Jack of Harts

One of the great inspirations for my stories is World War II. Many of the class names, ship names, and companies in Jack of Harts come from World War II, and I tend to spend a lot of time trolling World War II sites for interesting bits I can put in my stories. The Avengers, Hellcats, and Marauders are all named after World War II fighters or bombers for instance.

And when it came time for me to write about the British Royal Navy in my most recent story, I trolled the web for information on them as well. Hence was named the HMS Audacious, British Royal Navy Victory-class dreadnought. And then since I tend to write more about fighters, I needed a good British World War II fighter to play with. So I wrote it in.

The next step of course is to get the amazing Stephen Huda to make the cover for the story so it will look good. I give him what I want, along with the theme, and some reference pics, a scan of the truly horrible chicken scratching that is my art ideas, and he goes hog wild and makes me a cover far nicer than I asked for. The story has this scene where American Avengers and Hellcats are supporting some British fighters in defense of Audacious, and Stephen Huda made that scene come to life.

Here is a small sample of the art he delivered mere days ago, showing Wing Commander Lance Evans plowing the road for HMS Audacious in his Spitfire space superiority fighter, in service to King Henry the Ninth, monarch of the British Commonwealth.