{science fiction} – Page 88

Nathanial Krill at the Time Node

Nathanial Krill at the Time Node (1978) by Richard Glyn Jones and Robert Meadley.

Michael Moorcock’s New Worlds magazine resumed publication in 1978 after a hiatus of two years following the end of its New Worlds Quarterly paperback format. The issues for the years 1978 and 79 are the oddest in the entire run of the magazine. Issue 214 had the magazine title in Russian, a cover illustration of Union Jack anti-hero Zenith the Albino, and promised to deliver “Politics—Sport—Science”; issue 213 had an Empire-era cover, and contents which mostly dispensed with written fiction in favour of visual features such as newspaper pages from parallel time streams, or satirical collage.

Among the satire there was this two-page piece by Richard Glyn Jones and Robert Meadley which is probably the closest the magazine came to what people now call steampunk. I say probably because many of Moorcock’s alternate histories were doing in the late 60s and early 70s what steampunk does today, although not all of these appeared in NW. Nathanial Krill at the Time Node has the additional interest for me in being another example of the use of period engravings for fantastic or satirical ends, and one that few people will have seen. Richard Glyn Jones was a regular illustration contributor to New Worlds; Robert Meadley had four short stories in New Worlds Quarterly. Ten years ago I designed Meadley’s essay collection, A Tea Dance At Savoy. He’s a great writer, I keep hoping we’ll see more of his work one day.

Fiendish Schemes

Now that this cover has appeared on Amazon I can mention it here. As usual, the machinery of publishing grinds slowly: this cover was commissioned in November last year, and worked on from the end of that month up to Christmas. Fiendish Schemes is a sequel by KW Jeter to his Infernal Devices, one of the original steampunk novels which was first published in 1987. In 2011 I created covers for reprints by Angry Robot of that title and the author’s earlier Morlock Night. Both those covers were very well received so Tor Books asked me to match their designs with a cover for the new book. This is quite unusual in publishing. Unless they make a real impact, cover designs seldom last beyond a couple of editions before being updated, and they rarely travel to other publishers.

As with the earlier designs, the artwork is pieced together from very small pieces of period engravings, mostly from product catalogues or design books. In the novel, the steampunk weapon below is more alluded to than described but I was pleased with the way the illustration of it came together. Even though it’s composed of pieces of guns, fountain pens and clock parts it looks like something that could physically exist. One of the challenges I enjoy with this kind of collage illustration is trying to make something which doesn’t appear collaged at all.

Fiendish Schemes will be published on October 15th, 2013.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Ghosts in Gaslight, Monsters in Steam
• Steampunk Revolution
• The Bookman Histories
• Aether Cola
• Crafting steampunk illustrations
• SteamPunk Magazine
• Morlocks, airships and curious cabinets
• The Steampunk Bible
• Steampunk Reloaded
• Steampunk overloaded!
• More Steampunk and the Crawling Chaos
• Steampunk Redux
• Steampunk framed
• Steampunk Horror Shortcuts

Richard Matheson, 1926–2013

The Incredible Shrinking Man.

Of Richard Matheson’s many books I’ve only read I Am Legend so can’t say much about his fiction other than to confirm (as everyone else does) that none of the three adaptations so far have managed to do it justice. Of his work for film and television there’s too much to say, it’s so copious and indelibly memorable. Here’s a list of five favourite Matheson creations.

The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957)

JG Ballard frequently referred to this as one of his favourite science fiction films, not because of the SF element, which is never properly explained, but because of its inadvertent Surrealist qualities. For my part, every time I watched this I was always impatient to get to the later scenes where the unfortunate Scott becomes trapped in the cellar, and his own house becomes an increasingly alien and hostile environment. The ending where he accepts his condition is very Ballardian.

Duel (1971)

A sweating and manic Dennis Weaver is pitted against an anonymous truck driver who remains unseen but for a few shots of an arm and some boots. The lethal game of cat-and-mouse was famously directed by Steven Spielberg, his second feature, and one that’s a lot more impressive than some of his subsequent films. Watch it on YouTube.

The Legend of Hell House (1973)

Matheson’s take on Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House—four investigators in a haunted mansion—with the gain ramped up 100%. The film starts off quietly but is very soon into full-on hysteria; director John Hough finds so many eccentric camera angles you could actually calm down after this by watching a Terry Gilliam film. Meanwhile Roddy McDowell chews the scenery as though over-acting is going out of fashion. Bonuses are a grown-up Pamela Franklin (Flora in Jack Clayton’s superb The Innocents), and a great score from Radiophonic synthesists Brian Hodgson and Delia Derbyshire. Watch the trailer.

Trilogy of Terror (1975)

A three-story TV movie in which Karen Black took all the leading roles. No one remembers the first two stories but everyone who’s seen this remembers the third, Amelia (based on a Matheson short story, Prey), in which Ms Black is hunted in her apartment by a Zuni fetish doll. It’s on YouTube!

Nightmare at 20,000 Feet (1983)

Sorry, Shatnerphiles, but the superior version of this story is the one from Twilight Zone: The Movie. John Lithgow is a much better actor than William Shatner, the gremlin on the wing of the plane is a fearsome creature that’s seriously destructive (not, as Matheson lamented of the original, “a surly teddy bear”), and the whole sequence is directed by George Miller fresh from Mad Max 2. The original Twilight Zone episode wasn’t bad but it can’t compete with Miller pulling out all the stops. Watch it here.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• New York City abandoned

Weekend links 162

Untitled drawing by Sophie Penrose.

• “…many arts producers – much more so than the artists themselves – were over-fearful of the prospect of prosecution, when in nearly all incidents there were no reasonable grounds for bringing charges.” Julia Farrington of Index on Censorship on self-censorship by artists and art institutions in the UK.

• “Tons of tones – some dissolved in beats, some beatless treatments – in a continuous mix of current ambient and electronic goodies, pouring more than a score of ambi-valent shapes and etheric waves into an occluded reverb-trail echo-veil mood-stream.” Ambivalentine, a mix by Albient.

• “I was followed by a bee, a golden bee. For three years, every day, the golden bee followed us.” Forty years ago Penthouse magazine talked to Alejandro Jodorowsky. This month Dazed magazine asked the polymath twenty questions.

• “…investigators were stupefied to find the spymaster’s quarters full of pink leather whips, cosmetics, and pornographic photographs, framed in snakeskin.” Erik Sass on Colonel Redl and a gay spy scandal in the Vienna of 1913.

• “With no one to sponsor him, Marino Auriti’s dream museum became the stuff of legends.” Stefany Anne Golberg on Marino Auriti’s Enciclopedico Palazzo del Mondo.

• The Crime Epics of Louis Feuillade: YouTube links and more. Related: YouTube’s Vault of Horrors.

• Werner Herzog: 50 years of potent, inspiring, disturbing films.

• The doors of perception: John Gray on Arthur Machen.

• Some Sort of Alchemy: Albert Mobilio on Sun Ra.

• British Pathé’s film of ghost hunters in 1953.

• “Escape your search engine Filter Bubble”

• RIP Jack Vance

• Bumble Bee Bolero (1957) by Harry Breuer | The L S Bumble Bee (1967) by Peter Cook & Dudley Moore | Ant Man Bee (1969) by Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band | Be A Bee (2009) by Air

Ghosts in Gaslight, Monsters in Steam

Ghosts in Gaslight, Monsters in Steam is a forthcoming anthology in the Gay City Anthology series from Seattle’s Gay City Health Project and Minor Arcana Press. The publishers describe it as “a multidisciplinary anthology of amazing queer monster and ghost fiction, poetry and art.” I’ve created a cover design for the book, and also have a work-in-progress extract from the never-ending novel I’ve been immersed in since August 2006, a self-contained piece which I call Study in Blue, Green, and Gold. As the anthology title implies, the general (although not exclusive) tenor is spooky steampunk business with a queer inclination; my piece features copious quantities of sex, hallucinogenic drugs, steam locomotives and a fractal cat. Anyone wishing to know more is encouraged to give a push to the Kickstarter donation fund which has been launched to help with promotional costs. I’m very pleased to be involved with this, not least because some of the fiction I’ve been working on for over a decade will receive an airing. I’ve resolved recently to start pushing the writing side of things a bit more so this is a start. When the final anthology contents are announced next month I’ll post an update here.