Barlowe's Guide to Fantasy

'Barlowe's Guide to Fantasy' by Wayne Douglas Barlowe

 

'Barlowe's Guide to Fantasy' is a followup to the author's highly successful 'Barlowe's Guide to Extraterrestrials' (1979). Published by Harper Prism in 1996, 'Fantasy' is 144 pages long, although 34 of these, consisting of sketches from Barlowe's forthcoming (back in 1996) book 'Barlowe's Inferno', are tacked onto the end as padding.

 

As with 'Extraterrestrials', this book adheres to a double-page format, with the fantasy character depicted on one page, while the facing page provides explanatory text, and an ancillary illustration or two.

There are 50 fantasy characters presented, some from older myths and legends (like, for example, the gryphon or griffin).

Other entries are derived from modern horror and fantasy novels.

 

 

Not all entries are necessarily monsters of one sort or another......

As with 'Extraterrestrials', there are going to be some omissions and inclusions among the 50 profiles that will strike some readers as awkward, but overall, 'Fantasy' provides a good overview of the genre. 

There are certainly some images that will lead you to seek out a particular novel or series with which you are unfamiliar, and for those characters with whom you may previously have been familiar, seeing them depicted in Barlowe's meticulous artwork is a nice surprise.

With used copies in good condition available for under $5, getting 'Barlowe's Guide to Fantasy' is a worthwhile investment.

Tom Laughlin dies at age 82

Tom Laughlin dies at age 82

Actor Tom Laughlin died on Thursday, December 12 at age 82. He had been suffering from pneumonia.

Laughlin is best known as the feature film character 'Billy Jack', a cultural icon and 70s superstar. 

If you were over the age of five during the 70s, then you knew who Bill Jack was, and how, despite renouncing violence, he was obliged to take off his shoes and use kung fu to kick the asses of racist rednecks who were hassling Indian children. Or hippy kids attending a Montessori school. Or anyone from the counterculture, for that matter.

There's no denying the fact that the Billy Jack films could be ponderous, self-indulgent, and frequently boring - at least, that is, if you weren't stoned. But they had a quirky originality that is utterly lacking in so many of today's studio and indie films.

Although he was never the topic of a comicbook episode per se, for issue 11 (April, 1975) of Marvel / Curtis's The Deadly Hands of Kung Fu, Billy Jack was the cover star and the subject of two overwrought articles. In tribute to Billy Jack, I've posted the less overwrought (?) article, 'Death is A Loner', by Scott Edelman.

Book Review: Nature's End

Book Review: 'Nature's End' by Whitley Streiber and James Kunetka

4 / 5 Stars

'Nature's End' was first published in hardback in 1986; this Warner Books mass market paperback edition (418 pp) was released in May, 1987, with a cover illustration by Michael Haynes.

It's November, 2025, and the planet Earth is in the grip of an Eco-catastrophe.

In the US, where small contingents of the wealthy still live in luxury, cities like New York are crammed with impoverished illegal immigrants living in decaying tenements with no running water or sewerage, and the streets look like something out of the Soylent Green movie set.

The state of New Jersey is essentially one enormous toxic waste dump, where tumor-riddled, giant rats haunt warehouses stuffed with steel drums leaking carcinogens.

The Midwest is a desert, scoured by dust storms of apocalyptic intensity. What few human settlements exist struggle to grow crops in the depleted soil.

Even the rich and famous rely on a steady diet of mood-altering drugs, virtual reality entertainment, and 'rejuvenation' treatments to make it through each day.

As bad as life in the US is, of course, the teeming billions in the Third World have it much, much worse. In countries like India, only the distribution of the 'winged bean' prevents mass starvation.

Gupta Singh, a Sikh physician and mystic living in a Calcutta slum, is the leader of the World Depopulationist Mainfesto. 

Using a clever mix of Eastern philosphy and updated, Ghandi-ish humanism, Singh is trying to convince the world's population to commit voluntary suicide - !

The Manifesto calls for everyone on the planet to ingest a red pill. One third of the pills will contain a lethal poison; the other two-thirds, a harmless placebo. With a third of the Earth's population dead, maybe then, and only then, can the planet recover from the 'disease' of mankind.

In an ultramodern New York city apartment building, John Sinclair and his family monitor the march of the Depopulationist movement with growing alarm. What once had seemed like a hopelessly crackpot scheme is growing more feasible with each passing day. Depopulationists have infiltrated the US political system, and a majority vote for the Manifesto seems likely early in 2026.

As a 'convictor', a sort of global uber-prosecutor, Sinclair has the power to discredit the Depopulationist movement and its leader. But Gupta Singh has no intention of having his mission derailed by a wealthy American, an American who represents the culture most responsible for despoiling the earth's ecosystem.

As he embarks on his investigation of Gupta Singh, John Sinclair is going to learn very quickly just how much power is wielded by this seemingly fragile holy man from Calcutta.

But if John Sinclair fails, it could mean the end of humanity.....for Gupta Singh's ambitions run far beyond a simple thinning of the human herd............

I remember walking into the Cracker Barrell convenience store on Nicholson Drive in Baton Rouge on a damp, muggy day in May, 1987, and picking up a copy of 'Nature's End' from the paperback book shelf.

At the time, I found it a very worthwhile read, and today, more than 25 years later, it remains one of the best Eco-catastrophe novels in sf. 

As with their best-selling nuclear war thriller Warday (1984), for 'Nature', Streiber and Kunetka adopt the epistolary narrative pioneered, with great success, by Michael Crichton. 

Short chapters, consisting of first-person narratives from each of the main characters, are interspersed with real and imagined newspaper clippings, scientific abstracts, and interviews with various personages. There is also a nod to late 80s cyberpunk influences, with the inclusion of an AI ('Delta Doctor') that mediates the conviction process.

This construction means the book flows along at a fast pace, with lots of action and drama, despite its length.

'Nature' is not without its flaws; the last few chapters tend to wallow in a sentimental bathos, and the climactic confrontation between Sinclair and his adversary comes off as a bit contrived. As well, Streiber and Kunetka glibly toss all sorts of mid-80s 'alternative' science into their background, such as the 'morphogenetic fields' of Rupert Sheldrake, and the 'Gaia' pantheism of James Lovelock. 

But, if you haven't yet read 'Nature's End', and you're a fan of Eco-catastrophe sf, you'll want a copy in hand.

Colin Wilson dies at age 82

Colin Wilson dies at age 82

 from The Telegraph (UK) December 13, 2013

Colin Wilson died December 5. Born on June 26,1931, he briefly was lionized in the mid-50s when The Outsider, his analysis of alienation among famous characters in world fiction, won the effusive praise of the literary establishment. 

But following the rapturous reception of The Outsider, instead of proceeding to devote his career to 'literary' works, Wilson published a continuous stream of crime, science fiction, and horror novels, a stance that quickly lost him the regard of the highbrow set. 

Wilson was utterly indifferent to the disapproval of the intellectual elite, and luckily for fans of genre fiction, he produced tales of monsters, sex killers, and weird psychologies, for the rest of his writing life.

I regularly read Wilson's fiction and nonfiction during the 70s, 80s, and 90s. 

Nonfiction books like The Occult: A History (1971), A Criminal History of Mankind (1984), and The Encyclopedia of Modern Murder (1983) always were consistently interesting, even if some of Wilson's philosophies - which later he came to label New Existentialism -  were more than a little contrived.

His sf, mystery, and horror novels also were often entertaining and represented some of the better examples of genre fiction. The Mind Parasites (1967) and The Space Vampires (1976) were offbeat and imaginative, and today stand well alongside other novels considered to be classics of the New Wave movement in sf.

Wilson's Spider World series, which ultimately came to comprise four unabridged volumes, also was a good example of an sf series that, while occasionally a bit tedious, nonetheless came off as a better read than many of the bloated, multi-volume series now occupying the shelves of bookstores.

Wilson's output had slowed in his later years, and a stroke he suffered in September 2012 left him unable to write. But he has left behind a sizeable catalogue of works, many of which are well worth seeking out.

Heavy Metal December 1983

'Heavy Metal' magazine December 1983

December, 1983, and in heavy rotation on MTV is the latest single from Genesis, 'That's All'. As Winter settles in over the dreary landscape of the factory town in upstate New York where I live, the latest issue of Heavy Metal magazine is on the stands.

The front cover  is by Chris Achiellos, and the back cover is by Daniel Horne. The advertising includes the latest offerings from the Science Fiction Book Club, as well as a deluxe paperback edition of Arthur C. Clarke's The Sentinel.

The Dossier starts off with an interview with filmmaker Michael Laughlin about his low-budget release Strange Invaders. This film has since become something of a cult movie, however, I have never seen it, so I can't tell you if it's worthy of accolades or not.

Next, the Dossier turns to reviews of books about George Lucas and Alfred Hitchcock.

 

 Ellen Kushner reviews recent fantasy novels and finds most are of mediocre quality.

The remaining pages of the Dossier are thin gruel, devoted as they are to underwhelming musical efforts, and anecdotes.

The graphical art content of the December issue is improved over that of the previous month. There are more installments of 'Tex Arcana',  'Ranxerox', 'The Fifth Song', and 'Valentina'.

There are some quality standalone stories in this issue, one of them being Schuiten's 'The Rail', which combines some great art deco-style illustration with some wordless action involving horny French train passengers, one of them a man with orange skin..... ?! 

I know, it sounds weird. Maybe because it's a Eurocomic. But I've posted it below.......

Propina incluida by Santos

Propina incluida
('tip included')
by Santos
from the Spanish edition of Metal Hurlant, issue 26

Book Review: Amazons II

Book Review: 'Amazons II' edited by Jessica Amanda Salmonson

4 / 5 Stars

‘Amazons II’ (239 pp.) is DAW Book No. 485, and was published in June, 1982. The cover artwork is by Michael Whelan. All of the stories were exclusively written for this anthology. It is the companion volume to 1979’s ‘Amazons !’, also edited by Salmonson and published by DAW.

In her Introduction, Salmonson provides a lengthy overview of the Amazon in history and legend.

The opening story, ‘For A Daughter’ by F. M. Busby, is an unremarkable tale about an Amazon who embarks on a quest for an appropriately studly man (!) to sire her offspring. Male chauvinism inevitably rears its ugly head.

Gillian Fitzgerald’s ‘The Battle Crow’s Daughter’ uses Celtic myths as background for its tale of a young woman married off to a boor for the sake of promoting comity between warring nations.

In ‘Southern Lights’, by Tanith Lee, Jaisel the Amazon finds herself obliged to seek shelter in a strange village high in the snowy wastes. There is an undercurrent of creepiness to the setting and plot that makes this one of the better entries in the collection.

‘Zroya’s Trizub’, by Gordon Derevanchuk, is a folk tale based on Slavic mythology; original in setting and place, with a nice plot twist at its end.

‘The Robber Girl’, by Phyllis Ann Karr, takes the heroine from the Hans Christian Anderson tale ‘The Snow Queen’, and sets her off on her own adventure.

‘Lady of the Forest End’, by Gael Baudino, is a humorous adventure involving an Amazon named Avdoyta, and her bumbling aide, the monk Monmouth.

‘The Ivory Comb’, by Eleanor Arnason, is another folk tale, featuring some quasi-scatological humor.

‘The Borders of Sabazel’, by Lillian Stewart Carl, is a rather ponderous piece about Amazons in uneasy alliance with some overly-macho male warriors.

‘Who Courts a Reluctant Maiden’, by Ardath Mayhar, features an Amazon who resolves to help a woman brutalized by an evil overseer. A good combination of whoop-ass revenge and satiric humor.

‘The Soul Slayer’, by Lee Killough, and ‘Nightwork’, by Jo Clayton, both feature Amazons addressing injustices committed by despotic males. Good action sequences, and worthy villains, make these among the better entries.

‘In the Lost lands’, by George R. R. Martin, sees Gray Alys the warrior-witch embark on a disquieting journey to the Lost Lands. The story’s bleak setting, violent tone, and carefully worded prose, make it another of the anthology’s superior entries.

In summary, editor Salmonson does a very good job in terms of eliciting quality material from her contributors, not something many DAW editors of the 80s were wont (or able) to do. ‘Amazons II’ is not just a good anthology about Amazons, but a good anthology of fantasy fiction, period.