|
-
News
- Features
- Events
Calendar
- Editorials
- Monthly
Zine
- Offworld
Report
- Our Daily
RSS Feed
- Movie/TV
Reviews
> Recent movies
> Movies by year
> Movies by title
- Book
Reviews
> Recent books
> Books by year
> Books by title
- Home
- Worlds
- Biography
- Bibliography
- Appearances
- Reviews
- Blog
- Community
- Press
- Links
Become
an Advertiser
- Web
Site Directory
- Search
the Net
- StephenHunt.net
- WoodenRocket.com
- Check
your E-mail
- Non Sci-Fi
News
|
Infinite Worlds by Ray Villard and Lynette R. Cook (illustrator)
01/11/2005 . Source: David A. Hardy 
pub: University of California Press. 272 page hardcover. Price £26.95 (UK). ISBN: 0520-23710-2. Buy from Amazon US - Buy from Amazon UK
nb: US titles may only be available from Amazon US, and UK titles from Amazon UK. check out website: www.ucpress.edu/
This month, I reviewed 'The Grand Tour' by Ron Miller and William K. Hartmann, which looked at virtually every body in our Solar System and closed with a few extra-solar planets. 'Infinite Worlds' (subtitled 'An Illustrated Voyage To Planets Beyond Our Sun') is an ideal companion volume. In 250 pages of landscape format, it is a very thorough guide to stars, nebulae, galaxies and the exotic planets that may be found 'out there'. The author admits that Lynette's art was in fact the inspiration for this book. After all, although well over a hundred other planetary systems have now been discovered and we are beginning the image them, as with other forms of space art the artist's vision and skill is needed to provide any real idea of what these strange and unfamiliar worlds may look like. Obviously the ultimate hope is to discover Earth-like worlds on which there could be life in some ways similar to our own and several paintings do indeed show life-forms.
The authors are not afraid to let their imaginations roam. From the planets of closer stars they move on to 'intelligent light beings' and a 'conscious computer' (both beautifully and sensitively rendered) and a 'Milky Way Galactic Internet'. There are also many photographs, valuable in themselves, as is the text, but it is the paintings that really make this book unique.
A few words must be said about the art itself. Lynette uses mainly traditional techniques, which include acrylics, gouache, airbrush and coloured pencils but she also uses digital techniques including Bryce to produce colour 'roughs' first and sometimes takes a scan of the painting into Photoshop for further work. Given the format of this book, I feel that an opportunity was lost to include at least a couple of panoramas, extending across two pages! Highly recommended.
David A. Hardy
|
|
