Anniversary 'Airborn' covers by Jim Tierney

While browsing the bookstore shelf the other day, I noticed that Kenneth Oppel's fabulous Airborn trilogy has finally received the cover art it deserves, via Jim Tierney.

If Tierney's aesthetic seems familiar, it's because he's become a justifiably high-profile cover artist. Here Tierney presents the trilogy's Edwardian High Adventure motif with just a whiff of the Steampunk jazz that Oppel so delightfully fused into it.

I wish I could transplant these covers to the jackets currently donning my hardcover copies of the trilogy. In the nine years since I initially discovered the books, I have revisited the stories many times. I've often thought the first book could be an excellent textbook for aspiring novelists of every stripe. Oppel's narrative architecture is patiently and meticulously laid out, giving the sincerity of his emotional investment an utterly persuasive heft. Write whatever the hell you want — if you can pare it down to Oppel's standard of disciplined delivery, you will be leagues ahead of 90% of what you see on fiction shelves.

LINKS: The ladies at BookWars duke it out over the various covers Airborn has received over the past 14 years, and declare a winner. Kenneth Oppel is on Twitter. He seems like an eminently approachable chap with a grounded sense of things — check him out, then check out his books.