The First and Final Book Covers in The Rise of Oceania — An Interpretation
The Rise of Oceania, Books 1 and 6
I thought an examination of the first and final book covers would be interesting for my readers. It was a journey from 2018 to 2023, but there’s a little more to it than that.
First, a little context and backstory. I initially came up with the idea for The War Beneath during my studies at the University of Western Ontario, in London, Ontario, Canada. I was taking many environmental science-related classes: Geology, Geophysics, and Geography. There was also some History in there, and I focused on totalitarianism/fascism, especially of the WW2 era and the two decades before it. The human race has an exponential need for resources, and it has driven many conflicts in our past. The question was, where would we find resources in the centuries to come? The outer space, the asteroids, the Moon, and so on are not realistic at present or even in the near future. Many books I was reading at the time — and even since I was a child — involved such fanciful locations for resource extraction. From Moon colonization to exploitation of the Oort Cloud (i.e. The Heechee Saga by Frederik Pohl), SF writers were mostly focused on outer space. However …
However, I realized that our next obvious location for resource extraction is actually the Earth’s oceans, which have both mineral and aquaculture wealth that is nearly beyond our comprehension. The ocean floors occupy an area twice the size of Mars, and they are right off our coasts. The mineral wealth, mostly found in polymetallic nodules, is found lying right on the ocean floor. There’s no need to dig; we merely have to scoop the nodules up. We do, however, need to overcome tremendous pressures in order to reach the deep abyssal plains.
So that’s where the idea first originated. I quickly came up with the notion that as populations on the planet surged, and as climate change hit, our need for resources would lead us to the ocean floors. A new cold war would likely arise, and there would be a “Gold Rush” to both the continental shelves and the deep abyssal plains. I’ve written about the resources there many times, but here’s a good article about it on my blog, Life After Gateway. This cold war would be much like the events featured in James Bond movies of the 70s and 80s, but underwater. Characters would live in subsea cities, habitats, and modules, and would travel via “seacars,” submersible, submarines, warsubs, and SCUBA. There would be espionage, battles, combat, chases, stealth, and more. The need for resource extraction would fuel research for new technologies, but also outright theft and fighting for such things. In other words, ‘Corporate Espionage’ and spycraft, but in an undersea and extremely hostile setting often involving outright war. Hence, the series The Rise of Oceania was born. It would be part TechnoThriller, part Sci-Fi, along with espionage and military.
The War Beneath
So the idea originated around 1989 or 1990. I didn’t write it until 2008 though, and at that time I called the book Saturation Point. I thought it a good title — a play on ‘Saturation Diving’ (meaning divers’ tissues are saturated with dissolved gases, and therefore decompression can take a very, very long time.) The characters are ‘prisoners of the deeps’ and 100% of the books would take place underwater. I landed the book deal for the first three installments in or around 2016, and I quickly decided that a new title was needed. The War Beneath made sense, because my main character, Truman McClusky, was a man who lived (and fought) underwater, due to his past in espionage and spycraft, but he was also dealing with a traumatic family history. His father had done some questionable things, in the interests of freedom for their undersea city, Trieste, and Mac and his sister, Meg, had to deal with the repercussions of these acts. Mac was torn about the quest for freedom, and did not want to follow in his dad’s footsteps, until something extraordinary happened in that first book. The title The War Beneath made a great deal of sense, therefore. It has multiple interpretations.
The First Cover
I had no say in that first cover. It was handed to me and I was told, “Here’s the cover.” I didn’t mind, though. It is really striking. The colour is wonderful. The floating body spoke of action, adventure, and espionage. The hint of great technology at the bottom — of perhaps a habitat or structure — was compelling. I wasn’t such a fan of the squiggly lines, but they have grown on me since. I loved the darker edges. To me it spoke of drowning; as we lose consciousness, we might perceive tunnel vision as our eyesight fades at the edges. That was a clever touch by the artist, Erik Mohr of the company Made by Emblem, in 2018.
The Sixth and Final Cover
After that first book, I was asked for my opinions about the next covers. I provided ideas, my colour schemes, graphics, etc. By the time the sixth book was in production, some five years after the publication of TWB, I had decided that this cover would ‘bookend’ the series. There was a new graphic artist working on this series — Ken Geniza, at Fitzhenry & Whiteside, Ltd. — and I requested black or charcoal for the colour scheme. I asked for a corpse at the bottom of the cover, trailing a blood stream as it sank into the depths. The darker cover, in colour and in mood, spoke of intense events, death, destruction, and depth. It was all a metaphor for the end of the series. The corpse certainly bookended the character arcs; what was once on the surface was now deeper and sinking fast. All the series’ plotlines and threads came to a conclusion, and the cover represented this. Ken did a wonderful job. It was his idea to add the hull rivets and hull plate seams. The ‘blanket,’ after all, refers to a ship’s imploding hull, as well as the technology that characters are fighting to steal in the narrative. The blood stream encircles and weaves between some of the letters in the title. My brother-in-law, a fantastic artist and video game developer, created the 3D version of SC-1 — Mac’s seacar, present in every book in the series — which appears at the top of the cover and also on the spine. There are sightings of it inside the book as well.
She’s been through a lot by the end of the series. Check out that damage!
At signings, people do approach me to tell me how eye-catching A Blanket of Steel‘s cover truly is. It is very compelling. The book has also been easy to market and create graphics for, including the banners, signs, and bookmarks. When a writer is happy with the cover, it makes the marketing so much easier.
I want to note that the books are written so they can be read in any order, but they do tell an overall arc of the city Trieste, Mac and Meg’s journey, and the quest for undersea colonization amidst an escalating Cold War in the world’s oceans.
Here are all six covers. You can tell that each is a part of a series, thanks to the graphic artists I worked with during the writing/production of the books.
I thought you might enjoy this ‘behind the scenes’ look at the two covers and how they came about. Learn more about A Blanket of Steel, including the jacket copy, some blurbs, and a thrilling video trailer a bit further down:
— TSJ, 27 February 2025
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Praise for Timothy S. Johnston’s A Blanket of Steel
“Fans of Clive Cussler’s NUMA Files will be delighted with Timothy S. Johnston’s undersea novels. Truman McClusky and Dirk Pitt are cut from the same adventurer’s cloth.” — Nick Cutter, author of The Deep and The Troop
“Action that ranges from close range combat to torpedo-fueled attacks. The result is a thriller that keeps moving from confrontation to confrontation … with constant danger and the vast depths of the ocean as a setting, there is always reason to keep reading.” — Kirkus Reviews
“Read the book and prepare to be blown away by one of the best writers I have ever had the pleasure to read. Timothy S. Johnston is simply amazing.” — FIVE Stars from Readers’ Favorite
“A Blanket of Steel is not simply a ‘daring do’ thriller … It’s prescient.” — Amazing Stories
“A priority selection. An action-packed story that is hard to put down. A Blanket of Steel is outstanding.” — D. Donovan, Sr. Reviewer, Midwest Book Review
“Innovative technology, Mac taking risks no one else would dare and thinking his way through to brilliant solutions … But the stakes are higher than they’ve ever been before. This is it. The countdown to the final battle … Johnston does an excellent job of keeping the tension taut as he plays with the reader’s perceptions of characters we thought we knew and trusted …” — SFcrowsnest
“Expect to be left breathless. Trust me here. Please. I COULD NOT PUT IT DOWN.” — Michael Libling, author of The Serial Killer’s Son Takes A Wife and Hollywood North: A Novel in Six Reels
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A BLANKET OF STEEL is out now!
WATCH THE GRIPPING BOOK TRAILER HERE.
FOR PURCHASE OPTIONS CLICK HERE
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A Blanket of Steel from Timothy S. Johnston and Fitzhenry & Whiteside, Ltd.
Book Cover & Jacket Copy:
AN UNSTOPPABLE THREAT!
A mysterious assassin has murdered Cliff Sim, Chief Security Officer of the underwater colony, Trieste. Cliff was a mountain of a man, highly trained, and impossible to defeat in combat. And yet …
Someone brutally beat him and left his broken body in a secret Chinese facility at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean.
And included a calling card for Truman McClusky, Mayor of Trieste.
Taunting him.
Mac has led the underwater colonies in their fight against the world’s superpowers. Climate change has devastated the surface; nations suffer famine, drought, rebellion, rising waters, and apocalyptic coastal flooding. But now, as Mac leads the underwater colonies to freedom and independence, he’s faced with the gravest threat of his life: a Russian assassin, hellbent on killing Mac and everyone he cares for. Now Mac must uncover the identity of the killer, face him in combat, and at the same time lead people in battle against the largest underwater force ever assembled. It’s Mac’s final test, and to win the war, he must use every tool at his disposal, including the most surprising and devastating underwater weapons ever invented.
If Mac fails, all hope is lost for the future of human colonization on the ocean floors.
But the assassin could be anyone …
Watch your back, Mac.
A Blanket of Steel is the most gripping thriller yet in The Rise of Oceania.
FOR PURCHASE OPTIONS CLICK HERE
The other books in The Rise of Oceania series by Timothy S Johnston:
The War Beneath 9781771484718
The Savage Deeps 9781771485067
Fatal Depth 9781554555574
An Island of Light 9781554555819
The Shadow of War 9781554556007
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TSJ’s Awards
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THE WAR BENEATH: FIRST PLACE 2018 GLOBAL THRILLER Action / Adventure Category Winner, 2019 Silver Falchion Award Finalist, 2018 CLUE Award Semi-Finalist, 2019 Kindle Book Awards Semi-Finalist, & 2019 CYGNUS Award Shortlister
THE SAVAGE DEEPS: FIRST PLACE 2020 CYGNUS Award Winner, 2019 GLOBAL THRILLER Awards Finalist, 2022 Kindle Book Awards Semi-Finalist; 2019 CLUE Award Shortlister
FATAL DEPTH: FIRST PLACE 2021 GLOBAL THRILLER Award Winner, 2022 Silver Falchion Award Finalist (Best Action Adventure), 2021 CYGNUS Award Semi-Finalist
Praise for THE WAR BENEATH
“If you’re looking for a techno-thriller combining Ian Fleming, Tom Clancy and John Le Carré, The War Beneath will satisfy … a ripping good yarn, a genuine page-turner.” — Amazing Stories
“One very riveting, intelligent read!” — Readers’ Favorite
“If you like novels like The Hunt for Red October and Red Storm Rising,
you will certainly enjoy The War Beneath.” — A Thrill A Week
“If you’re here for thrills, the book will deliver.” — The Cambridge Geek
“… an engaging world that is highly believable …” — The Future Fire
“This is a tense, gripping science fiction/thriller of which Tom Clancy might well be proud . . . When I say it is gripping, that is the simple truth.” — Ardath Mayhar
“… a thrill ride from beginning to end …” — SFcrowsnest
“… if you like Clancy and le Carré with a hint of Forsyth thrown in,
you’ll love The War Beneath.” — Colonel Jonathan P. Brazee (RET),
2017 Nebula Award & 2018 Dragon Award Finalist
“Fast-paced, good old-fashioned Cold War espionage … a great escape!” — The Minerva Reader
