Simon & Schuster UK has sent us their striking cover for HELLHOLE, my forthcoming original novel with Brian Herbert.

cover text:

Only the most desperate would ever dare to make a home on Hellhole.

Ravaged by volcanic eruptions, destructive storms and asteroid impact, Hellhole is a dumping ground for undesirables, misfits and charlatans.  But its location out on the wild frontiers of the Constellation, among the Deep Zone worlds, makes it the final refuge for those fleeing from the rule of Diadem Michella Duchenet—a tyrant with a sweet face, but a dark heart.

General Adolphus, the military leader exiled to the planet when he was defeated in the first revolution against the Diadem, is determined to transform Hellhole into a place of opportunity.  While the colonists work to develop the planet, the General is forging secret alliances with the leaders of the other Deep Zone worlds.  He dreams of turning his prison into the centre of a new coalition of planets free from the Diadem’s iron grip.

Back on the decadent capital planet of Sonjeera, surrounded by corruption and feuding old-guard nobles, Diadem Michella is confident that the General has been neutralized.  She has no idea of the revolt growing in the Deep Zone … or does she?

But what no one knows is this: planet Hellhole hides secrets of historic magnitude.  Lurking beneath the surface are the remnants of an obliterated alien civilization, detailing an unrecorded past, which, if unearthed, could tear the fragile human civilization apart.

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Cover art by Stephen Youll.   The book will be released in Jan/Feb, 2011.