The Jaded Enemy is an ambitious project by James E. Snelling – a series of 6 Graphic Novel paperbacks; with each panel created as a separate, large format oil painting.
I've seen two of them in the flesh (so to speak), and was mightily impressed – not just with the scope and audacity of this undertaking, but with the actual paintings, which would well stand on their own, at full size. Once he has finished the herculean task of creating the planned 6 Graphic Novels he really should present the entire story as an exhibition; although the size of venue required to hold such an event might well prove prohibitive...
The story, as far I can tell from the first issue, concerns the interactions (not very friendly ones, the story insinuates) between humans and elves, in, what appears to be, the decline of the elven empire.
After a short introduction (illustrated not in oil paintings, but in black and white woodcuts) we follow a young woman, in what I would call communion with nature. We learn that she is a witch, that she has the ability to speak to animals, and is warned of trouble ahead. She then observes how an older witch is being taken away (with no reaction from the subdued 'normal' humans) by a troop of elves – who, despite having the upper hand, seem to also fear her.
This is part of an Anthology called An Aura of Familiarity: Visions from the Coming Age of Networked Matter, commissioned by the IFTF as part of/asociated with their Coming Age of Networked Matter research stream.
It also contains stories by Cory Doctorow, Rudy Rucker, Ramez Naam, Bruce Sterling, and Madeline Ashby; with illustrations by Daniel Martin Diaz. Worth checking out, wouldn't you think?
The image on the right is by Diaz, and is called Binary Predator.
No, the thumbnail does not do it justice, click through to see it in a larger version!
Victorian-era space pirate adventure? Steampunk for Younger Readers?
Larklight is the first book in the series of the same name by Philip Reeve, and let's just start by stating that I loved it - it's charming, to say the least. And excellently executed, from the story, the Victorian references, the illustrations, through to the packaging and little extras!
The story follows Arthur ‘Art’ Mumby, 11, (no relation to the historical Arthur Mumby) who lives in Larklight, a house in Lunar Orbit, with his father and his annoying older sister Myrtle. Their father is a Xenobiologist, specialising in ‘Aetheric Icthyomorphs’ (essentially fish swimming in the Aether), of which there are a lot around Larklight.
When a Mr Webster, supposedly from the Royal Xenological Institute, pays them a visit things take a turn for the worse (or, shall we say, for the adventurous?), as Mr Webster is a giant, white spider. Or, to be more precise, a giant, white, arachnid alien life form with 12 legs. And he brought a lot of his kin, and takes Larklight over. Art (and Myrtle, to his dismay) just make it out in a Lifeboat, but his father is caught and spun into a chrysalis.
The Lifeboat, not surprisingly, ends up on the surface of the Moon, and while Art and Myrtle walk through the wilderness in the direction of the next settlement they are caught by a Potter Moth (nothing to do with the current Miss Potter film AFAIK), who catches its prey alive, and encloses it, including an egg/larvae, in strong pots it fashions from its saliva and moondust. Lovely, no? But our heroes (well, our hero and his sister – the story is told from Art’s point of view!) are rescued by the infamous Space Pirate Jack Havock (barely older than the two) and his crew of multi-planet, multi-species misfits (including a pair of Anemone-looking beings from a sea world).
And so they are drawn into an adventure including a cosmic plot that threatens to exterminate all life in the solar system, and, worse, the British Empire!
Harry Connolly is the Canadian author of the 20 Palaces series, of which Game of Cages is the 2nd book. The series was put on hold by the publisher after 3 books, and Connolly self-published a prequel to it later.
The book starts a while after the events in Child of Fire, the first book in the series. Ex-con Ray Lilly has, despite killing a number of people in front of witnesses, not been charged with anything, but has returned to his quiet life stacking supermarket shelves. He still knows nothing more about the 20 Palaces Society.
He gets picked up for a job, but not by his boss Annelise, but by Catherine, an investigator for the 20 Palaces Society. Apparently someone is auctioning off a predator, and they are to investigate the rumour.
You see, predators come from a parallel universe/plain, variously called the Deeps, or the Empty Spaces. They can be summoned by sorcerers, they convey powers in the world, and, if not controlled properly, can get free and start feeding on this world and the life in it – which might well be the end of the world.
So the 20 Palaces Society is hunting predators, and anyone who knows magic and could be tempted to summon them.
The society employs Ray as a 'wooden man', a walking decoy, tasked to go in, draw fire, stir things up, do damage; with the limited life expectancy this implies. Ray is an excellent wooden man – not sure if that's by design or by chance, it's not really something he conscioiusly strives to do/be. He acts more like a peer, a full sorcerer, even if the only spell at his disposal is his 'ghost knife' cast on a scrap of paper, able to cut non-living things and subdue enemies.
Tor.com has a rather magnificent story by Ben Burgis, called Contains Multitudes (yes, that's a Walt Whitman quote) online for your delectation.
It plays in a world where humanity fought, and nearly (?) lost a war with a cosmic invader (some kind of yellow squid, it appears). The peace/cease fire conditions were that a generation of children would serve as breeding vessels for the next generation of aliens (again, see the title...).
But.
The relationship turns out to be less parasitic and more mind-meld, human and Other co-joined, talking more "we" than "I"...
Encounter with Tiber is a collaboration between ex-Astronaut Buzz Aldrin and SF writer John Barnes, re-published in electronic form by Open Road Integrated Media, who seem to be bringing out a good number of excellent books by well-known authors which were so far not available in electronic form; it might be worth keeping an eye on their release catalogue.
The book starts with an introduction by one Arthur C. Clarke, who is complaining about Astronauts first showing them up by making it painfully obvious where SF Authors got their predictions wrong, only to do so again by starting to write rather good SF themselves! And, after this rather underhand compliment, he mentions that a certain Neal A. likes the book, too… full points for name dropping there!
We then are presented with a Dramatis Personae (how very tidy, and how very handy at times!), the actual story, and biographies of the authors – a long one with loads of great pictures for Buzz Aldrin, and the standard capsule one for John Barnes.
I’m not sure how to tell you what the book is about without giving away a lot of the story… then again, given how the book itself does this, it might not be much of an issue, so here we go.
The Jaded Enemy
Encounter with Tiber
