The Book of Conquests

'The Book of Conquests' by Jim Fitzpatrick

The English artist Barry Smith (he later adopted the surname Windsor-Smith) began working for Marvel comics in 1969, providing artwork for issue 53 of 'X-Men'. In October 1970, the first issue of 'Conan the Barbarian' was released, with Smith as the artist. 

Within a matter of month's, Smith's artwork for 'Conan' had adopted an ornate, intricate tenor that mingled Pre-Raphaelite art, and Art Deco, with the styles of the great illustrators of children's books from the late 19th and early 20th centuries: Arthur Rackham, Harry Clarke, and Walter Crane. 

There was nothing else like it in any comic book from any publisher, and there was nothing like it in the world of commercial illustration, which at that time was mired in Modern Art approaches, as exemplified by work of illustrators like LeRoy Neiman (the pseudonym of Leroy Leslie Runquist) and Murray Tinkelman.  

Smith's artwork for 'Conan'  revolutionized illustration, and laid the commercial groundwork for a new generation of young illustrators, like Jeff Jones, William Michael Kaluta, and Berni Wrightson, who modeled their craft on that of 19th century British and American artists and illustrators.

One of the artists who belongs in the category of the above-named artists, is the self-taught Irish artist Jim Fitzpatrick. Fitzpatrick did album covers for a number of bands in the 70s and 80s; among his most memorable works are the album covers for the band Thin Lizzy, including  'Jailbreak' (1976) and 'Johnny the Fox' (1976).

Fitzpatrick's most famous piece of artwork is his two-tone silkscreen image of Alberto Korda's photograph of the Argentinian revolutionary, Che Guevara, whom Fitzpatrick met while working as a hotel barman in Killkee, County Clare, in 1962. [I was surprised to learn that Guevara's mother was Irish ?!]

In 1978 UK publisher Paper Tiger published 'The Book of Conquests', Fitzpatrick's illustrated re-telling of old Celtic myths: The Story of Tuan; The Coming of the Tuatha de Danann; and The First Battle of Moy Tura. 

 

These ancient tales circulated in oral form for centuries before first being recorded on paper  ca. 1100. They relate the conflict between two tribes - the Fir Bolg, and the Tuatha de Danann - over Ireland.

Negotiating  the Gaelic proper nouns is not easy, and the narrative has the stilted syntax that frequently marks translations of ancient writings. However, Fitzpatrick's artwork is what 'The Book of Conquests' is really all about.

Every page is embroidered with intricate illustrations of Celtic knotwork and calligraphy. Then there are the depictions of various events, involving heroes and battles, recorded in the sagas; these feature a style reminiscent of the artwork of Barry Smith.

 

 

There is genuine craftsmanship and artistry in every page of 'Conquests', and Fitzpatrick's work is all the more impressive when you realize it was done back in the late 70s, when there was no such thing as computer graphics. It must have taken Fitzpatrick weeks (months ?) to do a single page. 

The intricacies of composing, drawing, and coloring the knotwork and glyphs on every page of 'Conquests'  must have driven Fitzpatrick close to the edge of a semi-psychotic state of existence.....

Sadly, 'The Book of Conquests' has long been out of print; however, you can still find used copies for reasonable prices at your usual online retailers (although copies in mint condition have starting price of $139). And it's certainly worth picking up if you happen to find it on the shelves of a used book store.

Heavy Metal March 1980

'Heavy Metal' magazine March 1980

It's March, 1980, and on heavy rotation on FM radio is Blondie's single 'Call Me', the title track for the film American Gigolo.

The latest issue of 'Heavy Metal' magazine is on the stands, featuring a front cover byJohn Bolton titled 'Little Propositions', and a back cover by Sam McLean, titled 'The Tower of Babel'.

Among the advertisements in the March issue is one for The Most Shocking Books of All Time....'The Necronomicon' ! 

 

At $30, it's pricey for the standards of the time......and just what was in the 'Necronomicon' ? Well, the advertisement doesn't disclose that.

While the March, 1980 issue has too much of the same old crap: 'Changes' by Howarth , 'Rock Opera' by Kierkegaard, and 'Professor Thintwhistle' by Lupoff and Stiles, it does have worthy entries from Corben ('The Beast of Wolfton'), The Brothers Schuiten ('The Crevasse'), and Lee Marrs ('Good Vibrations').

Below I've posted 'The Crevasse' by The Brothers Schuiten.

The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction

'The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction' edited by Robert Holdstock

 

'The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction' was one of three such books issued in the late 70s, the others being 'The Science Fiction Encyclopedia' (1979), edited by Peter Nicholls, and 'The Visual Encyclopedia of Science Fiction' (1977), edited by Brian Ash.

TESF (224 pp.) was published by Octopus Books in December 1978; the front cover artwork is by Tony Roberts.

(The version in my possession was a SF Book Club edition; it was poorly made, and the glue binding the pages is crumbling away leaving the pages very loose - take this into consideration if you are thinking of obtaining a copy).

The book features a Forward by Isaac Asimov, and an Introduction by editor Holdstock.

The initial chapter covers the early history of the genre: 'Marriage of Science and Fiction', by Brian Stableford..... 

'Major Themes' by Douglas Hill, is self-explanatory.

 

As is the 'Pulps and Magazines' chapter by Michael Ashley.

'Screen Trips', by Alan Frank, covers sf in movies and TV; his coverage of Star Wars is surprisingly favorable; many SF editors and pundits were, by the end of '78, bemoaning the way the film had 'infantilized' the genre.

'Machine as Hero', by Harry Harrison, is an overview of the way SF approaches technology.

'Alien Encounter', by Chris Morgan, is an overview of aliens and their treatment in SF.

'Art and Artists', by David Hardy, covers SF artwork from the early days of the genre, through the Pulp Era, and on into the 60s and 70s. There is good coverage in this chapter of the impact British artists had on the genre starting in the 70s, particularly Chris Foss, Tony Roberts, Tim White, Angus McKie, Jim Burns, and Chris Moore, among others.

'Fiction to Fact', by Patrick Moore, discusses how many themes in older SF works have been made real by advancing technology.

'Outer Limits', by Ashley, covers SF in non-English speaking countries. Christopher Priest contributes the chapter on 'New Wave'. It's a well-written overview of this aspect of the genre, focusing on the works of the 60s and early 70s, but at the time Priest wrote the chapter, in 1978, the New Wave continued to retain its influence.

'Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow', by Malcolm Edwards, covers 'modern' SF, which more or less refers to the genre in the late 70s, after the advent of Star Wars brought considerable expansion of the genre both artistically and commercially.

The books closes with some brief appendices that cover the the phenomenon of collecting SF books, magazines, artwork, and other memorabilia; SF fandom; a listing of pseudonyms used by major authors; awards; listings of SF magazines, films, and conventions; and biographical sketches of all the Encyclopedia's contributors, showing them all in their late 70s glory:

Like any encyclopedia, TESF has become dated, and it lacks the comprehensiveness of The Science Fiction Encyclopedia from Nicholls; but it retains considerable value as an examination of the genre as it was in the late 70s. The illustrations are copious and serve as a very good complement to the text, which, by and large, is free of pretension (unlike Nicholls' volume, which was afflicted with the participation of John Clute).

Looking through the pages of TESF, you're sure to see references to at least a dozen books that you may have never have heard of before, or maybe you have a vague awareness of them, but have never really bothered to investigate. So you may be motivated to obtain those books and see what they're all about. That, in my opinion, is another of the benefits offered by TESF, and makes it worth getting.

Book Review: The Floating Gods

Book Review: 'The Floating Gods' by M. John Harrison

 

4 / 5 Stars

‘The Floating Gods’ (159 pp, Pocket Books / Timescape,1983, cover artwork by Michael Whelan) is the third and concluding volume in the ‘Viriconium’ trilogy, with ‘The Pastel City’ (1971) and ‘A Storm of Wings’ (1980) being the first and second volumes, respectively. Like the other volumes, it can be read as a standalone entry.

Somewhat confusingly, ‘The Floating Gods’ was first released in the UK in 1982, albeit under the title ‘In Viriconium’.

[You’re probably better off buying the omnibus trade paperback ‘Viriconium’ (Bantam Spectra, 2005) if you want to avoid duplication of effort in terms of getting all the Viriconium material in one convenient volume.]

The plot of ‘The Floating Gods’ is comparatively simple and straightforward: a plague of entropy has seeped into the Low City quarter of Viriconium, bringing in its wake consumption, an enervating atmosphere, and the decay of the neighborhood infrastructure.

The presence of the plague seems to be associated with the arrival in the Low City of two gods, the ‘Barley brothers’  Gog and Matey. The appearance and behavior of these two individuals is anything but godlike; they are crude boors, with disgusting habits, who do little more than drink, vomit on the cobblestones, and quarrel while the citizens of Viriconium look on in bewilderment.

The main character is a young artist named Ashlyme, who, from his home in the High City, looks on with alarm at the inexorable spread of the plague. His close friend, the celebrated artist Audsley King, has become ill with tuberculosis, and lives in her Low City home as a recluse. Other artists and writers in Ashlyme’s circle share his alarm at King’s debilitated state, but having become themselves affected by the entropy in the Low City, can only come up with vague plans and recommendations for saving their friend.

As the plague, and Audsley King’s condition, worsen, Ashlyme finds himself perhaps the only man in Viriconium with enough willpower to confront the source of the plague, and rescue his friends from dissolution and death. But first he must confront the dwarf who serves as the Barley Brother’s enforcer, the impulsive, and homicidal, ‘Grand Cairo’……

I suspect that most fantasy-fiction readers under the age of 30 will find ‘The Floating Gods’ to be a tedious, even boring, novelette. 

It has no Grand Quests, no epic battles to save the Realm from Dark Forces, no armies of vampires advancing on unsuspecting cities, and no glittering artifacts upon which the fate of the world precariously depends. Instead, ‘Floating’ is primarily a character-driven narrative, with a circumscribed setting and and measured pace.

But I think that those who persevere with ‘Floating’ will find that in some ways it is a gem of a book. Harrison’s writing is figurative, and in many ways a part of the New Wave movement, but his use of this style of writing is substantially more skillful than many other authors who have attempted the same approach.

Harrison writes the descriptive passage excerpted below with a judicious use of metaphors, and just enough adjectives to give the reader the melancholy picture of a neighborhood beset with entropy:

…….Strange old towers rose from a wooded slope clasped in a curved arm of the derelict pleasure canal. About their feet clustered the peeling villas of a vanished middle class, all plaster mouldings, split steps, tottering porticos and drains smelling of cats. Ashlyme trudged up the hill. A bell clanged high up in a house; a face moved at a window. The wind whirled dust and dead leaves around him. 

Thus it is that for the quality of its writing, rather than the subdued nature of its plot, I recommend ‘The Floating Gods.’

The Viy by Maroto

'The Viy'
(Dracula magazine preview)
by Esteban Maroto
from Creepy No. 51 (March 1973)

Dracula was a comic book / magazine, 28 pages in length, that was published in Spain, starting in 1971, by Buru Lan Comics.  The initial run of 12 issues was ultimately expanded to 60 by the time the series ended in 1973.

In 1972, the first 12 issues were translated into English and released in the UK by the New English Library. A compilation of all of those 12 issues was released by the NEL, and is a highly-sought, expensive item.

In the March, 1973 issue of Creepy (No. 51), Warren ran a preview, titled 'The Viy', of what it claimed was a forthcoming 120 page reprinting of some of the material appearing in the Dracula series. 'Dracula Book 1' was indeed published by Warren, as a 124 page, full-color volume that contained the first six issues. [The second volume never appeared.]

Copies of any of the Spanish, UK, or Warren / US versions in good condition are very rare and very expensive.

Dracula featured some outstanding artwork, primarily done by Maroto, although other Spanish artists made noteworthy contributions.

Below I've posted scans of 'The Viy' made from the New Comic Co. Creepy Archives volume 11 (October 2011).

 

Adam Ant, Space Pirate

Adam Ant, Space Pirate
by Bryan Talbot
originally produced for Adam Ant magazine, 1981 (UK)
scanned from The Art of Bryan Talbot, NBM, 2007

The idea of Adam Ant as a Space Pirate seems a bit 'twee', as they say in the UK, but that doesn't mean that UK artist Bryan Talbot didn't give it his all, as witnessed by this cool picture. 

Believe it or not, back in the early 80s Adam Ant was a feature character in UK magazines devoted to pop music and TV. There was in fact a an Adam Ant comic strip (!) that appeared in successive issues of TV Tops magazine !

Call it an overdose of 80s nostalgia, but I'll take Adam Ant memorabilia over the latest endeavors of 'Lady GaGa' any day......

Book Review: Courtship Rite

Book Review: 'Courtship Rite' by Donald Kingsbury

1 / 5 Stars

The genre of ‘sociological SF’ began (arguably) with the release of 'Dune' in 1965 and only picked up speed during the New Wave era with the publication of 'Stand on Zanzibar' (1968) and 'The Left Hand of Darkness' (1969). It remained prominent in the 70s with 'The Sheep Look Up' (1972), 'The Shockwave Rider' (1975), and M. A. Foster’s 'The Warriors of Dawn' trilogy (1975). The 80s saw 'Oath of Fealty' (1981), 'Helliconia Spring' (1982), 'Courtship Rite' (1982), 'A Door Into Ocean' (1986), and 'The Shore of Women' (1986), among others.

Sociological SF novels centered on elaborate world-building and were often lengthy, demanding reads. ‘Courtship Rite’ certainly fits that billing. The novel originally appeared as a serial in Analog in 1982, and was released in hardback and trade paperback editions by Pocket Books that same year. This Pocket Books paperback (409 pp.) was released in September, 1983. The cover painting is by Rowena Morrill.

The planet Geta isn’t very welcoming to Terran life; the landmasses of the planet are primarily desert ecosystems. The biochemistry of the native plant and animal life renders it toxic, and inedible, to humans. The absence of large animals compatible with human biochemistry means that the only ready source of protein on Geta is…..people !

Not Soylent Green-style wafers, but full-on roasted thighs and arms, braised ribs, spiced organ meats, and skin tanned for making boots and leggings !

So, as the Terran colony on Geta has expanded and grown into a civilization comprised of various clans, its sociology has evolved elaborate rituals and mores to govern the eating of human flesh. During the periodic famines that ensue from the failure of Terran crops to grow in the unforgiving Getan soil, criminals and those considered genetically unfit are the first to undergo ritual suicide in order to provide sustenance for the good of society. Individuals who are (understandably) reluctant to sacrifice themselves are spurred by the knowledge that disobeying the social contract is punished by being flayed alive.............!

During non-famine times, transgressors remain vulnerable to having their noses cut off, or being subjected to ritual suicide. And, because it’s laborious to process corpses for consumption purposes, war (and its mass casualties) is an extremely rare phenomenon on Geta; disputes between families, clans, or nations are settled by complex rituals designed to make sure that none of the tasty goodness goes to waste.

‘Courtship’ deals with the efforts of the maran-Kiel family, of the landlocked city of Kaiel-hontokae, to acquire the coastal town of Sorrow. Their strategy to acquire Sorrow and its surrounding territory is to marry Oelita, Sorrow’s priestess.

Oleita – considered a heretic for her opposition to ritual suicide – has no intention of letting her people be subjugated by the Kaiel. So begins the ‘courtship rite’ of the book’s title, which involves lethal dangers for Oelita.

But as the maran-Kiel proceed with their plans, the society of Geta is itself poised for momentous events…..for the Sky God circling the night sky has bestowed upon the Kaiel the long-lost knowledge of the ancestors...........

‘Courtship’ was a struggle to read; at times I came very, very close to abandoning it.

It suffers from many of the shortcomings of the sociological sf novel. For example, the opening chapters dump an unending string of invented terms and proper nouns onto the reader, burdening him or her with inferring their meaning and significance from unfolding segments of dialogue and expository passages.

The plot is thin, too thin, in fact, to sustain a narrative of over 400 pages. Most of the narrative is preoccupied with documenting the emotional and psychological interactions of the large cast of characters, interactions conveyed through lengthy conversations and internal monologues. It doesn’t help matters that the author uses Polynesian and Asian cultures as the models for Getan society, leading to dialogue that carries with it the stilted, labored cadence of the formal forms of a foreign language interpreted into English.

This leads to the following prose contortions, all within just one short chapter:

Humility the concubine, who bears the honorific The Queen of Life-Before-Death, has a friend called Saucy Nipples; The Queen is instructed that the Liethe watch all Gatherings; she invokes the White Mind meditation technique to relax her inner turmoil; as The Queen travels the route through The Valley of Ten Thousand Graves to a rendezvous at The Peak of Blue Concern, the 'cursed' Lattice of Evidence is 'prickling her mind'......and as the chapter ends, The Queen contemplates taking passage on a ship as a wench to the Mnankrei Storm Master........

The entire novel is written with a reverential devotion to this mind-numbing style of prose.

Most readers will recognize early on the significance of the ‘Sky God’, the Mysterious Machine of the Ancestors, and the remarkable Crystals of Knowledge, and their looming importance to the plot. But when these artifacts do intervene, it is in a casual, contrived manner that makes the main narrative only slightly more interesting for all their intervention.

‘Courtship’ (which was Donald Kingsbury’s first novel) was nominated for a Hugo award, and won considerable critical praise upon its release. In reality, it’s not that remarkable, and I can’t imagine that many contemporary sf readers would have the patience to stay with it.

To me, ‘Courtship Rite’ is a reminder of how tedious sf had become by the early 80s. Although only two years separate them, reading ‘Neuromancer’ alongside ‘Courtship’ is striking for the way it illuminates the impact cyberpunk had on a genre in the doldrums.