Tag: Creatures

Plagiarism, Hobbit Style

Looking through my Pinterest feed for Tolkien images, I found this cover for a French edition of The Hobbit. It looked awfully familiar to me. Then I figured out where I had seen it before. Now, I wish the artist had been just a little more creative and not cribbed what is obvious, particularly as …

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Smaug the Terrible

There he lay, a vast red-golden dragon, fast asleep; a thrumming came from his jaws and nostrils, and wisps of smoke, but his fires were low in slumber. Beneath him, under all his limbs and his huge coiled tail, and about him on all sides stretching away across the unseen floors, lay countless piles of …

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Der Kleine Hobbit

German edition This German cover of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit changes the title slightly to “The Little Hobbit” and pairs a bloated, toadlike, crazy-eyed Smaug with a tap-dancing Hobbit waving a top hat. The whole is enclosed in a trompe l’oeil frame with a spider crawling on the bottom, which alludes to the dwarves’ misadventures …

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Worldbuilding Wednesday 2/21/18: Birds

Astranci by Caelicorn on deviantART

Astranci, by Caelicorn It’s pretty easy to name a new species of bird. Their beaks and tails adhere to certain shapes, and body parts such as eyes, breasts, and wings share certain features also. Their habitats name them, as well as their food, calls, and mating behavior. So if you want some fictional avian or …

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The Mouse

What is more horrifying to see… a dead mouse, or one so obviously transformed by genetic manipulation?   (Art by Monique Goosens)

New story in Beautiful Lies, Painful Truths II anthology

My short fantasy story “The Unchosen” is featured in this anthology from Left Hand Publishers, under my other writing name of Trece Angulo. You can buy it here from Amazon.com. “The Unchosen” was a story I had been planning to write for ages. Like many writers of my generation, I’d been entranced by Anne McCaffrey’s …

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Teratomas

Teratoma: A tumor consisting of different types of tissue, as of skin, hair, and muscle caused by the development of independent germ cells. Teratomas are most common in the ovaries or testes.   Some artists also see these medical anomalies as things of beauty, humor, or social commentary. Teratoma Tumor necklace pendant charm by Netherworldoddities …

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Bibendum

It’s hard to believe. but these nightmarish characters were the first version of the lovable Michelin Tire Man.

Conundrum

Let’s puzzle this one out, shall we?  

Worldbuilding Wednesday 1/3/18: Mythic Animals

Kirin-Sleipnir-Dragon-Butterfly thing Mythical animals include the unicorn, jackalope, sea serpent, hydra, sasquatch, and many others… such as these. All randomly generated by me for inspiration and to get your creative furnaces going.   Mythic Animals Yauzink: An aquatic lion with webbed paws, fins, a fish’s tail, and a mottled green and brown coloration. It is …

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