Well, yes, last week’s Goliath art reveal was a bit of an April Fool’s Day joke from me and Keith, as many of you realized/suspected/hoped.

The comment thread of that post is excellent reading, however, because your myriad theories are awesome and amusing. (Two hundred, eleven comments and counting!) Many of you wondered if this illustration was photoshopped from lots of real Goliath art, but I shall not answer that question. You’ll have to read the book to see!

Heh.

But I will say that the bride in the image is Lilit, and everyone else is basically who they appear to be, some of your more madcap theories notwithstanding. (I liked the place-switching ones. And sheeze, a LOT of you want to see Alek in a dress.)

Of course, this means that I owe you another piece of art from Goliath. And a REAL one this time.

So here it is, a piece of spot art from Chapter 23, which I aver to be entirely non-bogus and non-photoshopped. (And you still trust me now, right? RIGHT?)

Edwardian loris is Edwardian. Heh, heh.

UPDATE
The forum appears to have been fixed. Let me know if there are any more problems.

The meetup next weekend is still on!

It’s the first of the month, so it’s time for the April art reveal!

I won’t tell you what chapter of Goliath this is from, because that might be too, um, spoilery.

Please enjoy!

Click here for a zoomable version! And then, you know, zoom some.

Don’t forget the meet-up next Saturday/Sunday (depending on your time zone). I’ll be there to answer all your questions.

THREE THINGS:

Thing One
So let’s do another meet-up. Come to the WesterForum and ask me all the questions you want. Here’s the temporal data:

For USians, it will be Saturday, April 9 at 8PM Eastern Time, 7PM Central, and 5PM Pacific.

For you here in Australia, it will be 10AM Sunday (April 10) on the east coast, 7AM on the west coast, and 9:30AM in Adelaide, because by halfsies how you SA folks roll.

In London . . . ? I don’t even know anymore. Do you GMTers change your time soon? I think it’ll be 10 or 11PM Saturday night, April 9. (The US has already changed time for spring, and Australia will change in the other direction for autumn on April 3. Confusion!)

Welcome to my life. All I do is sit around and try to figure out what time it is in other places, like when I had this conference call with a bunch of people in LA last week. But you can ask about that at the meet-up! (Bwah-hah-hah!)

Thing Two
Sydneysiders, don’t forget about the great Zombies Versus Unicorns Debate next Thursday.

Thing Three
How about some fan art? Because it’s FRIDAY almost everywhere!

First a Lego Stormwalker from GizzmoHammer!

And from the side:

Lots of details from the book in this model. In fact, the back has tiny steam pressure gauges!

I do like me some Lego. And it’s great how builders have to improvise, because there’s no official Leviathan(TM) Lego kit yet. (HINT!)

For a change of pace, check out McL-Jessie’s Deviant Art gallery, which has lots of Leviathan fan art and general steampunkery. Here are a couple:

This one imagines Deryn and Alek in Japan:

And here’s Dr. Barlow wearing a cool expression, plus Tazza and egg!

Now I realize that you a lot of you guys have sent me many other pieces of fan art lately. But, alas, it’s all over my disorganized desktop. If you want to send it again, I WILL NOT LOSE IT THIS TIME, and we can do another Fan Art Friday soon.

Of course, next Friday is the first of the month, so it isn’t Fan Art Friday, it’s KEITH ART FRIDAY, with actual art from Goliath! And next art reveal is perhaps A BIT SPOILERY, but I think you’ll enjoy it anyway.

So, yeah, there’s that.

Behold!

This image will no doubt rekindle the fractious old covers/new covers debate, but I will say that this is totally my favorite of the new ones. I think the two leads look awesome together. (Though note that in reality Deryn is taller than Alek, so clearly he’s standing on a box. That’s barking princes for you!)

Enjoy the slightly-spoilery manta-ship in the upper right!

Well, as those of you who’ve looked at the comments of my previous post know, it wasn’t a fair contest between our three piece of Goliath art. But I am a firm believer that all votes must be counted, more or less accurately, so I did.

Here are the results:

Chapter 1 . . . 27 votes!

Chapter 2 . . . 165 votes!

Chapter 3 . . . 47 votes!

So, yeah. We have a winner. Thanks to everyone who participated. Remember, it’s not whether you win or lose, it’s how amusing your comments are.

So here is the uncensored image from Chapter 2.

Click here for a larger and totally zoomable version of this image, which may reward careful scrutiny!

Hope none of you are disappointed by your choice. As I read your comments, I was, like, “Uh-oh, most of the secrets in that scene are things Alek and Deryn are saying, so they kind of don’t show up in the image.” Heh, heh.

Anyway, I should have a cover to show you within the month. And of course I will reveal another piece of art on or around April 1.

Okay, it’s time to reveal the first piece of art from Goliath, book three of the Leviathan trilogy. But I can’t choose which one is best to show, so I’ve thought of something more fun than deciding on my own.

YOU, dear readers, shall decide for me.

Below are three partially revealed images. Vote in the comments for the one you want me to show in its entirety. (To make vote counting easy, please use the chapter number to identify your favorite.) Feel free to explain your vote, thus persuading others to your cause! After all, a lively debate is the beating heart of democracy.

FROM CHAPTER ONE
“Two-Headed Messenger”

FROM CHAPTER TWO
“Secrets in the Rookery”

FROM CHAPTER THREE
“Hooking the Package”

There you go. Let the vote-carnage begin!

So after my lengthy post about the process between first draft and publication, many of you took the opportunity of my mentioning advanced reader’s copies of Goliath to beg for said ARCS. Well, I don’t do my own publicity, thus staying above the fray of people asking for free books, but for once I’ll make an exception . . .

Go donate to @maureenjohnson’s #lastlittleshelterbox campaign on Twitter, or via her blog post here, and you’ll be in the running win a Goliath ARC.

Plus, you’ll be helping get shelter to people who, thanks to mudslides and earthquakes, are sleeping under rainy skies tonight. This is a good thing.

More cool stuff soon.

I’m liking this German cover of Behemoth, which follows the original flavor Leviathan cover rather faithfully:

According to Google Translate, Im Labyrinth der Macht means “In the labyrinth of power.” Pretty good tag line for the book.

Comes out from CBJ in Germany on April 24, 2011.

Note that this isn’t what the US cover would have looked like if the redux hadn’t happened. This is:

Leave all complaints and compliments in the comment thread below.