flying and flaming and I like that background. I also like the background of #2. What about this? What about a pose similar to #2, but in her rooftop garden, with them at kind of a tense standoff and Chuffta flying and flaming above? And maybe she should be in her mask? It doesn’t have to be a scene directly out of the story. Though another thought could be something from the testing scene at the end. I’m just throwing stuff out here....

Louisa replied:

So, something like the pose of 2 but with the tilted, actiony angle of 1, Chuffta, and the background from 3? Trying to get the image straight in my head.
I can put her in her mask, it would work for a tenser scene if we can't see her expression. They're described as smooth and featureless but I seem to remember cheekbones mentioned. So would her mask be shaped with the contours of a face (cheekbones , nose, browbone) but without eyes or lips?




We went back and forth a bit and she worked on it from there and next sent me these sketches:


I still wasn't totally on board, though I wasn't sure why. I was finding that I couldn't get closer to knowing what I wanted by seeing what I *didn't* want. Louisa sent me a new sketch with this caveat:

My clients are never supposed to see this stage of a sketch, but as we're exploring...



I could turn him like this? I did increase the tilted view simply because two people standing side by side, facing the same way, can get boring quite quickly, and it adds some drama. I think maybe I'd want to angle him more behind her just to add some more depth and so they still look far apart (although technically it creates less distance between them on the canvas, which helps with a vertical aspect ratio.

Hear that crazy artist talk? I was all, sure, what you said. Though I pointed out that he should probably be holding the axe in his right hand.

Turns out that's easy to flip! She sent me three more sketches, along with this explanation:

Ok, I've sketched the amended poses out properly, and there's a flipped version so the axe is in Lonen's right hand. I think it maybe looks a bit better the original way, but it's really not much difference either way. So your call!
The only small difference between the two versions here is whether their hands have actual canvas space between them. They're not actually touching in either but if they're just barely not-touching, then technically their hands should overlap because of where Lonen is standing. It does also let me bring them closer together and make the figures a little....but looking at them now, there's no real huge difference. It's a tiny detail and I'd be ok with either.





I was liking it and we went with the flipped version. She sent the next sketch to let me know she was making progress and would be refining details.



I gave her a few thoughts and she sent the almost finals.



At this point I discovered I'd missed something along the way. Enough time had lapsed that I'd forgotten I'd asked for her to wear the mask! I'd been thinking her face just wasn't done and now... well, the mask looked creepy. Also I remembered that Lonen has a scar on his face! I said:


So, what I said about the scar: They locked eyes and wills. His, densely fringed with black lashes, were a dark gray, like the granite their sister-city to the north, Arvda, sent in trade. Surprisingly lovely, they would have made him look feminine but for the angry line of a recent scar that dragged from his forehead, skipped his eye, and continued down his cheek. Nearly missed losing that eye to whatever had sliced at him, something thin and sharp by the look of it.
 Lonen lay on his back, face relaxed so the scar that cut from his forehead, over one eye and down his cheek didn’t pull to the side as it did when he was awake. More scars criss-crossed his chest and concave belly—funny that her sgath didn’t show them.

As for the rest – looking good! Love how the title/fonts look.

Her left, upraised hand looks funky with the way her fingers are spread – can we bring them together?

Also, I think the mask needs to be smoothed. I’d forgotten that we’d talked about her wearing the mask and I was all wtf is wrong with her face?? Lol. So *I* didn’t see that it was a mask, so I think we need to make it more mask-y. A blank oval might work better to make this more obvious?

Can we add a moon to the sky? Either is fine. Maybe too hard with the text and Chuffta, too.
 And it there’s any way to make her hair look more copper (maybe there isn’t) that would be great.


At least she didn't kill me. That was still to come. She said:  


Ok. I really tried with the mask but a plain blank mask, or even one with eyes and no other features, looked totally bizzare. At a normal distance it looked like she had no face at all (like we'd forgotten to add it) and even when zoomed it it just looked weird and at best, sci-fi.  So, I did my best to smooth out the features and make it more metallic so it looks more mask like. What do you think?
Moon did conflict with the text and Chuffta so it's partially behind a cloud, but still there!
I adjusted her hand and gave her hair more coppery metallic tones.
 Unless theres' anything really critical (or really really tiny) this is all the time I have more changes, as I'm on a train after work tomorrow. I'll have a little time at lunch or first thing before work if there's anything very quick.
I'll upload the high res files now, crossing my fingers they're ok, and send you the links! 

And here's that cover: 

And... people - Louisa did an amazing job! But I *hated* the mask. I showed it to a few people and they all used variations of the word "offputting." We were at the drop-dead mark for getting the book released on time, Louisa had killed herself to get this finished by the deadline and was going away for the weekend. 
This wasn't tiny.
But I also didn't want to put it out there with an offputting cover. 
I emailed Louisa with the bad news and she exercised that infinite patience. Five days later, Oria had a face. 
I'm really pleased!
And now we're starting on the cover for book three, THE TIDES OF BÁRA. I'm sure Louisa is breathing a big sigh of relief, as I just approved the very first sketch.


About the Book

A Play For Power
Princess Oria has one chance to keep her word and stop her brother’s reign of terror: She must become queen. All she has to do is marry first. And marry Lonen, the barbarian king who defeated her city bare weeks ago, who can never join her in a marriage of minds, who can never even touch her—no matter how badly she wants him to.
A Fragile Bond
To rule is to suffer, but Lonen never thought his marriage would become a torment. Still, he’s a resourceful man. He can play the brute conqueror for Oria’s faceless officials and bide his time with his wife. And as he coaxes secrets from Oria, he may yet change their fate…
An Impossible Demand
With deception layering on deception, Lonen and Oria must claim the throne and brazen out the doubters. Failure means death— for them and their people.
But success might mean an alliance powerful beyond imagining…