A Christmas Carnivore.

I thought I’d give you graphics for Christmas. Pieces of fan art have been accumulating over the year, and— while a lot of it is truly impressive— I feel weird using a blog post to do nothing but highlight one piece of art.  Seems too easy, somehow. Blogs should be more— substantive.

And then you wake up one day and realize that you’ve got twenty pieces of art waiting to be posted.  That substantive enough for you?

First off, though: for those who don’t follow me on Facebook (and I salute you; Facebook’s the only social medium I’m on and I still feel vaguely dirty when I go there), the team at Blindsight.space recently released a 30-second teaser that really is spectacular. The only complaint I have is that I’ve seen some of the footage that didn’t make it into this cut, and I wish all of it was ready for prime time right now. Art and stills are fine, but there’s  nothing like  watching Charybdis cruising through Rorschach‘s tangled topography, or watching Theseus‘s hab module blow up. Go, if you haven’t yet. Marvel.

Sketches,  screen grabs, and other renderings have been posted in the galleries: two in the Rifters Gallery (under “Fan Art”), the rest in the Blindopraxia Gallery  (the Japanese Echopraxia covers under “Official Cover Art”, everything else under “Fan”). Scroll down on this page for a subset of the new acquisitions—  an oil painting, a bit of anthropology, a couple of screen grabs— even an animated anime gif— but if you want to check out the whole lot you’ll have to click on a couple of links. It’s worth it; there’s some nice stuff behind the front page.

As always, you can click the pic to embiggen it. Really I shouldn’t have to tell you by now.

Start with a Valerie triptych, all three by an artist going by the handle KeeNahMee: Echopraxia‘s vampire at three stages of her life. Upper left she’s still wearing the smartweave tunic of a Simon Fraser lab rat, although she appears to have just fed (you can tell by the subtle flushing of the cheeks), and is thus probably about to leave the campus to seek other opportunities.  Upper right she looks feral and eager and pretty much the way I imagined her throughout most of her trip down to Icarus, playing with her food.

valerie-tryptych

Bottom, though, she’s back in the desert with Dan Brüks while the world burns around the horizon. As far as I know, no one has illustrated this part of the novel before; while I’m enraptured by all KeeNahMee’s art, I think this relatively simple sketch is my favorite.

Firefall, from the ground (that teaser I link to above shows a glimpse of the same event from orbit.) Courtesy of Blindsight.space.

Firefall, from the ground (that teaser I link to above shows a glimpse of the same event from orbit.) Courtesy of Blindsight.space.

 

A swarm of scramblers, Rorschach interior. This screen grab cannot do justice to the sight of that wall squirming as it does. As of this writing, this scene is not in the official released teaser, but I've seen the dailies. Wow. Blindsight.space.

A swarm of scramblers, Rorschach‘s interior. This screen grab cannot do justice to the sight of that wall squirming as it does. As of this writing, this scene is not in the official released teaser, but I’ve seen the dailies. Wow. Blindsight.space.

 

 A deep-sea duet, courtesy of Marek Paterczyk. This is one of my favorite rifters pictures ever.

A deep-sea duet, courtesy of Marek Paterczyk. This is one of my favorite rifters pictures ever.

 
"Canaury"'s animesque vision of a bloodbath on Theseus should actually be pulsing with a reddish alarm light. Unfortunately, my attempt to upload the gif into WordPress failed three times out of three, so if you want the full effect you'll have to go over to the gallery.

Canaury“‘s animesque vision of a bloodbath on Theseus should actually be pulsing with a reddish alarm light. Unfortunately, my attempt to upload the gif into WordPress failed three times out of three, so if you want the full effect you’ll have to see it in the gallery.

A couple more Valeries for you (Valerie really seems to be getting the love this year, doesn't she?) The sepia animesque one is by Ivan Yakushev; the inset is an actual oil painting by Janet Bruesselbach, based on a flesh and blood model (Marina Marchand). I think this may mean I've arrived.

A couple more Valeries for you (Valerie really seems to be getting the love this year, doesn’t she?) The sepia animesque one is by Ivan Yakushev; the inset is an actual oil painting by Janet Bruesselbach, based on a flesh and blood model (Marina Marchand). I think this may mean I’ve arrived.

 

This is anthropological and unprecedented: a side-by-side comparison of vampire and baseline-Human skulls. I don't know much about the artist except that she's from Russia, she reads Dawkins, and she goes by the handle Ekaterina. Also I suspect she is awesome. She says there are ten differences. I don't know if she's kidding.

This is anthropological and unprecedented: a side-by-side comparison of vampire and baseline-Human skulls. I don’t know much about the artist except that she’s from Russia, she reads Dawkins, and she goes by the handle Ekaterina. Also I suspect she is awesome.

She says there are ten differences. I don’t know if she’s kidding.

 

So there you have it— or at least half of it, with links to the rest. Looking back, it’s a bit, well, Valerie-heavy, isn’t it? A certain preponderance of predators and bloodbaths. Then again, this is that time of year: when the predatory prey on the gullible, when the bloodsuckers come for your money and your brains. Really, vampires fit right in at Yuletide.

Why do you think Santa wears red?



This entry was posted on Thursday, December 21st, 2017 at 9:00 am and is filed under art on ink. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
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Nestor
Guest
6 years ago

You get the best fanart. I’d try my hand at sending you something but I’d only lower the bar.

The K
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The K
6 years ago

I never wanted anything like i want to watch this movie. Well, perhaps except a new novel by you. God DAMN that looks good.

Tran Script
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Tran Script
6 years ago

I want a gf like Valerie.

Peter D
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Peter D
6 years ago

Holy %@#!%.

Angela D
Guest
6 years ago

Looks great! Is this an actual film being made? It’s amazing the work fans have put into this. Definitely happy that that story is being told in another medium. It could definitely do amazing on film. I’m always wishing scfi films would have the same uniqueness and depth as your work, but it seems to get watered down nearly every time.

On that note, Jeff Vandermeer’s Annihilation is coming out soon, and the trailer looks good. The director that did Ex Machina is at the helm, so I intend to give that one a chance. They did say it would differ a little from the book, but I’m interested regardless.

Anonymous
Guest
Anonymous
6 years ago

Angela D:
Looks great! Is this an actual film being made? It’s amazing the work fans have put into this. Definitely happy that that story is being told in another medium. It could definitely do amazing on film. I’m always wishing scfi films would have the same uniqueness and depth as your work, but it seems to get watered down nearly every time.

Advances in technology have already obliterated the problems of distribution, and we seem to be pretty far into removing the barrier of equipment and special effects. Of course, unless we get at least something like Universal Basic Income (and it isn’t just used as an excuse to burn down the welfare state), the questions of the time and effort people have to put into things are pretty much the only remaining hard hurdles to random “amateurs” reaching to “real” movie levels for sci-fi. I do wish Keynes had been right, and our lives were full of leisure time in this far future year we live in, because yeah, passionate souls undertaking a labour of love are a better hope for intelligent science fiction movies than the studio system ever will be.

We’ve already gotten some examples, although the types of stories you can tell have to be restrained. For instance, over a decade ago now “The Man From Earth” came out, which appears to have had approximately zero budget and certainly features zero special effects, but is probably a more thoughtful sci-fi film than has been seen in wide release in the years since.

On that note, Jeff Vandermeer’s Annihilation is coming out soon, and the trailer looks good. The director that did Ex Machina is at the helm, so I intend to give that one a chance. They did say it would differ a little from the book, but I’m interested regardless.

Considering how important the possibly-unreliable narrator is to the flow of that first book, I feel like they’d have to change things anyways to adapt it to the big screen, so I’m hoping the changes they made were to keep the spirit but express it in ways more suited to the medium.

But yeah, I’m incredibly eager to see that myself; as everyone got hyped up for Star Wars this month I just shrugged, I’m still waiting ’til February to drag myself out to a movie theater again!

SLIGHT SPOILERS FOR VANDERMEER’S SOUTHERN REACH TRILOGY FOLLOW

I’ve always thought that genres and sub-genres are a bit of a silly way to categorize works of art, particularly novels; a “single” work can have multiple aspects to it, so it’s not so much a question of which bucket to put it in as it is tagging it with all the applicable aspects that it has which other works might share. And I think there’s a lot of interesting ways in which Annihilation shares traits with Blindsight/Echopraxia, such as in considering first contact between humans and a truly alien intelligence, and how that could easily spell the end of our arrogant species.

keithzg
Guest
6 years ago

P.S. Hmm I now wonder if I remembered to actually put my name on my comment a moment ago. And also, since I definitely forgot to say it, yeah, goddamn that Blindsight trailer looks amazing! Even if that’s all they ever manage to produce I’m in awe of it.

Fatman
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Fatman
6 years ago

That teaser looks fantastic. Hope we see a full-length movie some day.

Robert
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Robert
6 years ago

I spotted six differences in the skulls.

Don’t know enough about human anatomy, I suspect — and also usually suck as ‘spot the difference’ pictures.

Pavel
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Pavel
6 years ago

Not sure if you caught this mini-review of Echopraxia published last year, but I thought this line was great:

“Relentlessly unhappy but, as with Watts’ other books, every dozen pages has more ideas than most novels.”

(from https://push.cx/2016/2016-media-reviews)

JB
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JB
6 years ago

I’ve showed that trailer to, like, fifteen friends, most of whom are science fiction fans, and they’ve all done a Keanu Reeves “Whoa.”

Followed by “Can you play that again?”

I’ll be excited to see the entire film. Damn excited.

Johan Larson
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Johan Larson
6 years ago

“The Freeze-Frame Revolution” is now available for pre-order on Amazon. They’re promising delivery to Kindles on May 29 2018.

JB
Guest
JB
6 years ago

Thanks Johan. For the Amazon update. And yeah, get started, Pete!

Unless you’ve actually been writing the novel for millions of years, thus are drawing on first-hand experience…

drNo
Guest
drNo
6 years ago

Hey Peter

How are you doing?

some dumb fun im sure you will appreciate
The Thing -ie :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RxFgJkA2ko
plus abduction:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Ug6gAO8n0s

keep up the nice work, cant wait for your next published dose of sunshine, just like a Fanpire…

vodkaferret
Guest
vodkaferret
6 years ago

Peter Watts: Damn. I better get started.

Indeed. Especially as I thought it was going to be a collection of shorts folded into a novella – but the cover on Amazon says “A Novel”. Best get typing!!! 😉

Marshb
Guest
Marshb
6 years ago

Dr Watts, I just finished a facinating novel called The Power by Naomi Alderman. She credits a Peter Watts with help about marine biology. I did a search of the crawl but didn’t find any reference to it. Was it yourself who helped miss Alderman?

Marshb
Guest
Marshb
6 years ago

Ah! So it was you! All I can say is even if in the end you don’t like the book, I think men should on principal read it as it gives a mirror image of the power dynamics between the sexes a lot of men will never encounter or even had an inkling existed. I enjoyed the hell out of it (I have fetish for points of view that blow my mind and are iconoclastic in general) and would recommend it to anyone. If it gains traction, it will be very interesting to watch the discourse over it lol!

Deseret
Guest
Deseret
6 years ago


Italian article: What the new Netflix series “Altered Carbon” tells us about the future of technology

Goog translated to English

And of the disturbing encounter with the other, with the alien, perhaps capable of exposing us to a completely different way of thinking, Peter Watts dedicated the shocking “Blindsight”, while long before the Vatican Specola spoke of possible “aliens” our brothers “…

Deseret
Guest
Deseret
6 years ago

Mind Reading Computers Being Developed To Help Police

“ So rather than being a mind reading device with malicious intentions, it’s designed more to help people analyse information and make better choices. “

Kind of think this whole AI, robotics, drone, etc. future thing is going to more involve melding somehow with flesh than we tend to think.