[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
in the reader; in other words, his characters are real people. This will not
be "outpost" science fiction such as early Heinlein that appeals only to male
readers and concentrates on raw adventure at the expense of carefully plotted
suspense and character development. This is a post-holocaust adventure fantasy
with stringent rules. Rules are an absolute must for the majority of readers
who look on SF&F
or action adventure as their escape entertainment. The
"tomorrow" of the story must be firmly recognizable as an extrapolation of
today, with fixed laws and mores that make the people and the settings real.
This is to be fiction about relationships, personal motivations and important
historical possibilities. Nevertheless, the author stresses that the dynamic
of each book with its separate adventure and separate explosive ending comes
from basic action adventure.
This is an action-adventure story whose jumping-off point happens to be a
science-fiction one. First and foremost, these books are the story of a quest.
I want to keep the books as much as possible action adventure with
bizarre-horror overtones and science-fiction undertones.
Packaging the Vision
A Picture Is Worth&
These comments should serve as art information for the first
Deathlands book, Pilgrimage to Hell
. Much of what Jack Adrian has written will also be useful for the following
three books in the
Deathlands series.
The Deathlands themselves are the environment of the world after a nuclear
holocaust. The point about the series is that there
is rife after the holocaust, albeit in a drastically changed and unfamiliar
world. The characters in the book are the second or third generation to be
born after the holocaust. Thus they are slightly different from us, although
recognizably humans of present time. Their clothes are unique to them, and
they have undergone subtle mutations.
The books are adventure stories in the "near-future fiction"
category. But we do not want to categorize the books in the way they look, so
perhaps the only point to make about the category that is relevant to the art
is that near-future fiction has one foot in today and one foot in tomorrow. It
is partly and recognizably the present, and partly and recognizably the
future.
Because we want to avoid a pulp-story "adventure" look, we discussed the
overall direction of the art, and the particulars such as the background and
whether to show characters and where.
Starting from the agreement that the art should be wraparound, we decided that
at least two of the characters should be visible. They should be together, and
Page 138
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
placed in an off-center position on the front cover; their size and their
positioning preferably lower right make it clear that there are more important
elements on this cover than the presence of the book's heroes.
The potential background grew to very vivid life as we discussed the concept
behind the series. The key element that carries the meaning of the series, and
that will be a hook for its popularity, is the contrast between the death and
destruction of our known world in the Deathlands, and the signs of very real
and very different life that prevails in the Deathlands.
We agreed that we would explore existing documentary evidence of what
atomic-bomb-blasted cities, and countryside, and atolls from the Pacific
testing look like. We should also absorb Jack Adrian's descriptions in order
to detail some of the vegetation and weather conditions and ecosystems in
general that he is imagining in this series.
Hopefully the artist's sketches will creatively play with some
of the possibilities of the plant life and sky colorations and so on that are
only broadly described by Adrian. It is not possible with a book before it is
written to detail every aspect of biology, life-forms, etc., that will
entertain the readers in the final text;
therefore the artist should have some license in his efforts to suggest
post-holocaust life. Thus far we have decided on the details to this extent:
The front cover should show the blasted remains of part of a North American
city providing it is a prairie or Midwest city, such as Omaha, Nebraska,
because that is where the first book is set. The ruins have existed as ruins
for some years. New life in the form of grasses and plants is visible
throughout. At least two human beings are visible. The sky is unusual in its
cloud patterns or color. The picture wraps around to show the geography beyond
the city, maybe a mountain range, a winding river. In the city itself,
architectural images such as an almost destroyed church should be used to
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]