Thoughts On A Cover

Umwelt.

It’s a German word that’s extremely useful.

I ran across it in An Immense World, a book about the different ways animals perceive their world.

What does it mean?

An Umwelt refers to a creature’s “sensory bubble”, a structure that determines what “an animal can sense and experience”.

 Umwelts can differ radically from creature to creature.

 As author Ed Yong notes:

 “A tick, questing for mammalian blood, cares about body heat, the touch of hair, and the odor of butyric acid that emanates from skin...Trees of green, red roses too, skies of blue, clouds of white—these are not part of its wonderful world.”

I thought about Umwelt a lot when I wrote my second book, Thin Places.

The creature on the cover, a nightgaunt, has no eyes, ears, nose, or mouth, which makes its Umwelt very different than a human’s. So how do these in-between creature, this animal who crosses the boundaries between the Waking World and the Dreamlands, experience our world? How do humans overcome the lack of any traditional senses and manage to communicate with it?

This is something I explore as Ellen Logan heads off into the Dreamlands, which is home to some very strange creatures. These interactions with “the other” challenge Ellen’s understanding of the world and her place in it.

How does my character use the wisdom she gains?

You’ll have to read the book to find out...

Pre-orders of Thin Places will be available soon!

Stay connected at https://amzn.to/3sR4tfm

Books mentioned in this blog:

An Immense World by Ed Yong available at https://amzn.to/45GOBLh

Below: A scene from Arrival, a movie about first contact with an alien with a very different worldview.