----- Original Message -----From: pinlighterTo: eira.smsCc: Brett DavidsonSent: Monday, February 07, 2011 10:46 AMSubject: Re: Night land : Sea of images.So where are we? Work pulled an all-nighter and I'm struggling to wake up.I think one pic per section PLUS a cover pic seems a good target. That gives you some freedom to experiment, I hope, with the option of dropping unsuccessful or uninspiring attempts / reusing one of the section pics as cover pic / selecting the best of them for the cover / whatever. But pick your own favorites, go by what inspires, don't be bound by my suggestions. If only one picture works or you only have time to do one that's cool.Ugh. Coffee.----- Original Message -----From: eira.smsTo: pinlighterCc: Brett DavidsonSent: Saturday, February 05, 2011 7:50 PMSubject: Night land : Sea of images.Brill!Before answering your lovely points, let's just have a rundown of some of things I've written at the top of t'Manuscript:Just the first 125 pages up to 'The Second Sighting'.First: Phyllotaxis! - Thanks for this word - I love it!Pages:2: Theatre/spectacle. 5-9: Stones/'Face'. 11: Redoubt as Dolls House. 13: Tunnels/'Barnacle Villages'. 22: Market stalls + Theatre. 23: Festival of Misrule. 24: Backstage/Masks. 33: The Game. 36: Teen Heroine: Description. 40: Sex. 41: 'Nest'. Sighting ring of the Land. 42: Watcher: Description. 47-50: Market+Watchmen. 63: Gunnery Room+Tek. 65-66: Eye of the Winds/'Rose'. 67-8: Festival. Meyr as 'Redoubt Mother'. Flowers& Butterflies. 69: Board game. 73: Sexy body descript. 75: Sexy body/Game. 77- 80: 17 (Armoured) Returning. Outside the Gate. Within the Gate faced by Guns. Midst of Celebrations. 82: Museum Tek inc. Cyborgs & Insect Tek. 83: Genetic sports/misagenations. 85-86: Models of Final Child. 88: Spectacular Festival & 17 violence on steps Kung Fu poses. 91: Glass Cradle/Palace. Tubes. Surgeons etc. 95: Tattoo description. 97: Destruction of Great Hall Hearth Lamp. 98: Isn't this Joy Division? 102: Rain. Cloak. Tatoos. Sex. Knife. Murder. Blood. 106-7: Bower cradle. Observed sex. Blood. Tatoos. The Land. 107-108: Vandalism of Lamps and Trees Kung-Fu dynamic. 108: Jade balcony. Clouds. Lightning. Lass in transluscent cloak. 112: Symbolic Spectacle/Festival. Banners etc. Ornate/naked Meyr & 17 Leader: Armour. Carved mask. 114: Mob Killing of the 17.117: Carnioval/Festival. Flying mass Butterflies. Trees. 118: Marble Meyr. Ribbons. Navel jewel. Throwing wine goblet(Arc). 119: Butterflies into Night land?! 124-5: Watchers.Now: Those replies:----- Original Message -----From: pinlighterTo: eira.smsCc: Brett DavidsonSent: Saturday, February 05, 2011 3:54 PMSubject: Re: Night land Images.Monstruwacan = watcher of monsters, in WHH's awful attempt at archaic english. Which is actually rather effective here."Monster" also = Omen, SignAha! Thanks!Mansonyagger = anglicisation of menschen jaeger which is cod-German for manhunter, a sort of autonomous fighting / hunting / ethnic cleansing machine which appears in the works of Cordwainer Smith. Characteristically for him, they are not leet killing machines but rather lost and lonely entities who have been rendered irrelevant by the posthuman technologies of his own future history and who are looking for a space of meaning and purpose to exist in. We have ripped these off complete, and use them as signifiers of the tendency of human society to evolve onto a prosthetic straight-jacket enforced by mind-channeling propaganda / technology, one of multiple paths towards Abhumanity, it turns out (and why rip off Cordwainer Smith for the Night Land??? Why not?? But actually, apart from the fact that I love his work so, stories like "The Game of Rat and Dragon" fit into the early bits of the Night Land future history perfectly - pneumavores (soul-eaters) in the ultimate Night between the stars)).Gottit.I must read more Classic SF.Ta.(Right now - having read the manuscript - reading 'Beautiful Creatures', novel about Mary Ann Anning. So far: Marvellous!)I'm definitely in favour of sexually appealing women on the cover. When Dave was doing Interzone "get more tits on the cover" was my constant advice. But don't shoehorn t&a in - we have tried to address sex realistically, and not pornographically, and while the whole story is basically about a cosmic or transcendental mating between two ultimate opposites, sex in the Redoubt is not entertainment but very much about marriage and reproduction under an ideal of Eternal and predestined Love. That ideal is no more likely to be followed perfectly than ideals are in any human society, but it's there, and should inform behaviour, posture, clothing, ornament and the domestic environment. (more or less "artistic" nudity would pass, but stripperific/bass bra'd/combat high heels are somewhat counterindicated, however you may love them!!!)Rest Assured:Brass Bras and Combat High Heels are something I rail against. The lasses on the covers of Heavy Metal Magazine are a constant source of shock and outrage. Have these people never seen a woman?!? etc...Amongst the many, many things to scream about in the Ray Winstone 'Beowulf', the one that probably annoyed me even more than Mr Winstone was that Grendel's (Very toothsome?!?) Mother sported ... stillettos...A whole world of Wriong and Cramped Imagination in so little film time.You may note the outfit for my two heroines for the strip I'm working on at the moment. <Enclosed>NB: These are in NO WAY supposed to be owt to do with the Night Land universe. This is a diferent 'World' entirely, just enclosed for fun.Your discussion of the cover leaves me without, for the moment, an obviously right image to suggest. As you say, the problem is the book is so rich that there are many images to chose from. But most of these are within the Redoubt, which leaves the Land unrepresented. Yet in many ways the book is not about the Land - or more precisely, except for the expedition into the Watcher's umwelt the Land is represented by its many projections and intrusions into the Redoubt, from the warped Heroes led by Scyrr to the captive pneumavores to the Watcher-perception loci generating image-castings like Face. So the book may be encompassed rather well by a picture of the Game. Maybe.It also occurs to me that this has a theme of 'The many faces of Woman'. Such an image might be very kitch but is an angle to have at the back of our minds.((Unless you want to do half a dozen different illos? And see which one demands to be used on the cover, putting the others inside the book? It would be costly (for me, money, for you, time) but I'm not short at the moment.To be honest, it would be nice to have an image for each of the three 'sections'. That'd free up' images for the cover. As you say, that makes it more time/money expensive but it'd probably work as a 'Prestige book' format. For an idea of what a truly awesome and uttterly fantastic Illustrated Book can be like, I'd recommend the gobsmackingly gorgeous Metropolis, illo'd by the tasty Mike Kaluta... but, that's just something to consider as an 'Ideal'. No way are we going be able to afford time/money for that many illo's.And I'd really love to see your take on little Meyr fleeing through the airways, past the turning vanes and the barnacled villages of the Wind-Masters, or the markets of the Lost Cities, or Scyrr on his throne, or the Eye, or Lyreia being born toward the Watcher in her palanquin, or the Mansonyagger conferring with Mira, or what has struck you most.))As tyou say, they're all potentially awesome, making the Choice painful.Then again, hearing your prefferences is very handy.Clarifies it nicely.I will now remind you of the thuddingly obvious - the "Eater" pix were very good, very much represented what I think of as the "palimsest-natured decoration, annotation, symnbolism and embellishment" of the Redoubt, and the motifs and themes you used there are a good start for elements in pictures for ANIMA and/or possible rdecorative borders. It's always a good idea to copy good stuff.That's very reassuring. Plaibly that's just one strata of the arcology. The folk in this have quite a few different outfits and styles - and the Land Armour is certainly summatt worth developing, with it's constant description of 'Insect-Like' and 'Buckles and straps'. There seems to be something of a Valvepunk Conquistador vibe going on there or am I reading this wrong?.As to lettering. Ok... That's predominantly Cod-Celtic, but with a little bit o' Cod-Mayan thrown in, but varieties will be bound to arise. That's a start.so, cc:ing Mr Davidson on this one . . .Okey.Excellent. Thanks.Best:
Smuzzbest to you allAndyi
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