Medicine Road by Charles de Lint

delint.jpg

The second of my book designs for Tachyon Publications is published this month and it was good to receive a copy in the same week as getting a load of new CDs. Medicine Road is a contemporary fantasy of shape-shifting and shamanic magic set in the American South West. This job was particularly pleasurable for being illustrated by Charles Vess, celebrated among other things for his many collaborations with Neil Gaiman, including Stardust. I embellished the opening pages with designs based on Native American petroglyphs, a couple of which are from the tribes mentioned in the text.

Laurel and Bess Dillard are charismatic bluegrass musicians enjoying the success of their first Southwestern tour. But the Dillard girls know that magical adventures are always at hand. Upon meeting two mysterious strangers at a gig, the red-headed twins are drawn into a age-old, mystical wager along the Medicine Road.

One day, seeing a red dog chasing a jackalope, Coyote Woman gave them human forms. They became Jim Changing Dog and Alice Corn Hair. In return, both of them must find true love within a hundred years or their “five-fingered” forms will be forfeit. Alice has found her soul mate, but trickster Jim is unwilling to settle down — until he sets eyes upon free-spirited Bess Dillard.

Yet time is running out for the red dog and the jackalope. In just two weeks they will journey to their reckoning at the Medicine Wheel. Meanwhile, a motorcycle-riding seductress and a vengeful rattlesnake woman are eager to meddle, and Bess and Laurel, caught in a web of love and lies, must find their own paths into the spirit world.

Next up from Tachyon will be a book by Kage Baker. More about that later.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• The Best of Michael Moorcock

New music and design

cds.jpg

A visit to Baked Goods distribution this week brought me a haul of new releases, all items I’ve either designed or overseen the production of. Among the new CD designs I’ve already mentioned the Tectonic Plates compilation, a really excellent collection of dubstep singles with a bonus disc of mixes by Pinch. Related to Tectonic’s Bristol underground is a compilation of singles from the Caravan label mixed by DJ October. I’ve put together the labels for Caravan’s vinyl over the past year and assisted with the layout of this, their first CD. The other new design (which I’ve yet to add to the site) is a collection of live improvisations by Mojo-tipped Liondialer (influences: Supersilent, Talk Talk, Ornette Coleman, Tony Conrad, Stars of the Lid, Jandek, Loren Connors, Ben Frost, Shearwater…), aka Greg Haines and Danny Saul. This is another release on the White Box label and was recorded, edited and sequenced by my good friend Gav whose knowledge of music esoterica has been drawn upon for previous posts here.

Also new: a clutch of recent vinyl (I really need to add a vinyl section to my pages), a Tectonic promo T-shirt (!), and two releases which I helped guide through the production process, Cloaks Versus Grain and The Sleeper by The Leisure Society, the latter being a very well-received release which was nominated earlier this year for an Ivor Novello award.

Meanwhile, there’s more book work turning up but I’ll talk about that when I’ve had a chance to further update the site.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Plates: Volume 2

The art of Ed Emshwiller, 1925–1990

vance.jpg

Another item brought to light during the Great Shelf Re-ordering and Spring Clean is this 1962 Lancer paperback of The Dying Earth by Jack Vance, a slim collection of six short connected stories, and another favourite book. Despite the SF label this is far more a work of fantasy (science fantasy, if you must), being tales of the bizarre and occasionally grotesque inhabitants of the last days of the earth. Magic is the order of the day, not advanced technology, although Vance hints that the book’s elaborate spells may be a higher ordering of mathematics capable of manipulating reality. I like the simple cover layout of this edition; Ed Emshwiller’s illustration manages to be sparing yet fully representative of a key scene.

emsh.jpg

French sf portal Noosfere has recently revamped its artwork showcase and has a substantial collection of Emshwiller’s cover paintings. I’d prefer to see more of his earlier style but the collection includes some striking designs.

sunstone.jpg

Sunstone (1979).

Emshwiller was a very prolific illustrator but from the 1960s on also developed his own style of experimental filmmaking, some examples of which can be found at YouTube. I’d actually seen Sunstone—a very early piece of computer animation—years ago without registering the credit. In addition there’s also Thanatopsis, a strange b&w short which is remarkably similar in tone to some of the films which William Burroughs and Antony Balch were making at around the same time.

• The genre artist | Jack Vance profiled in the NYT

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The book covers archive
• The illustrators archive

Previously on { feuilleton }
• The King in Yellow
• Ballantine Adult Fantasy covers
• Clark Ashton Smith book covers
• Revenant volumes: Bob Haberfield, New Worlds and others
• The World in 2030
• The art of Virgil Finlay, 1914–1971
• Towers Open Fire

Harry Clarke’s stained glass

clarke_glass.jpg

Sturminster Newton, South aisle window (detail).

More from one of Ireland’s great artists. Harry Clarke’s book illustration is oft-reproduced but his stained glass work remains little seen unless you visit the churches where the windows are installed or find a copy of Nicola Gordon Bowe’s out-of-print monograph. Happily there’s a Flickr group who’ve done a great job photographing many of these windows, most of which will be impossible to adequately capture without erecting scaffolding. Someone really ought to publish a book of this work.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The illustrators archive

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Poe at 200
• IKO stained glass
• Harry Clarke’s The Year’s at the Spring
• The art of Harry Clarke, 1889–1931