Project Gutenberg finds published books and materials with expired copyrights and makes them available online as free eBooks.
At Project Gutenberg there is an
Astounding Stories bookshelf. The first three years of
Astounding Stories are now in the public domain. I've decided to have some fun with these old pulp magazine covers.
In his time travel novel
The End of Eternity, Isaac Asimov imagined that Andrew Harlan and Noÿs Lambent went back in Time from the Earth of our far future, arriving here in the Primitive Era, in the 1930s. Andrew and Noÿs provide technical information from the future to a select group of scientists, launching Earthly civilization onto a track of rapid technological progress.
The end result of Andrew and Noÿs altering the flow of Time was what I call the
Foundation Reality, a
Reality in which Asimov's Galactic Empire and the
Foundations came into existence.
For my
Exode Trilogy, I imagine that
Grean, a Kac'hin female, also travels through time and is responsible for a
Reality Change that brings our Reality, the world as we know it, into existence.
I've previously used images of model
Tori Calderwood (
see this) to represent Grean in a cover illustration for book two in the Exode Trilogy:
Foundations of Eternity.
I've
previously blogged about the idea that Grean could be seen during the 1930s by millions of people. So, why not further put Grean into the 1930s by putting her on the cover of pulp science fiction magazine? Thus was born the imaginary magazine of
Future Science!
For the
Future Science issue of November 2014, I used
another photograph of Tori that was taken by
Cathleen Tarawhiti.
The original
Astounding Stories cover art by
Hans Wessolowski was from the November 1932 issue. The cover illustration was apparently inspired by "
The Passing of Ku Sui", a sequel to "
The Affair of the Brains".
The idea of a floating brain with tentacles was adapted (see the image to the right) to an imaginary struggle between Grean and a "creature from the
Sedronic Domain". I've never given much thought to what form the
Huaoshy might take. In my imagination they should be able to adopt any convenient form, but the Sedronic Domain is supposed to be a hard to imagine for we primates as it might be for a bacterium to imagine a human society.
For the
Future Science issue of January 2014, I used an image of model
Emma McDonald. The original Astounding Stories cover was another work of art by Hans Wessolowski for the
October 1930 issue.
The original cover art was apparently inspired by "
The Invisible Death". Wessolowski's depiction reflected the idea that in the story there were nearly invisible people, only their eyes could be seen: "
The eyes, which alone were visible, were about six
inches from the floor, and they were appearing and disappearing, as
they opened and shut alternately."
I tried to give Grean strange eyes and rather than using a gun, she is zapping the poor guy with some kind of energy bolt going from her hand into his shoulder. "Grean Takes Washington" has nothing to do with events in the Exode Trilogy, but it makes a good imaginary story title for this imaginary cover.
For the Exode Trilogy, readers discover that time travelers like Grean can mysteriously move between our world and the
Hierion Domain. To the left is another imaginary pulp magazine cover featuring a story about the Hierion Domain by
Ivory (see
this blog post). For pulp science fiction of the Golden Age, every problem had a solution that was based on some techno wizardry like "tubes" and "rays". In the Exode Trilogy, nanotech and teleportation can always come the the rescue for our hero.
For the
Future Science issue of May 2014, I used
another image of model Tori Calderwood.
The original Astounding Stories cover art by Hans Wessolowski was for the
May 1932 issue.
Apparently the May 1932 cover art was inspired by "
Pirates of the Gorm" which includes all kinds of "rays": "disintegrator ray-projectors", "pencil-rays", rays flashing from a "mirror" mounted on gimbals.....
For the May 2014
Future Science cover, Grean looks like a giant gazing down from "
what seemed to be a smooth slab of transparent glassite" that "shot into position over the pulsating flame." Lucky for Grean, she avoided being cooked!
In the Exode Trilogy, I imagine that there are
femtobots made from
hierions. In my story, the femtobots are submicroscopic, so this cover is rather whimsical, but it has a nice pulp magazine look.
For the
Future Science issue of June 2014, I used the
June 1932 Astounding Stories cover.
The original 1932 cover art by Hans Wessolowski was apparently inspired by "
The Raid on the Termites". One of the characters says, "
What wouldn't I give for the privilege of shrinking to ant-size..."
Apparently Wessolowski also drew the rather disturbing interior art for this story about termites. In this image (to the left), you can see Wessolowski's depiction of: "
A sort of super-termite? A super-intellect set in the minute head of an insect, yet equal to the best brains of mankind?"
 |
| Image detail: June 2014 Future Science cover |
I've blogged previously about "
Archive Worlds" in the Exode Trilogy. We can imagine some alien species that looks like a termite, but is about the size of a human! In the May 2014
Future Science cover, Grean looks rather amused by the over-size life forms in her Archive World.
As is usual for science fiction cover art that I create, I've tried to give Grean a slightly non-human appearance. Grean can use her endosymbiotic
zeptites to alter her appearance, but in the Exode Trilogy she must interact with Earthlings, so she can't adopt facial features that are too hideous.
For the
Future Science issue of September 2014, I used the
September 1932 Astounding Stories cover. I added in another image of model
Tori Calderwood that could suggest Grean being held captive by the Slime Monster.
I was tempted to have the Monster be dripping green slime into Grean's mouth, but given
my dislike for horror, I could not bring myself to do it.
I'm not sure if the September 1932 cover art from Astounding Stories was inspired by "
Raiders of the Universes". The interior artwork for that story does have multi-tentacular robots, but they don't look like the green creature on the cover.
For the
Future Science issue of August 2014, I used the
August 1931 cover from Astounding Stories. This cover illustration by Hans Wessolowski was apparently inspired by "
The Midget From the Island".
I also used several additional images from deviantART, including
another photograph of model Tori Calderwood. For the background water I used
an image from
Oxana. To make the flying creature seem more exotic I used
a dragon image from
fooie33.
Exactly what is this flying creature? According to
this page, a Basilisk is half bird and half dragon but nobody can survive seeing one. If
some dinosaurs had feathers, then why not a
dragon with feathers? In any case, for the Exode Trilogy I'm imagining that this creature is a form of artificial life.
In the Hierion Domain the femtobots can take on any desired form, so Grean decides to go for a ride on this whimsical beast. What is she looking at over her shoulder?
Next: the second half of a year's worth of covers for the imaginary pulp science fiction magazine
Future Science.
Okay, okay, Ivory was just a newborn in 1959, but I needed an imaginary author for the story "
Embryos From Earth" which is actually a chapter in the science fiction story "
The Nanoepitaxy of Susanne Marie". The buxom "lady" on the right is actually a robot. The two women in the center are clone sisters and the couple on the left are their parents. See also:
Thomas.
See my
gallery of cover art at deviantART.
