NEWS
CHRONICLES of an illustratorKonrad Gesner and the Jenny Hanivers
Or Wishful Thinking, Mythological Science and Easy Money The other day, as I was reading Mortal Engines by Philip Reeve, something stuck in my mind - the name of Anna Fang’s airship, the Jenny Haniver. Naturally, something stuck in one’s mind requires prompt...
Canadian Celtics
Or Empires Within, Empires Without Yes, I realize the title sounds like the name of a lacrosse team (but it’s only to insure that my compatriots read this.) Nevertheless… A summer ago, I spent a few days in Toronto giving a little talk at IdeaCity and shooting a...
Catching up in Kyiv
Or Thoughts Along the Dnipro Early last December, looking out the hotel window at the blowing snow, I thought “Well, I’m in Kiev.” Every time I end up in some out-of-the-ordinary place, it takes my mind a while to catch up. Landing in the Ukraine at 4 pm it was...
Saint’s Haloes and Mouse’s Ears Part IV
SAINT’S HALOES AND MOUSE’S EARS PART IV Or Northern Lights, Baroque Solutions and Back To The Future Painters of the Northern Renaissance for the most part seemed to have continued as before or simply dropped haloes altogether, rather than trying to adapt them to...
Saint’s Haloes and Mouse’s Ears Part III
Or Reconciling the Irreconcilable (Or At Least Trying) The transformation of the halo signals the end of medieval art and the spread of the Renaissance view far more clearly than more commonly examined factors, perspective foremost amongst them. It accompanies the...
Saints’ Haloes and Mouse’s Ears Part II
Or Keeping One’s Halo While Losing One’s Head Back to saints. Given that one of the essential acts of sainthood is an untimely and occasionally gruesome demise, usually in a vigorous and imaginative fashion, the question arises ;...
Saint’s Haloes and Mouse’s Ears Part I
Or Putting A Few Things in Perspective The things we accept visually, rapidly and at face value, are legion. All those things we recognize, that “jump the synapses directly as a code” (as the folks in advertising just love to say), make up probably the majority of...
Many Meetings
Or the Ins and Outs of Tolkien Fandom Meeting Tolkien fans is invariably an engaging experience - occasionally delightful, sometimes moving, often a little scary - but never ordinary. It’s not that they form an always identifiable...
Forging (More) Dragons
Or a Few Words From Someone Else About Dragons Forging Dragons will be out towards the end of the month. Here’s the preface, with the kind permission of the editor, so you won’t need to read it on the way to the checkout. “SVNT DRACONES” In the original draft of...
Forging Dragons
Or Most Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Dragons (Or At Least a Certain Amount) A new book coming out is always fun, generally as it means the editors involved are happy to coax me from my lair to go sign copies in some far-flung clime.* FORGING DRAGONS:...
The Requirement
Or An Unexpected Window on the Renaissance Upon the discovery of America by the Europeans, an extraordinary document was copied out and carried by Spanish expeditions on their treks into the wilds of the New World. It was called “El Requerimiento”. Read it through....
A World (Or Two) Away
Or a Few Days Abroad I’ve always been leery of conventions in North America - once you’ve given the convention itself the once-over, there’s not a lot to do outside the convention itself, unlike European events where there’s generally much more that’s worthwhile...