Now through July 30, 2017, MCDxFSG is holding a fan art contest to celebrate the release of Jeff VanderMeer’s Borne. The contest is limited to two-dimensional interpretations of the shape-shifting, color-changing, mind-boggling biotech Borne.
You might find the following passages from the early parts of the book helpful in getting started, but we wholeheartedly encourage you to read the whole book for the full gamut of Borne’s fantastical forms and mutations.
“Borne was not much to look at that first time: dark purple and about the size of my fist, clinging to Mord’s fur like a half-closed stranded sea anemone.” (pg 3)
“Borne lay softly humming to itself, the half-closed aperture at the top like a constantly dilating mouth, the spirals of flesh contracting, then expanding. […] More like a hybrid of sea anemone and squid: a sleek vase with rippling colors that strayed from purple toward deep blues and greens. Four vertical ridges slid up the sides of its warm and pulsating skin. The texture was as smooth as waterworn stone, if a bit rubbery.” (pg 6)
“He had abandoned the sea-anemone shape in favor of resembling a large vase or squid balanced on a mantel. The aperture at the top had curled out and up on what I chose to interpret as a long neck, sprouting feathery filaments, which almost seemed like an affectation. The filaments, with a prolonged soft sigh, would crowd together and then pull apart again like bizarre synchronized dancers.” […] Colors flitted across his body, or lazily floated in shapes like storm clouds, ragged and layered and dark. Lavender. Emerald. […] I could see that Borne had developed a startling collection of eyes that encircled his body. Each eye was small and completely different from the others around it. Some were human—blue, black, brown, green pupils—and some were animal eyes, but he could see through all of them.”
“The transformation only took a second. All of his eyes went away, then two popped up where appropriate—never, ever gray anymore—and a nose protrusion that looked more like the head of the lizard he had eaten a few hours earlier, and a kind of crazy grinning mouth. In that hat. In the black evening dress. In the boots.” (p 56)
Jeff VanderMeer will personally select one grand prize winner and two runners-up. Winners will be announced August 7th.
Prizes:
1) One grand prize winner will receive The Complete Jeff VanderMeer Backlist:
Fiction:
Area X boxed set (Chinese)
Dradin, in Love(English and Serbian editions; out of print)
The Book of Lost Places (stories; out of print)
Veniss Underground (UK and US editions)
City of Saints and Madmen (original hardcover, first edition; out of print)
Secret Life (stories; out of print)
Shriek: An Afterword (hardcover; first edition)
The Situation
Finch
The Third Bear
Nonfiction:
Why Should I Cut Your Throat?
Booklife: Strategies and Survival Tips for the 21st-Century Writer
Monstrous Creatures
The Steampunk Bible (English and Spanish editions)
Wonderbook: The Illustrated Guide to Creating Imaginative Fiction
The Steampunk User’s Manual (English and Spanish editions)
Anthologies:
The Thackery T. Lambshead Pocket Guide to Eccentric & Discredited Diseases (original hardcover; first edition)
The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities (original hardcover; first edition)
The Weird (first edition)
The Time Traveler’s Almanac (original hardcover; first edition)
The Big Book of SF
2) Two runners-up will receive signed copies of Borne.
Contest Rules:
1) Art must be 2-dimensional and emailed to fsg.publicity@fsgbooks.com as a high resolution JPEG by July 30, 2017, 11:59 pm EST. Late submissions will not be accepted or considered.
2) Artwork is limited to 2-dimensional interpretations of the character Borne.
3) MCD and Jeff VanderMeer may select some submissions to post on their respective social media feeds (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram) and reserve the right to do so without first notifying the artist. All artists will be credited. Contestants should include their Twitter handle with their submission if they wish to be tagged. Contestants are also encouraged to use the hashtag #BorneArt.
4) Winners will be notified privately by August 7, 2017. Winners will be announced publicly on August 11, 2017, via the Work in Progress newsletter.
No purchase necessary. Open only to legal residents of the 50 United States, D.C. and Canada (excluding Quebec) who are age 13 or older. Entry period begins at 12:01 a.m. Eastern Time (ET) on May 30, 2017 and ends at 11:59 p.m. ET on July 30, 2017. Void where prohibited. For full Official Rules, visit http://www.fsgworkinprogress.com/Bornefanartrules.html. Sponsored by Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 18 West 18th Street, New York, NY 10010.
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