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The world's pre-eminent artist of space and space technology Robert McCall died on Feb 26th at the age of 90. Within scientific and military world of space travel and aviation he is a legend. Among his many awards and honours is even the Yuri Gagarin Medal the Soviet Union gave him back in '88. He has left behind huge amounts of inspiring and influential art all over the place, from stamps to mission patches worn on the moon to a six-story-tall mural at the National Air and Space Museum.

Planet Blog marks his passing for one particular contribution. In 1968, Stanley Kubrick, asked him to do two paintings to be used as promotional posters for 2001: A Space Odyssey. Those posters did more than anything else to change the idea of the future in the popular consciousness. Prior to this the future was slick pointy-tipped space ships, space men with bubbleheads and cars with fins. With his painting of astronauts working on the moon and the pinwheel space station the future became functional, a workman's environment. A place where people live lives dependent on hardware that look like white goods on steroids and effectively are.

And the romance of a sophisticated future as we still imagine it today is encapsulated like a genie in a bottle, ready to grant many a hi-tech wish, by Robert McCall's painting of the Pan-Am space plane exiting the double wheel station. It remains the symbol of the dream of humanity in space, the finger pointing to the imaginings of a speccy hardware future.

Not a bad contribution by a guy Isaac Asimov once referred to as the "nearest thing to an artist in residence from outer space".

But I do have one question to ask...

Does it goes this way?

Or this way?

... with a couple of Jan and maybe one from Dec.

In the past I've called this segment "Fav Covers". But screw it, I only called it my favourites cause I didn't want to come off as a tosser announcing what is superior design and art when I have no qualifications to do so. Then I realised that those who are "qualified" are simply people other people have allowed to be qualified as "qualified". So if you allow me, here are my best selects for the season.

And click on the pics to get a better scrut.

Ok, I'm back from my mini-sabbatical and I'm pleased to say that during which I saw dugongs and Eric the opalised pliosaur? Two more things I can strike off my list.

Salinger

I see that while I was away Mr. Catcher in the Rye J D Salinger entered the tall grass for the last time. As I predicted a year ago, when celebrating his 90th on this blog, that we'll see a lot of new material be published after his death; looks like it will be at least two novels and several collections of short stories. I have a feeling it might be a lot more than that. And can you imagine the attention if it includes continuing adventures of Holden Caulfield?

Avatar vs. District 9

Having finally seen both Avatar and District 9 I was quite surprised how much they have in common. Both are about humans exploiting alien culture and their willingness to destroy that culture in the process. Both productions were heavily dependent on the talents of people under the employ of Peter Jackson. Both have climaxes involving walking power armour.

After that, though, they diverge radically.

One is a visually rich and intense cinematic experience that doesn't compromise storytelling and characterization while still staging complex and intricate action sequences, ramping up the tension while continuing to raise serious moral questions about human nature and how far we'd go for selfish dehumanising greed, all within a package of top notch special effects that integrate live action and computer animation flawlessly, creating a new sense of fantastical realism, and thus elevating the art of the cinema aesthetic and contributing to cinema art in general. The other film is Avatar.

Don't get me wrong, Avatar is a very pretty movie, one of the most handsomely produced ever and it's entertaining enough, well, for a kid's movie. And it is especially enhanced by the 3D experience, but it is ironic that District 9 is actually the 3 dimensional movie. Also I can't ignore the fact that District 9 cost one tenth of Avatar yet is ten times a better science fiction actioneer slash morality tale with far more convincing aliens and a heaps more interesting central protagonist (who must have come close to a Oscar nomination, but sadly missed out, like Sam Rockwell for his performance in the sublime Moon).

The Gone-Away World

I am the master of reading the first few chapters of novels, so it was refreshing to have enough time to actually finish a book. In this case it was Nick Harkaway's The Gone-Away World, a post-apocalyptic adventure with nasty ninjas, enigmatic pirates, evil corporations and mutant monsters. Yes, it's a sci-fi martial arts epic extravaganza. Or so I thought, until I got to my first digression. Can't wait to get back to the action, you ask. Not when I realised the digressions are actually what are the soul and core of the novel. Harkaway's satirical wit and socio-political commentaries enrich this alchemical potboiler. It's like combining Terry Gilliam's Brazil and Jackie Chan's Drunken Master with Christopher Hitchens adding the footnotes. It's Thomas Pynchon doing Indiana Jones, Chuck Palahniuk doing Mad Max, Clive James doing Kickboxer. Very entertaining, insightful and, best of all, it is groovy and cool.

What now?

Well, now I get back to the regular blogging of snazzy, keen things. Plenty on my things to blog list; plenty of artists, writers, filmmakers to talk about before even thinking of anniversaries and historical landmarks in pop culture and the artistically neat. I will try to be a little more informal in my style, addressing some supportive criticism that I was a little too dry. And thanks for that support, including the majority of you who prefer commenting on my facebook.

Anyways, I'm back and lets get the show on the road for 2010.

And dugongs are very cool.

Here's the ten favourite books to come out in 2009 as picked by the Planet Books crew. It's not intended as a ten best list and not everyone's choices could be fitted in but it's still an interesting list all the same. It's in no intended order, just the way I threw it together. 

Ransom

by David Malouf

With learning worn lightly and in his own lyrical language, David Malouf revisits Homer's ILIAD. Focusing on the unbreakable bonds between men - Priam and Hector, Patroclus and Achilles, Priam and the cart-driver hired to retrieve Hector's body. Pride, grief, brutality, love and neighbourliness are explored. 

Boilerplate : History's Mechanical Marvel

by Paul Guinan & Anina Bennett

Designed by Professor Archibald Campion in 1893 as a prototype, for the self-proclaimed purpose of "preventing the deaths of men in the conflicts of nations". Campion and his robot also circled the planet with the U.S. Navy, trekked to the South Pole, made silent movies, and hobnobbed with the likes of Mark Twain and Nikola Tesla. [Expect me to write more about this fellow]

Miss Herbert

by Adam Thirlwell

As Flaubert finished Madame Bovary, Miss Herbert, his niece's governess, translated the novel into English. But this translation has since been lost. This book is not a novel, but an inside-out novel - with novelists as characters. It demonstrates a new way of reading internationally - complete with maps, illustrations, and helpful diagrams. 

The Tree Show

by Mark Ryden

Never reluctant to freight his work with layers of reference that range from Renaissance landscape and Neoclassic portrait painting to occultism and literature, in his latest works Ryden combines the arcane with popular cultural images as ground from which to make his carefully executed leaps into fantasy. [I did a piece on Mark Ryden last year]

Dog Boy

by Eva Hornung

Extraordinary tale of a latter-day Mowgli in post-perestroika Russia is a devastating story of childhood, survival, family and life on the harsh edges of society.
 
There Was An Old Lady

by Jeremy Holmes

There was an old lady who swallowed a fly...a bird...a cat...a dog...a snake...a cow...and a horse. Do you know what happened to her? Of course you do! But with his distinct art style and a clever format, acclaimed graphic designer Jeremy Holmes has given the universal rhyme a unique makeover that is clever, funny, and unexpected.  Sum : Forty Tales from the Afterlives

by David Eagleman

Sum is a dazzling exploration of funny and unexpected afterlives that have never been considered-each presented as a vignette that offers us a stunning lens through which to see ourselves here and now.

These wonderfully imagined tale-at once funny, wistful, and unsettling-are rooted in science and romance and awe at our mysterious existence: a mixture of death, hope, computers, immortality, love, biology, and desire that exposes radiant new facets of our humanity.

Gentlemen of Bacongo

by Daniele Tamagni

Daniele Tamagni's wonderful pictorial essay brilliantly manages to capture the ebullience of sapeur culture at its source in Bacongo, a sprawling suburb of Brazzaville in The Congo. The sapeur style and relationship to clothes is unique - a throwback to a lost world of pre-colonial elegance and decadence and at the same time it is futuristic. [This reminded me of The Sartorialist. Perhaps Gentlemen of Bacongo deserves similar treatment]

The Window Seat

by Archie Weller

The Window Seat is a collection of his best short fiction - some award-winning and some previously unpublished. These stories are honest, brutal and often moving. In 'The Window Seat', we witness an old woman's final journey home and the view of the reluctant white traveller who sits beside her; in 'Stolen Car', a young Aboriginal man learns his first lesson in rough justice; and in 'Dead Dingo', we see another rallying against what his friends, life and fate are offering him.

How We Cheat Each Other

by Odd Nerdrum

A textbook on human deceit, as narrated by Odd Nerdrum. It consists of six short stories in dialogue form, drawing on Nerdrum's experiences in Iceland, Sweden, Norway, Russia and Germany, and spanning "The Last Days of Immanuel Kant" in the eighteenth century through to our time, and into the future. [Mr. Nerdrum sounds like a guy to write about in the future]

In the latter part of the seventies animator Art Clokey created a lovable little punk named Gumby. He presented this amiable fellow riding a skateboard, playing on a PC, venturing into fictional realities and leading an alternative rock band; thus making him the precursor to the contemporary hacker/thrasher dude.

Gumby, with his pals Pokey, Prickle Minga and Goo, hung around for over thirty years, Art and his wife Ruth producing all of his adventures, literally by hand. 

Now Gumby is an iconic legend. And he remains, a dude.

In remembrance of Art Clokey, creator of Gumby

October 12, 1921 - January 8, 2010

About a yearish ago the Street Fighter Tribute art book came out as part of the celebrations of the games 21st anniversay. It was a cool book and a big success.

Since then the same guys have come out with a tribute book for the another game called Darkstalkers. As an art book Darkstalkers Tribute is as cool and groovy as Street Fighter Tribute, even better.

Darkstalkers? I had not heard of Darkstalkers. I know I'm not a console game guru, but I sure as hell know Street Fighter. Why not Darkstalkers?

However, there was a member of the Planet crew who was thrilled at such a tribute and she encouraged me to take the art of Darkstalkers as seriously as the Street Fighter.

I'm glad I did, but I was still no more enlightened to what Darkstalkers actually was. So I asked.

Fuck me, Batman's dead! Honest, the Dark Knight has kicked the bucket.

In the comic book sagas that make up the DC universe - and this is canon - in particular, the recent storylines of Batman R.I.P., Whatever Ever Happened to Batman and Final Crisis (where the characters of the DC Multiverse encounter each other) one can witness the demise of the Caped Crusader.

I'm shocked, appalled, but mostly confused. So confused I thought I'd ask a work colleague about this turn of events. Sam seems to be switched on when it comes to the Bat dude. I asked him the obvious question.

So is Batman dead or what?

Not at all. In fact I'd argue that he hasn't been so alive in a long time. Here is a Batman who really has to earn his victories, who when he's beaten down may well not have the strength to get back up, who when he wins - smiles.

Gotham's criminals are cowering and the Gotham City Police Dept. rallies under the batsignal. Batman is very much alive.

Bruce Wayne, however... now he's not in such great shape.

Surely, Bruce Wayne is Batman?

A year ago I probably would have agreed with you. There have been other attempts to replace Batman. When he was crippled by Bane back in the eighties Azrael tried to fill the void for a while, but the audience was never in any doubt that this was a pretender to the cowl.

Characters like the Flash and the Green Lantern are much better suited to reinvention. There you've got some every day Joe thrust into a destiny that had little to do with their previous life.

Batman grew in a much more organic way from two main stimuli. Firstly from Bruce Wayne's vengeance-as-therapy approach to lifestyle (call it justice if you really feel you must) and secondly from the demands Gotham City places on its champion.

These two aspects have been intermeshed since day one in Bruce Wayne's  Batman and it  wasn't until this year's Battle for the Cowl (the comic issues covering the chaos immediately after Bruce Wayne's death culminating with Dick Grayson becoming the new Batman) that this dualism was really analysed.

While Dick gives Gotham what it needs, he manages to leave behind those Bruce derived parts of Batman he doesn't need. Though Dick lost his parents as a child in a manner not dissimilar to Bruce, Dick doesn't rely on that anguish to motivate him day to day. For Dick, just doing the right thing is enough.

I guess what the argument comes down to is "Can there be more than one Batman?" and while thinking of Dick Grayson as Batman 2.0 might help some of us who are slower to deal with change, it isn't doing justice to the challenges Dick has faced and overcome to maintain the illusion that Batman never left.

The first thing he did way back when he was fired from the post of Robin was get rid of the cape he felt restrained his fighting style. As Batman he fights with a cape twice the size he wore as Robin; he doesn't like it and he makes a few minor changes, but for the most part he adapts himself to suit Batman, not vice versa.

So Bruce Wayne has left this mortal coil?

Firstly, no publishing house with half a brain would eliminate the possibility of such a solid seller being restored.

Secondly, the circumstances surrounding Bruce's death are messy to say the least. Crazy amnesia / hallucinations, pseudo gods, some time spent in a very confusing purgatory. You'd be forgiven for not being sure what actually happened there and I'm not really clear myself. So maybe he's not really dead. Maybe he's - big voice -TRAPPED IN TIME as the last few pages of Final Crisis might suggest.

Either way, he's out of the way now. Dick is Batman. Damien Wayne is Robin. This is the line up from here on in. Perhaps one day he'll be brought back as a support character. Perhaps one day he'll even be Batman again (hell, Hal Jordan's Green Lantern and Barry Allen's The Flash both came back in the past few years) but I've got $50 that says you will not see Bruce Wayne as Batman in present-day Gotham City any time in the next five years.

Here's my favourite book covers for titles that have arrived in Planet Books during November picked for design and execution. Two titles actually came in October but I had overlooked them at the time. I didn't think anyone would mind.

There's a movement of British writers who take the familiar tropes of generic science fiction, the real sci-fi ones of spaceships, alien worlds and the like, apply sociological or political dogma and turn them into kick-arse statements on the modern world. At the forefront are Iain M Banks, Ken MacLeod, Charles Stross and Ian McDonald. But there is another who is too often overlooked, that being Paul McAuley.

Too many of Paul's books have not stayed in print. This has been to his detriment in keeping his name up with people like Banks who's space operas are increasing becoming mainstream bestsellers. So I was pleased to see Gollancz do a reprint collection of choice McAuley novels, a relaunching, so to speak.

Now it's not like Paul McAuley is a nobody in the world of SF. His first novel 400 Billion Stars, a far future space opera, won the Philip K Dick Award in 1988. No small business. The sequel Eternal Light also received good recognition and was recently reprinted as part of Gollancz New Space Opera collection.

Right from the start, with his short fiction and 400 Billion Stars, Paul McAuley employed his specialist knowledge as a research biologist. Before fulltime writing he worked in places like Oxford and UCLA, plus six years of lecturing in botany at St Andrews University. All this science stuff is a crucial part of his vocab.

But he's a smart goog in the other fields too. All coming together - futurism, terraforming, politics and poetics - in my favourite novel of his, Red Dust. I can't try to describe this book. In fact, I'll cheat and give you the book's blurb:

"Mars has been partially terraformed by the Chinese, but now it is dying. With the help of Yankee Yak herders, a hardwired assassin and a little girl god, Wei Lee, dupe, womanizer and holy fool, stumbles on a plot that has been spinning for decades, and is catapulted on a journey that will take him to the summit of the biggest volcano in the Solar System and a battle in virtual reality for the future of Mars and humanity. Sex and drugs and rock'n'roll . . . and Mars."

Come on, how can that not entice you? It's a dream fever of a novel. My fav book set on Martian soil and, having a thing for Mars, I've read a lot of them.

That post-cyberpunk, post-new wave thing McAuley can turn on is full bore in his other groovy novel Fairyland. Full of designer drugs, gene manipulation and high-powered consumerism this is a lovechild of William Gibson and Bruce Sterling. If you are into early Neal Stephenson then you should check out Fairyland. And it scored The Arthur C Clarke Award  and The John W. Campbell Memorial Award as well.

It's good to see Pasquale's Angel is part of this set of reissues; it won him the Sidewise Award and is a superior alternate history novel - 16th Century Florence where Leonardo Da Vinci's machines reign supreme. It really shows he's a clever clogs. I also recommend you seek out White Devils, his corporate thriller with gene splicing and Ballardian jungles.

I have to admit I've yet to read his two most recent novels. Cowboy Angels is alternate histories and multiple worlds manipulated by crazy right-wing Americans. But I might jump over it and go to his latest The Quiet War. Shortlisted for The Arthur C Clarke Award, this book is getting the big attention. It's his return to way out there space opera utilizing all his science and psychology. It is being compared with the best, even hailed as the leading surfer on the wave of New Space Opera. The sequel Gardens of the Sun is due in paperback round Feb '10

Meantime, I hope that this relaunching of the McAuley label means more of his other out-of-print books are to follow. I particularly hope to see his far-future Gene Wolfe influenced Confluence trilogy, his distopian thriller Whole Wide World and The Secret of Life, one pf his best, a biological disaster epic with more of Mars. Did I tell you I have a thing for Mars?