Uncreated Conscience

The hardcover of SILVER PHOENIX by Cindy Pon

Recently there have been rumblings in the blogosphere about the re-jacketing of Cindy Pon‘s book SILVER PHOENIX that have been brought to my attention. Reactions have been mixed, from outrage to support, with many bloggers pointing to the re-jacketing as yet another example of publishing cover racefail (the first being Justine Larbalestier’s LIAR and the second being Jaclyn Dolamore’s MAGIC UNDER GLASS).

This is a bit of sensitive subject and I was a little wary of writing about it. It isn’t the topic; I’ve blogged about race and cover matters before and I try to champion novels with POC themes, settings, and characters whenever possible, but this situation requires delicacy for a few reasons.

1. This is not directly analogous to situations in either LIAR or MAGIC UNDER GLASS.
2. I am not Cindy Pon’s editor or publisher so I obviously don’t know all the details.
3. Despite my best intentions to keep neutral, there may be some finger-pointing (not at Cindy or her publisher).
4. What I say may come off as a little defensive even though I don’t mean it that way.
5. Contrary to what we want the outcome to be, in this situation, we as the concerned reader may not be able to effect much change.

Those reasons aside, I did feel I was qualified to say something about this topic based on these reasons:

1. I work in editorial.
2. I am a woman of Asian descent.
3. I ain’t happy about this either.

Above is the original cover for SILVER PHOENIX. The re-jacketed cover is below the cut.

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Since I’ve gotten my shiny new MacBook laptop and iPod Touch, I will confess to being more preoccupied with playing with my new toys than doing anything productive or useful, like blogging about the books I’ve read, the movies I’ve seen, or even finding someone—anyone in publishing who will hire me, or finishing revising my novel. (I have not even gotten coffee yet, which just attests to the awesome power of Apple and Steve Jobs.)

It’s mostly because YouTube videos will now actually play on my computer (and iPod!) instead of freezing and skipping about. Last night I stayed up until 4am binge-watching John Green and Hank Green‘s 2007 Brotherhood 2.0 project. Oh internet, never stop being awesome.

But I figure I do owe you a few reviews. This past weekend, I went down to see my Teddy Bear after a long hiatus. Our initial plans were to go paintballing (which I haven’t been since I was 13), but the weather decided it wanted to rain on our parade. Literally. Our Sunday plans to go skydiving also derailed due to inclement weather. Summer, she is mean in a different way from spring. Spring teases. Summer smothers. So Bear, The Inimitable Bex, Oz, and I decided to watch The Hangover instead.

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