In the late 1970s and 1980s British writer Tanith Lee came out with the books that most defined her career: The Flat Earth series. These books were about an Arabian Nights never-never land of deserts, demons, innocent maidens, leering rakes, and magic. The first three, Night’s Master, Death’s Master, and Delusion’s Master dealt with, …
In fantasy worldbuilding, insects get the short end of the (walking) stick. What’s the last imaginary one you can remember? For me, it’s the odd bread-and-butterfly of Alice in Wonderland. The intelligent insect races of science fiction are more memorable. The Bugs of Robert Heinlein’s Starship Troopers, and the Buggers (Formics) of Orson Scott Card’s …
On first glance, it’s pretty hard to tell which poster is of a real place, and which poster is fictional, yes? Brightly colored travel posters that look like silkscreens began in the 1930s, as part of a Works Administration Project (WPA) funded by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, designed to give employment to otherwise unemployed artists. …
The horses Bree (front, gray dapple) and Hwin (back, brown) are my favorite animal characters from the Chronicles. Not only are they featured throughout the whole of The Horse and His Boy, they play vital roles in the plot. Both were stolen as foals from Narnia and raised in Calormen, where normal non-talking horses …
If you are like me, you probably wish The Voyage of the Dawn Treader had gone and on, with Caspian and crew exploring ever more exotic places. That book remains unwritten, but here’s some randomly generated islands they might have explored, if they’d had time. Other Islands of Narnia Ashvows: Several Star People live …
One thing Narnia did not have is a lot of human towns. In fact, I can think of only two: the Telmarine settlements of Beruna and Beaversdam. There’s also a town called Chippingford in The Last Battle but whether it is human or not is unclear. There’s also some kind of human settlement around Cair …
The Fab Four in their Western cartoon version (above) from the 1965 Saturday morning cartoon, and an Eastern version of them as Japanese manga figures, below. One thing about the Beatles is that their song titles evolved over time. Here’s a listing from A Hard Day’s Night, released in 1964: And then Abby Road (1969): …
I have to admit this old poster is pretty creepy, not because of the flying brain with its two beady eyes, but the Satanic face of the child with its filed, oddly spaced teeth. At least, I think it’s a child. Old, schlocky, crowd-pleasing, over-the-top movies are a special interest of mine, which is why …
Sometimes when you DM or write fantasy, you need to list books in a character’s library. Books that sound obscure, magical, historical, singular. Tolkien has his imaginary Book of Redmarch, Lovecraft his Necronomicon and Pnakotic Manuscripts. Here’s a randomgenned list of some more. Library Books, Fantasy Style A Man’s Tome of Migford Four Books …
Atompunk computers deserve their own nomenclature. Running on vacuum tubes and early transistors, and programmed with miles of magnetic tape and punch cards, in the media they were mostly objects of menace. Many classic SF stories of the age revolve around artificial intelligence taking charge of humans and becoming their overlord. In the movie Colossus: …