Only six words this time : title and sub-title.
I should remind readers that the cover image for all my various book title and sub-titles remains the same.
It is a painting of a stylized pair of unnaturally thin and curving arms and hands lifting up a glowing petri dish of radiated* penicillium mold as if it was a monstrance* , the whole effect at a casual glance looking exactly like a stylized atomic mushroom cloud.
(Hopefully !)
(*Penicillium mold is extremely variable genetically and will usually mutate a few variants, even during the course of growing for a only few days on the petri dish, even if grown from a single spore - these variants are visible as the slightly different pie shaped wedges radiating outwards from the centre of the penicillium mold.
*Monstrances are that glowing sun-like thingy that the priests hold the communion host aloft in, on certain joyous occasions.)
The visual connection to an artist's painting of an upheld monstrance is immediately apparent if one has seen both.
Gladys Hobby, of Dawson's team, records in her book that she daily held up the mold on petri dishes ,in just such a manner, to lift up the spirits of the dying SBE patients.
So it is non-negotiable for me -- I must see the words "Manhattan Project" somewhere in title or sub-title.
I want to play off the idea that this tiny life-oriented Manhattan project, occurring in the same university campus and at the same time as as the atomic Manhattan project, was in every way its antithesis.
But I don't really care if title becomes sub-title etc - its all of one piece in the end.
The idea of someone no one has ever heard of, Henry Dawson, having something equal in importance to the very ultimate in Big Science/Big Government/Big Money/Big War hopefully will intrigue the potential customer enough to look inside the book.
"Agape's Penicillin"
The Manhattan Project of Henry Dawson
is a slightly more academic a sub-title - but longer-winded and windier too....
I should remind readers that the cover image for all my various book title and sub-titles remains the same.
It is a painting of a stylized pair of unnaturally thin and curving arms and hands lifting up a glowing petri dish of radiated* penicillium mold as if it was a monstrance* , the whole effect at a casual glance looking exactly like a stylized atomic mushroom cloud.
(Hopefully !)
(*Penicillium mold is extremely variable genetically and will usually mutate a few variants, even during the course of growing for a only few days on the petri dish, even if grown from a single spore - these variants are visible as the slightly different pie shaped wedges radiating outwards from the centre of the penicillium mold.
*Monstrances are that glowing sun-like thingy that the priests hold the communion host aloft in, on certain joyous occasions.)
The visual connection to an artist's painting of an upheld monstrance is immediately apparent if one has seen both.
Gladys Hobby, of Dawson's team, records in her book that she daily held up the mold on petri dishes ,in just such a manner, to lift up the spirits of the dying SBE patients.
So it is non-negotiable for me -- I must see the words "Manhattan Project" somewhere in title or sub-title.
I want to play off the idea that this tiny life-oriented Manhattan project, occurring in the same university campus and at the same time as as the atomic Manhattan project, was in every way its antithesis.
But I don't really care if title becomes sub-title etc - its all of one piece in the end.
The idea of someone no one has ever heard of, Henry Dawson, having something equal in importance to the very ultimate in Big Science/Big Government/Big Money/Big War hopefully will intrigue the potential customer enough to look inside the book.
"Agape's Penicillin"
The Manhattan Project of Henry Dawson
is a slightly more academic a sub-title - but longer-winded and windier too....
"Agape Penicillin : Henry Dawson's Manhattan Project"
ReplyDeleteis even shorter - I like !