Expedition: Being an Account in Words and Artwork of the 2358 A.D. Voyage to Darwin IV ANNOTATION
In 2358 Wayne Douglas Barlowe joined the first manned flight to Darwin IV, a newly discovered world beyond our solar system. Here he provides naturalistic paintings that vividly capture the alien creatures he encountered. Illustrations, full-color paintings, and maps.
FROM THE PUBLISHER
In 2358, wildlife artist Wayne Douglas Barlowe joined the first manned flight to Darwin IV, fourth planet in the newly discovered F-Class binary system 6.5 light-years from Earth. Now his long-awaited account of that historic journey has been published.
FROM THE CRITICS
Publishers Weekly
An abundance of lavish full-color illustrations and detailed black-and-white sketches dominate Barlowe's fictional account of a 21st-century exploratory space flight to the imaginary planet Darwin IV. Sent along as the mission's artist, Barlowe ( Barlowe's Guide to Extraterrestrials ) describes his ``excursions'' to survey Darwin IV and the unusual animals he encountered: creatures like the monopodalians, who pogo-stick across a barren, icy landscape, or the winged but flightless Stripewings that are in ``evolutionary flux.'' Numerous ``observed'' details, such as the length of a Darwinian day (26.7 hours) and the feeding, hunting and mating behaviors of various creatures, help maintain the illusion of realism and immediacy such a first-person narrative demands. SF fans who relish the bizarre for its own sake may enjoy this volume. But while superbly executed, Barlowe's visualization of an alien world falls short imaginatively and is naturalistically unconvincing. Many animals look like dinosaurs designed by a committee and discerning readers will suspect that Darwin IV wouldn't work as an ecological system, no matter how alien. (Dec.)
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