I have a confession: I have never read Stephen King. I know, he is a legend and is supposed to be quite good. I just never got around to actually buying any of his books. But that does not stop me from thinking he is a cool Mo**erF**k*r.
King, of the biggest authors of the last 50 years, is releasing his next novel, JOYLAND, through Hard Case Crime. Hard Case is not a huge publisher, the Hard Case offices do not take up several floors of glass and steel in downtown Manhattan. But they are the publisher of many awesome books and use a style from years gone by, channeling the delightful pulp from the 40s and 50s.
And the magic of Hard Case Crime has resulted in King developing a relationship with them. THE COLORADO KID, released in 2005, was his first book with HCC. That novel inspired the SyFy series HAVEN. The new book, JOYLAND, will be released on June of 2013.
Set in a small-town North Carolina amusement park in 1973, JOYLAND tells the story of the summer in which college student Devin Jones comes to work as a carny and confronts the legacy of a vicious murder, the fate of a dying child, and the ways both will change his life forever.
JOYLAND will initially be released in print form only, no E-book. According to some, this will lead to massive pirating, as well as raping and pillaging of small towns in Idaho and Wyoming.
King’s reasoning for doing so: “I love crime, I love mysteries, and I love ghosts. That combo made Hard Case Crime the perfect venue for this book, which is one of my favorites. I also loved the paperbacks I grew up with as a kid, and for that reason, we’re going to hold off on e-publishing this one for the time being. Joyland will be coming out in paperback, and folks who want to read it will have to buy the actual book.”
Anyway, none of this news is new, the reason for this post is to present the fabulous cover, which was done by Robert McGinnis, the artist behind the posters for the original Sean Connery James Bond movies and “Breakfast At Tiffany’s,” and by Glen Orbik, the painter of more than a dozen of Hard Case Crime’s most popular covers, including the cover for The Colorado Kid.
