Even though the book hasn’t been “officially” announced, John Coulthart’s extraordinary cover to Bruce Sterling’s forthcoming PIRATE UTOPIA created some excitement, starting with Sterling’s tumblr post and the Warren Ellis, who delivers the introduction, tweet, and a mention on Marty Halpern’s MORE RED INK.

And there was the post on BOING BOING:

Sterling sez, “A new novella of mine set in an alternate Europe just after the Great War.” I know what I’m doing next Nov. What. A. Cover.

John Coulthart on his FEUILLETON blog talks about the book and thoughts behind the cover.

And
speaking of revolutions… PIRATE UTOPIA is a novel by Bruce Sterling
that will be published by Tachyon later this year. The cover was made
public this week so I can post it here. I’m also designing and
illustrating the interior but it’ll be a while before I can show
off any of the rest of the design, especially since I’m still
working on it. Bruce Sterling is a well-known writer and futurist
(with a small “f”) who was one of the leading cyberpunk authors
in the 1980s; with William Gibson he collaborated on THE DIFFERENCE
ENGINE (1990), an early steampunk novel. PIRATE UTOPIA is shorter and
less ambitious than THE DIFFERENCE ENGINE although both books are
alternate histories, the new title being a dieselpunk affair set in
the Free State of Fiume, (now Rijeka, Croatia) in 1920. The story
concerns the exploits of a torpedo engineer and his gang of rude
mechanics, and features appearances from some real-life characters
whose identities I won’t spoil. It’s a fun book to read, and it’s
great fun to work on. The brief from Tachyon was for a cover design
riffing on classic Soviet propaganda posters, hence the vaguely
Constructivist style. There will be more of the same inside although
I’ve been poring over the works of the Italian Futurists recently,
and borrowing motifs and typographic cues from designers like
Fortunato Depero. Stock up on the Campari for this one.