‘Sentience will prevail’

This is the cover of Usurpation, the third book in the Semiosis trilogy. Notice the tagline: “Sentience will prevail.” There were taglines for the first two books: “Sentience takes many forms.” (Semiosis) “Sentience craves sovereignty.” (Interference) It seemed logical for the third book to have a tagline along the same lines, too.

My editor at Tor, Jen Gunnels, said she wasn’t sold on that particular tagline, though — “Sentience will prevail” — and invited me to suggest a better one if I could.

So I got to work and enlisted the help of my chief technobabble consultant, my husband. Here are some of our ideas:

Sentience seeks purpose

Sentience demands meaning

Sentience finds a way (Nice, but Jeff Goldblum got there first.) 

Sentience defends and endures

Sentience hungers for freedom

Sentience seeks peace

Sentience demands control

Sentience needs compassion

In the end, I decided “Sentience will prevail” is as good as anything we came up with. Can you think of something better? It’s too late to change the cover, but there are many other uses for a good tagline, so please share your ideas.