Monday, December 01, 2014

Figures In A Landscape



Erik Wernquist's short film,Wanderers, is a simple idea beautifully executed. He's taken images from actual places in the Solar System, animated them in HD, and used a meditative piece from Carl Sagan as a voiceover. Like many science-fiction novelists, he's given a measure to the strange and sublime landscapes uncovered by robot explorers by adding human figures and human purpose. And because he's used many of the same images that inspired me, it's startlingly like the inside of my head when I was writing my novels The Quiet War and Gardens of the Sun (and as a bonus the wing-suited flyers on Titan are straight out of Eternal Light). I can't stop watching it.

6 Comments:

Blogger Mark Pontin said...

Thanks for calling attention to this.

December 01, 2014 6:19 pm  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Thanks for providing such verisimilitude in your books.

December 02, 2014 12:38 am  
Blogger David D. said...

Beautiful, thank you for the link and commentary.

December 04, 2014 1:42 am  
Blogger Unknown said...

Thank you so much for your post. I would never have seen this otherwise.

I wrote before, I found a well thumbed copy of Gardens of the Sun on a shelf where I was spending the night in Ripa, Umbria, Italy. You brought me to these worlds so vividly in that story, and all the others I have read since.

This is immortality.

Thanks!
Stuart Holtby

December 05, 2014 1:00 am  
Blogger Unknown said...

This is at a bit of a tangent - couldn't seem to find any email to directly contact you (would be nice if there was a "contact" page on your web site).

I just read "The Man" in 30th annual "Year's Best Science Fiction". I'm not entirely clear why I liked that so much, but I really, *REALLY* liked that short story and want to read some more of your work!

Which of your stories would you most recommend starting from there (i.e., which story would seem to be most similar)? Dozois mentions the "Jackeroo" series, but I'm not really seeing anything about that on your web site or on your wikipedia page.

You can email me directly at HedgesFan (at) gmail (dot) com. Thanks so much! Hope to get a reply from you soon! Best of luck, Paul! ;)

December 07, 2014 1:28 am  
Blogger Paul McAuley said...

Hi John,

Glad you like 'The Man'. I really need to update my web site. Meanwhile, here's the complete list of the various Jackaroo stories:

Dust
City of the Dead (in Kindle ebook)
Winning Peace
Adventure
Crime and Glory
The Choice
Bruce Springsteen
The Man

A Jackaroo novel, Something Coming through, will be published early next year, and I working on the second (and last) Jackaroo novel, Into Everywhere, right now.

December 08, 2014 2:21 pm  

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