PsyBot Cover Design by David Dees For my conspiracy techno-thriller, PsyBot, I was happy to make use of the services of political artist and satirist David Dees. I knew from his previous work that he could convey the insidious impact of the cybervirus in graphic fashion. And this he did. Entering the design in Joel Friedlander’s monthly cover design contest, here is my description of the cover and how it fits the book:
The cover conveys the essence of this sci-fi novel with aspects of both psychological and technological thriller (“Psy” + “Bot”; red + blue). From the disorienting depths of the computer (the tunneling pattern of binary digits) comes the rogue virus (the tentacled “bot”) to infect the unwary user.”
Well, we didn’t win the contest. Joel Friedlander added the comment, “Somewhat overwrought (only you know the red/blue symbolism, right?) but still gets the job done.” Okay, fair enough. To this David Dees chimes in:
My comment is that is that, absolutely overwrought! I experimented with different ways to present the feel, but when a virus is overtaking the scene I thought let’s make it stressful. And I thought the red was really important, no other color conveyed the angle I was going for, and even adding orange to it didn’t work, and once I tried every other color it was the cold mechanical blue butted against the red that caused a visual battle. I kept trying to add a third color to soften the effect, but the blue and red just won out as having the right “attitude” for a surreal hologram that someone would not want to be stuck in, hah. So I guess this all qualifies as symbolism. And then the tunnel effect was dropped in to symbolize going deeper into the world being created.
- David Dees political satire art
