Baxter’s Ark

I’ve just finished reading Stephen Baxter’s new novel, Ark, and it’s superb: the sequel to his end-of-the-world narrative of global inundation, Flood, it’s an immensely readable account of the building and flight of a starship to take a select few humans to an extrasolar planet where humanity can, hopefully, start again. I’ll write a review when I’ve a moment; but until then I’ll just note that the cover, above, strikes me as just lovely. I like the illustration very much; I like the design, and I like the shape and size of the font. Above all I love the way the arc (ha!) of the starship’s launch mimics the curve of the ‘a’; and the sharp diagonals of the ‘k’ take us down to the rocks at the bottom of the image.