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Category: Art

Vintage Treasures: The Sky Children by Donald Olson

Vintage Treasures: The Sky Children by Donald Olson

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I don’t know a lot about Donald Olson, but IMDB tells me The Sky Children was his only novel. He did publish three short stories, in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine and The Twilight Zone Magazine, between 1973 and 1981, but that’s about it.

But Mr. Olson isn’t really the most intriguing thing about The Sky Children. That would be the moody and effective cover, by an uncredited artist who also produced many covers for Avon in the mid-70s, including several anthologies like Roger Elwood’s Demon Kind, and others. A little investigation has not produced an immediate answer to this riddle, so I thought I’d post it here and see if anyone can help.

The Sky Children was published by Avon Books in 1975. It is 144 pages, priced at $1.25. The cover artist is uncredited. I bought an unread copy online last month for under $1.

The Arms and Armor Collection of the Museo Cerralbo, Madrid

The Arms and Armor Collection of the Museo Cerralbo, Madrid

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The armory doubled as the reception room. The first thing visitors see
is the Marquis’ coat of arms flanked by these two fine suits of armor.

Madrid is filled with museums. While most visitors see the “Golden Triangle” of art museums consisting of El Prado, La Reina Sofia, and El Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, there are dozens of other museums, some big, some small, that are well worth a look.

One is the Museo Cerralbo, the former mansion of the Marquis de Cerralbo. Enrique de Aguilera y Gamboa (1845-1922), 17th Marquis of Cerralbo, was an avid collector of art and antiquities and stuffed his grandiose city home with his purchases. The Marquis did more than simply collect, he was also an active archaeologist and did much to advance the study of prehistory in Spain. Of greatest interest to Black Gate readers is the impressive collection of medieval and Renaissance arms and armor.

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Cuenca: A Clifftop Medieval Town in Spain

Cuenca: A Clifftop Medieval Town in Spain

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One of the famous “hanging houses” of Cuenca

An hour’s train ride from Madrid is a small medieval town that’s often overlooked by international visitors. Cuenca has been an important town since the 8th century and has heaps of historic sights as well as natural beauty.

Located in rough hills and on a spur between the deep valleys of the Júcar and Huécar rivers, it’s a naturally defensible position and was fortified by the conquering Moors in 714. There is little remaining from the Islamic era because after it was conquered in 1177 by King Alfonso VIII, the city was extensively remodeled by him and several later monarchs.

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A Tale of Two Covers: Ellen Kushner on Basilisk

A Tale of Two Covers: Ellen Kushner on Basilisk

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August 1980

May 1984

Last month I was delighted to find a brand new copy of Ellen Kushner’s first anthology Basilisk on eBay for the criminally low price of $1.50 — less than cover price! The copy I found was the original 1980 edition (above left), with the gorgeous Rowena cover. In fact, it wasn’t until I started researching it that I discovered it was re-issued in 1984, with a brand new cover by Stephen Hickman (above right).

Well, here was a curious mystery. Why would Ace Books, no newbie to fantasy publishing, replace such a colorful and effective cover? Nothing against Hickman’s cover — which, in fact, I think is tremendously effective — but it’s hard to compete with a life-and-death knife fight between a beautiful desert princess and a buck-naked green guy. And let’s face it, if you have to have a topless princess and a naked green guy on your cover, Rowena is the artist to put them there.

Maybe 1980 was a little too early to introduce naked green butt to mass market? Maybe Basilisk was intended as the first in a series, and when that didn’t happen, Ace thought Hickman’s cover more suited to a one-off anthology? Obviously, there’s a story here. And the person to tell that story is Ellen Kushner. I reached out to her last week with a few questions, and was very pleased to get a lengthy (and very entertaining!) response. Rather than edit it to fit a shorter article, I decided to reproduce the entire thing here. Ladies and gentlemen, the marvelous Ellen Kushner.

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A Tale of Two Covers: Stand on Zanzibar by John Brunner

A Tale of Two Covers: Stand on Zanzibar by John Brunner

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For this installment of A Tale of Two Covers, we look at my favorite book by one of my favorite writers: John Brunner’s Hugo Award-winning Stand on Zanzibar.

Stand on Zanzibar was published in 1969. I read it about a decade later, when I was in my mid-teens, and it pretty much blew my mind. It’s set in the far-distant future of 2010, when the Earth groans under the weight of a staggering seven billion souls, terrorists are the major threat facing America, China is a new economic superpower, erectile dysfunction and depression are treated with pills, and the head of state is President Obomi.

Pretty clear-eyed predictions (over the years, in fact, Brunner has been lauded for his amazing forecasting). But it wasn’t his predictive skills that drew me to the book — it was the brilliant structure. Brunner painted an astonishingly vivid picture of the future of our planet by interspersing his chapters with numerous brief vignettes, news items, book quotes, and snapshots of life all over the world. It was the most believable and compelling rendition of the future I’d ever encountered, and it has stayed with me for decades.

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Screw ISIS! Here Are Five Great Reasons to Visit Brussels

Screw ISIS! Here Are Five Great Reasons to Visit Brussels

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These colors don’t run! Photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Well, the pseudo-Muslims are at it again, killing innocent people and trying to turn one of the world’s great faiths into a whacked-out death cult. It’s been 24 hours since the Brussels attacks and now people are mourning, the politicians are posturing, and the police are hunting down suspects. A few extra bombing runs against Islamic State are probably being planned too.

It is, sadly, all too predictable. We’ve seen this before and we will see it again. So I’d like to buck the vibe and take a look at what Brussels has to offer visitors. It’s a beautiful European capital that’s all too often overlooked by people headed to more popular destinations such as London and Paris. That’s a shame, because I’ve visited Belgium several times and have always enjoyed my visits to the city. It’s a fun place with great food, awesome beer, and plenty to see. The fundamentalists haven’t changed that and never will. Here are five things you won’t want to miss.

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The Rock-Hewn Churches of Lalibela, Ethiopia

The Rock-Hewn Churches of Lalibela, Ethiopia

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The Church of St. George, cut into the bedrock at Lalibela

Last week I discussed the unique blend of Baroque and Abyssinian styles that created the Castles of Gondar, Ethiopia. I’ve also written on the splendid ancient civilization of Axum in the same country. But Ethiopia has a lot more to offer than that. The most famous historic sites, and certainly the most impressive, are the rock-hewn churches of Lalibela.

In the late 12th century, much of what is now northern and central Ethiopia was under the rule of the Zagwe dynasty. Ethiopia had been Christian since 330 AD and had developed its own liturgy, practices, and traditions. Like with all other Christian lands, many Ethiopians dreamed of going on pilgrimage to Jerusalem and Bethlehem. For some time this was possible, although it involved a long trek overland to catch a boat on the Red Sea, then another trek across the desert to get to the holy cities. But as the Crusades turned the Holy Land into a battleground, it turned a difficult journey into an impossible one. The rulers of the Zagwe dynasty came up with a unique solution.

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A Tale of Two Covers: The Last Page by Anthony Huso

A Tale of Two Covers: The Last Page by Anthony Huso

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I bought the hardcover edition of Anthony Huso’s debut novel The Last Page after reading Matthew David Surridge’s review in Black Gate 12.

The Last Page is a high fantasy steampunk novel, and a love story. We follow the sexually charged relationship between the improbably named Caliph Howl, heir to the throne of the northern country of Stonehold, and a witch named Sena. The two of them meet at university, go their own ways, and then come together again after Caliph has become king and Sena has acquired a vastly powerful magical tome…  what really makes the first book work is its language. The prose is strong, quick and dense in the best ways. The diction, the word choice, is inventive; the imagery is both original and concise. At its best, Huso’s language recalls Wolfe or Vance…

The last time I was in a bookstore I did a double take when I saw the trade paperback edition, which has been given a dramatically different cover. The hardcover edition (above left) was packaged as an urban fantasy, with a beautiful woman with glowing eyes on the cover. The paperback (at right) has been completely redesigned as a fantasy adventure novel, showing a huge fleet of airships massing over a sprawling fantasy landscape. If you’re not paying attention, it’d be pretty easy to mistake it for a completely different book.

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Acquiring Michael Whelan’s Cover for The Bane of the Black Sword

Acquiring Michael Whelan’s Cover for The Bane of the Black Sword

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I thought I’d move a bit further ahead in time tonight than my usual pulp related posts, though it does have a bit of a pulp connection for me. I was discussing this piece with a friend of mine earlier today, so I figured I’d post it. By Michael Raymond Whelan, this is the cover for The Bane of the Black Sword by Michael Moorcock, featuring the one and only Elric of Melnibone (click the art for bigger versions). Both Deb and I loved the Elric books when we read them as teenagers, in the DAW editions featuring all those great Whelan covers, and when we had the chance to pick this up, we jumped at it.

We bought this in a hotel room many years ago, from our friend Randal Hawkins. He and his wife Donna drove up from the K.C. area with the painting, and we met them at a hotel about half way between there and Chicago to do the deal. It wasn’t the only time we did a deal like that in a hotel room with Randal — we bought other art from him that way as well, over the years, as well as many pulps. Hence the bit of a pulp connection for me. Those were good hotel rooms! Randal passed away much too young, but we have fond memories of visiting with him and Donna in K.C., looking at their great art collection, as well as their place in Las Vegas. And we often think of him when we look at this piece.