The publishing process for Through Darkest Zymurgia is proceeding apace! The layout of the inside of the book is complete, and now we just need to get the cover squared away. This is the current draft of the cover image, featuring professors Thintwhistle and Carbuncle and their dog Bruno investigating a new find, courtesy of Jason Bach.

The book is the story of a scientific expedition from Glastonbury University in Angland to the fabled land of Zymurgia. The world of Angland and Zymurgia is rather different than our own, being flat, unbounded (so far as anyone knows). Prof. Thintwhistle has this to say:

It is thought by the simple that if one were to ascend to the top of a sufficiently high tower, equipped with a sufficiently powerful telescope, that one would be able to see the entire world. This is, of course, absurd, and any child with an ounce of sense can see why. If the world really does stretch infinitely far in all directions, and there is no reason to believe that it does not, any tower of finite height is but a minuscule bump. At a sufficient distance from the tower, even a low range of hills would hide many details beyond. Foreshortening would have muddled all detail long before that.

Somewhat more lofty objections are made, late at night, by the sophomores at Glastonbury. “Well, now”, one would ask, “if you did, just for the sake of argument, ascend a high enough tower to see beyond the edge of the Known World, what would you see there? Nothing! It’s unknown, innit!” “But would it be blank? Or would it become Known as you watched?” Someone else would point out that the Lands of Fable lie beyond the Known World; it wouldn’t be blank, just uncertain. Eventually someone would drag out that horrid old chestnut, “If a country is inhabited, but nobody observes it, does it have a culture?” Yes, I am afraid I remember those days very well.