Jack of Harts

The Victory-class dreadnought is a rare example of a ship design I did not name after a World War II series of warships. Yes there were Victory ships, and there have been numerous classes of warships named Victory over the years. And there was a Victoria-class battleship back in the 1800s, but no big combatants from World War II. Still, I liked the name and decided to go with it.

As with other designs, Kir Alderfer did the original development for me, and it has hung around in my files ever since. I haven’t written any stories showing the British front and center, so I never had the excuse to spend the money to get it modeled up for a cover. But I’m currently working on publishing a story that does include the British, so I contacted Stephen and asked him make me a new Spitfire fighter. I told him the basic story and scene I wanted of three fighters plowing the road of enemies and he asked me which of the various ship classes the Audacious was. I had to tell him we hadn’t done that one yet, but he wanted to do the scene with that girl in the background. So I gave him all the reference files I had, and he ginned up an amazing cover showing all three fighters with this girl in the background.

You really need to check out Stephen Huda’s deviantart page. He’s got some good stuff on there.

But for now, here is a nice little long distance view of a ship that has not yet had the chance to show herself center stage on one of my book covers. She’s a little difficult to pick out, back there behind the explosions and lense flare, but that’s the way it should be in this case. After all, she’s got fighters acting all big and dangerous all around her, trying to keep the enemy from getting a good enough view of her to shoot her dead. You can see the bow of an Austin-class destroyer in the upper left of the image, but our Victory girl takes up most of the rest of the image.