FSF, January-February 2010 by Spilogale Authors Read Free Book Online

Del Rey's done a fine job of collecting the first arc in hardcover. We talked about some individual issues in a previous column, but to recap quickly, this tells the story of Mercy's arrival in the Tri Cities and shows us how she first met many of the familiar characters from the prose series. At the time we last looked in on them, only a couple of issues were out, showing lots of promise. I can tell you that all involved did a fine job of bringing the story to a satisfactory conclusion. And it's a handsome, if slender, book.
    If you're a fan of the prose series, you don't want to miss this.
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    From the Pen of Paul: The Fantastic Images of Frank R. Paul , edited by Stephen D. Korshak, Shasta/Phoenix, 2009, $39.95.
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    I'm a big fan of old pulp magazine art, especially the covers. The big bright colors; the inventive machines, space ships, aliens, and monsters; the glorious imagined landscapes of other planets and the deeps of space. These artists had no access to the resources we have today, yet their depictions remain iconic.
    Tastes in art have changed over the years. What was once commercial and a selling point is now considered quaintly old-fashioned. But for those of us interested in the history of the field, the art from the old pulps are still eye-popping signposts along the way of biographies and bibliographies—gateways into a world that never was, but remains alive in our imaginations.
    One of the first practitioners in the field was a young Viennese artist who arrived in the States in the early part of the twentieth century, bringing with him the more mundane artistic skills of calligraphy and architectural and mechanical drafting, all of which he used to underpin the subsequent fantastic flights of imagination that he created for the early pulp magazines.
    Frank R. Paul is rightly called the father of science fiction illustration, as he was the cover artist for Hugh Gernsback's first issue of Amazing Stories in 1926, for which he also designed the magazine's iconic logo. He went on to do more than 200 published covers and five times that many black and white interior illustrations. His art illustrated stories by the likes of H. G. Wells, Jules Verne, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Jack Williamson, and Edgar Allan Poe.
    Perhaps more importantly, his art on the cover of magazines first attracted to the field young men who would later become giants: authors such as Arthur C. Clarke and Isaac Asimov, the artist Chesley Bonestell, and even the ultimate fan, Forrest J Ackerman. When you consider how many young creative minds were stimulated to go on to do their own work after reading their books, viewing their cover art, or in the case of Ackerman, flipping through the pages of Famous Monsters , Paul's influence on our field becomes quite astonishing.
    This collection reprints a wide range of Paul's early cover art from various sources—bright, fantastic paintings that leap off the page. There's a short biography and some other text, but mostly it's simply page after page of these wonderful pulp covers and I highly recommend the book to anyone interested in both the history of our field and the art that brought the stories so vividly to life.
    There's also a deluxe edition available for an additional $20 that contains an index of all the covers and black and white illustrations.
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    Material to be considered for review in this column should be sent to Charles de Lint, P. O. Box 9480, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada K1G 3V2.
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Department: BOOKS by Chris Moriarty
    Shambling Towards Hiroshima , by James Morrow, Tachyon, 2009, $14.95.
    How to Make Friends with Demons , by Graham Joyce, Night Shade Books, 2009, $14.95.
    The Last Theorem , by Arthur C. Clarke and Frederik Pohl, Del Rey, 2009, $15 (reprint).
    City at the End of Time , by Greg Bear, Del Rey, 2009, $16 (reprint).
    Implied Spaces , by Walter Jon Williams, Night Shade Books, 2009, $7.99 (reprint).
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    This month, my pets, I