We’re here today to bring you an exciting cover reveal for The Unbalancing by R. B. Lemberg due to be released 20th September 2022 from Tachyon Publications.

Before we show you the cover in all its fine detail, here’s the official book blurb:

The Unbalancing is R. B. Lemberg’s new novel in their acclaimed Birdverse. It is the tale of Erígra Lilún, an autistic nonbinary poet, and Ranra Kekeri, a new Starkeeper, as they try to save their island home from sinking. The Unbalancing explores deep names, the magic system of Birdverse, as well as the starlore unique to Lemberg’s world. Readers will learn the origin of the stars and what they are made of through Ranra and Lilún’s efforts to understand the Star of the Tides. Birdverse fans may recognise the story from R. B.’s 2015 poem, “Ranra’s Unbalancing,” which placed 1st in the Strange Horizons Readers Poll that year. 

Now you know all about the book here’s the cover followed by a few words from the cover artist, Elizabeth Story:

Cover Artist/Designer: Elizabeth Story

“I like designing for R.B.’s stuff because they always give me a lot of visual details to work with. Lots of elements that, when I’m reading the manuscript, make me go “Oh! that would look good on the cover!”. The magic system in the Birdverse is very geometric, so it lends itself well to clean, graphic drawings. It makes my job so much easier when authors describe things!

Since the plot revolves around an underwater star, I knew I wanted the star to be the centerpiece of the cover. The tricky part was making it clear that, yes, the star is under the water rather than in the sky. Why is it down there? Well, I want potential readers interested enough to pick up the book and find out!”

And lastly we’ll leave you with a few words from the author: 

“I am so thrilled to share some of my favorite people with you: the grumpy ancestral ghost, their poet mentee who just wants to tend to the fruit trees, and the brash stateswoman who might just save the cat.”

The Unbalancing is out from Tachyon Press 20th September 2022.

To keep up-to-date on all things Birdverse, check out the website.

R.B. Lemberg is a queer, bigender immigrant from Ukraine, Russia, and Israel to the US. Their stories and poems have appeared in Lightspeed‘s Queers Destroy Science Fiction, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Strange Horizons, Uncanny Magazine, Sisters of the Revolution: A Feminist Speculative Fiction Anthology, People of the Book: A Decade of Jewish Science Fiction and Fantasy, and more. R.B.’s work has been a finalist for the Nebula, Crawford, and other awards. Many of R.B.’s stories are situated in Birdverse, an LGBTQIA+-focused secondary world. Their Birdverse novella The Four Profound Weaves (Tachyon, 2020) is available now.

In their academic life, R.B. is a sociolinguist working on immigrant discourse, identity, and gender. R.B. lives in Lawrence, KS with their spouse Bogi Takács, child Mati, and an odd but cheerful community of books. You can find R.B. on Twitter at @rb_lemberg, and on Patreon at http://patreon.com/rblemberg. For more information about the Birdverse, please visit  http://birdverse.net