Monday, December 9, 2013

Holiday Card 2013

Season Greetings & Happy New Years! 

The Lindberg Family wishes everyone a smooth transition into 2014.

 2103 card

Mythic Santa Concept

The Lindberg Card tradition has been escalating since 1998 (see Teamlindberg crafts gallery).  Each year I arbitrarily blend two themes.  This year was "Myths" and "Santa," borrowing design elements from the 2010 and 2011 cards, while portraying Santa as are more heroic. Below I list some of my initial concepts to explore:
 2010 Holiday Card 2011 Holiday Card
Santa + Centaur = "Santaur." Okay, I made that word up.  I liked the idea, but centaurs do not fly. I went out looking for horse creatures that could (i.e. Pegasus).      
Santa + Sleipnir = creepy weirdness.  The centaur alternative would be "Sleipnir", the 8-legged Viking horse who could ride the sky.  This concept just produced creepy sketches (not shown here :) ).   Winged horses might work, but didn't Santa have reindeer?
Deer + wings = "Peryton." Okay, Santa doesn't need wings if his reindeer have them.  Thanks go out to Seabury Court Resident Mythologist Erin (a.k.a. daughter) for educating me that winged-deer actually have been classified already.
Sleigh or Chariot?  Suitable vehicles for sky riding include chariots, as per Helios, Sun-driver.  For starters I tried working with the chariot.

Sketches Start the Process

Setting the Landscape with Photography & Virtual Globe

Envisioning an epic, celestial landscape, I went to my neighborhood street (Seabury Court) to capture the sunset's awesome clouds.  Thanks to neighbor Frank for letting me trespass on his driveway and grab the below snapshot (in July no less, I had to plan early this year!).   For the earth, I decided to take advantage of Photoshop's 3D object capability (I had to learn how to use it sooner than later). Online tutorials (video demo and step-by-step tutorial links) guided me through wrapping the 2D earth-map over a sphere.


Composition: Rotating Earth & Adding Sketches

The sunset image and globe were combined to get the composition started.  Adding the sketches came next. The earth had to be turned such that the sun came from the east, chasing Santa as he rides into the night.

Blocking-in Sketches

Next came painting the characters, so I “blocked in” their bodies by tracing over the previous sketches with the digital paintbrush.  

Readjusting & Detailing Perytons ... Chariot morphed into a Troika Sleigh

The chariot idea wasn't working for the image, so it morphed into a sleigh. Notice that Santa is more like a beefy-god rather than beer-belly fatso.  Custom brushes were used for the fur, cloud, and feather textures. The Swatch and Brush panels serve as paint palettes.  A Wacom Bamboo tablet enabled pressure-sensitive brushing.


Photoshop Workspace

A screenshot captures the complex document.  It is >250MB, full of layers (most with masks) and Smart Objects.  Had to colorize the 50+ layers to maintain sense of them.  Adjustment layers (also masked) help tune lighting, saturation, color-temperature.  To wrap things up, the year was added in Roman Numeral style (as done in 2007, 2012).  Then it was submitted to psprint.com for hardcopy printing ~Nov 5th.  This provides a few weeks to approve the proof and get copies in before the hectic Thanksgiving Day week.  







Sunday, December 8, 2013

RobotSlayer, Vince Kamp's Family Friendly Graphic Novel - Review by S.E.

Robotslayer by Vincent Kamp

S.E. Lindberg rating: 5 of 5 stars

Family Friendly Heroic Fun: Looking for a fun, meaningful book to read to your child? Read this with your child, or let them have a go at it. Great art is inspired by passionate creators, as is Vince Kamp, who delivers this family-friendly graphic novel in a variety of forms (paperback comic and interactive “app”). The author’s engineering-minded father clearly influenced his own creativity; here, he pays the gesture forward to influence his own children, Leo and Benny, who literary play the heroes. Each panel is beautifully designed and painted.



The real Leo and Benny fight 8' tall, Kamp-made robots outside their Dad's "robot lab" (photo from author's website)

Availability: As good as the paperback is, most people will enjoy getting the electronic version (iPad only), since the entire graphic novel comes with a splendid mini-game and a host of interactive frames (only $2.99 in the US app store). Currently (Dec 2013) the paperback is easiest to get via a United Kingdom source (i.e. Amazon.co.uk), even if you are in the US.

App: The App is the entire graphic novel in electronic form, amplified with sounds, interactivity, and a cool mini-game. The arcade-style game is worth the price of admission; it is quite addicting too. Conservatively rated (Rated 9+), I think any boy from 2yr to 13yr’s old would enjoy this without issue. Any fantasy violence presented is really quite tame. Juvenile humor manifests in numerous “farting rats.”

Younger readers would need help with the reading, of course; this provides a great opportunity to read to your child. Let them press the buttons along the way to stay engaged. Older readers (adults mainly) may have to squint to read the font, until their tech-friendly counterparts show them that flicking the screen can “zoom in” (the flick-to-zoom feature may be turned off but can be activated in the settings).

More info:  The official Robotslayer website and its Facebook Page offer many details.  Best to hear from the author himself though, and you can do that too. Here's an interview with Geek Native talking about how Robotslayer came together - thanks to everybody who's getting behind it! The book is available to buy on amazon, there's a week and a bit until it's on the App Store... Mental. All the high fives!

Interview: Also, check out my 2011 Interview of Vince Kamp in which he discusses how he illustrated the book.



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Sunday, December 1, 2013

Sword and Sorcery Movie Queue: 2014 and beyond

Sword and Sorcery list (Link)

Instead of maintaining separate postings for Sword & Sorcery movies (blog link) each year, I am now doing that via one list on the IMDB (the internet movie database).  Please suggest any additions/edits.  Here are some of the cool features:
  • Sort List: by Ranking, US release date (and flip/inverse ordering)
  • Immediate Streaming:  Click the buttons on the side to see which one's you can stream immediately...and if you are a Amazon Prime member (watch some for free...right now!).
  • Quiz: there is a fun quiz offered for this list
  • Trailers and Reviews
  • Export the List (so you can graph trends, like the quality and quantity of the genre)

2014 Highlights:  Some neat films are coming out in Dec 2013/2014, including:

  • 47 Ronin
  • A 300 sequel
  • Seventh Son
  • Hercules (2 of them actually)
  • Hobbit sequels

IMDB Sword and Sorcery movie list




Thursday, November 21, 2013

The Last of His Kind - Review by S.E.

The Last of His Kind and Other StoriesThe Last of His Kind and Other Stories by Bill Ward
S.E.Lindberg rating: 5 of 5 stars

Last Man Standing – Seven Delightful, Demonic Duels


The Last of His Kind and Other Stories  by Bill Ward packages five of his previously published tales with two new ones (see the table of contents below.) This is highly recommended for Dark Fantasy fans.

One story is “man vs. self/society” but the rest share the conflict of “protagonist vs. rival.” These are the most serious of conflicts, each being a fantastic duel to the death. Hence an apt, alternative title would be “Last Man Standing.” All are dark fantasy, and Ward’s entertaining narrative will escort you kindly through hell (but not back). Each story is original and varied in milieu/perspective/available magic. The tales are also arranged nicely, with two flash fiction pieces breaking up the normal length short stories.

You’ll experience heavy doses of chaotic evil, small aliquots of guns, a bit of oriental mystique, and two solid hits of bewilderment. Also, the last tale echoes the hellish goodness presented in the first; check out these excerpts:

Hellish Environment, from By Hellish Means
…within the amphitheater vestibule was a thick, unbroken darkness, and the demon within her saw through it with a crystalline clarity. It relished, too, the tormented and frozen forms of the hundreds of corpses that filled the place…Caught in their last agony, mummified by the long years in the desert air and any the blast of hellpower that must have slain them, the dead surrounded Yrisa, screaming silent screams. Many of them, impossibly, still stood upright with their withered limbs rooted to the spot, their clothing and flesh long since fused into a single tough skin of mottled black. Most lay in heaps upon the ground, a tangled and undifferentiated mass of contorted bodies...

Hellish Action, from Wyrd of War
A red cliff of seeping flesh reared above Vendic. He charged, penetrating the aura of terror surrounding the juggernaut, his body shuddering from the tortured dirge of the construct’s chorus. He hacked at the nearest limb as one felling timber, chopping a wedge in the unprotected meat. Close now to the beast Vendic saw the individual contours of people entwined in its sickening mass—skinless tissues melding, entire bodies stretched into tendons driving dense clumps of muscle—layer upon layer of manlike shapes slithering above and beneath one another in a nightmarish parody of human anatomy. Through the clot of blood and lymph that clung to the great composite beast, scores of faces wept and screamed.

Contents
1. “The Wyrd of War” originally published in The Return of the Sword from Rogue Blades Entertainment, March 2008
2. Shadow of the Demonspawn Emperor – first time published here 2013
3. Above the Dark Wood - first time published here 2013
4. “The Killer’s Face” originally published in Morpheus Tales Issue 6, October 2009
5. “The Last of His Kind” originally published in Heroic Fantasy Quarterly Issue 3, Winter 2010
6. “The Tale of Gerroth the Damned” originally published in Morpheus Tales Issue 2, October 2008
7. “By Hellish Means” originally published in Demons: A Clash of Steel from Rogue Blades Entertainment, June 2010

The titular tale is a fine adventure, but my favorites were the opening tale The Wyrd of War” and Above the Dark Wood” since they left me feeling disturbed/uncertain. Make no mistake, they were crisply and deliberately written. They were not as mind-blowing as Phillip Dick, but I was reminded of his ability to pleasantly confuse readers. I devoured the eBook on a business trip and was left hungry for more. And luckily there is! I will be checking out these other Ward anthologies in the near future:
Mightier than the Sword and Other Stories and Heartless Gao Walks Number Nine Hell and Other Stories
Mightier than the Sword and Other Stories Heartless Gao Walks Number Nine Hell and Other Stories









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Saturday, November 16, 2013

Timlett's "The Seedbearers" - Review by S.E.

The Seedbearers

The Seedbearers by Peter Valentine Timlett


S.E. Lindberg rating: 4 of 5 stars

A Game of Thrones on the Titanic!


Peter Valentine Timlett’s 1976 The Seedbearers starts a trilogy. Ostensibly inspired by history, the tale takes place on the island of Ruta (Atlantis). The cover blurb is accurate: it is a “bloody, sensual tale of an immense and violent struggle in the Atlantis of ancient Legend.” It begins with a brutal first chapter; the body of work is all political intrigue laced with sensual, adult themes; the final third is a satisfying, all-out-war synchronized with cataclysm.

Many tits are exposed, and all are gilded in gold: The domineering, Mayan-like Toltecs lead a fragile coalition. The Toltec’s themselves are split into the army and priesthood camps, and they rule over the Akkadian craftsman and Rmoahal slaves. They all live on Ruta. Chapter one is over-the-top, presenting all cultures as sexist in some way; in fact, misogyny appears intricate to the plot. The nicer cultures may treat woman okay, but still like to sacrifice virgins. Another rapes and murders them. Another eats them on occasion. In the first chapter alone there is (1) a beheading of a young girl… the subsequent eating of her corpse, (2) the a rape of one girl by >4 dozen soldiers, (3) a traditional sacrifice of young girl strapped to an altar, and (4) a slave girl whoring to maintain her life.

Timlett represents no culture in a positive light (to support the plot), but having just read Charles R. SaundersImaro (in which a wondrous blend of fantasy warfare was mixed respectfully with African history) it was jarring to see the presentation of the enslaved, black Rmoahal as ruthless cannibals led by Voodoo priests.

Sword & Sorcery?: This was pitched to Sword & Sorcery fans, but the magic is limited to telepathic and psychic elements. There are several instances in which the astral realm is explored, and the story flirts with ghosts & invisible demons (more of this would have been welcomed). The closest thing to a magic-item is the “Instrument of Mating” (a ritualistic wooden phallus…seriously).

Rating & Recommendation: Fans of George R.R. Martin’s A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire series) should enjoy this. Martin may be a better writer of characterization & adult-soap-opera, but Timlett offers similar adult-fantasy themes that come to closure in one novel (this does start a trilogy, but this first dose could stand alone). Atlantis is doomed to sink after all (that is no spoiler), but there are several groups vying for power: in a nut shell, this is “Game of Thrones” on the Titanic.

The characterization probably deserves a 3-rating, but the plot is thoughtfully constructed and the action delivered well. I tend to give the initial story in a trilogy a “4’ if I am inclined to check out the second, which I am (The Power Of The Serpent).









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Friday, November 1, 2013

Goodreads Sword & Sorcery Topics for Nov-Dec 2013: Kane and Obscure Books


Sword and Sorcery Nov0Dec 2013 Groupread Kane and Obscure

All Sword & Sorcery Groupies, the poll is done and the two Groupreads Topics for Nov-Dec 2013 are:


1) Obscure Books: 
Link = https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

2) And Karl Edward Wagner's Kane
Link to groupread here: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Please join us!  The banner is a montage of coverart; artist credits below:

Frank Frazetta's work shown:
Bloodstone, 1975
Dark Crusade, 1976
Night Winds, 1978

Bloodstone Dark Crusade Night Winds

Ken Kelly's cover for the Nightshade edition of:
Gods in Darkness: The Complete Novels of Kane, 2002.
Gods in Darkness  The Complete Novels of Kane 

Monday, October 14, 2013

Imaro - Sword & Soul - Review by S.E.

ImaroImaro by Charles R. Saunders
S.E. Lindberg rating: 5 of 5 stars

Quality Adventure with Legendary Context

Style & Legendary Motivations
This unique blend of Lovecraft & African mythology features a Conan-like hero. It’s pulpy style & storytelling may merit 4 stars: its uniqueness & place in literature boost it to 5.

Imaro is adventure in the vein of vintage, pulp periodicals. Expect heavy doses of sorcery & horror at a brisk pace. Unlike traditional pulp stories, these chapters are slightly less-episodic and more-chronological. In other words, Imaro is more of a continuing character versus Howard’s original Conan publications. Adventure tropes that could be called “cheesy” are compensated well with engrossing, visceral battle scenes and bestial sorcery. In fact, I was reminded of James Silke Frazetta’s Death Dealer series and thought Charles R. Saunders was much more effective at a milieu including jungle/savannah beasts. Saunders’ Imaro felt more Frazetta-like than Gath in Prisoner of the Horned Helmet or Tooth and Claw.

An excerpt from Saunders’s Into to Milton Davis’s Griots: A Sword and Soul Anthology best reveals the author’s passion:
Robert E. Howard and his contemporaries were products of their time. Racism, in the form of white supremacy, was an integral part of the popular culture of the early decades of the twentieth century, and as such it pervaded pulp fiction. As a product of a later time during which the tenets of racism came under vigorous challenge, my enjoyment of fiction from past decades was often compromised by the racial attitudes I encountered in my reading. On some occasions, I simply let it slide. On others, I wrestled with resentment. Then I discovered a way to resolve my dilemma.

Interest in African history and culture surged during the 1960s, and at the same time I was reading sword-and-sorcery and fantasy fiction, I was also absorbing heretofore-unknown information about a continent that was not “dark” as its detractors made it out to be. I realized that this non-stereotypical Africa of history and legend was just as valid a setting for fantasy stories as was the ancient and medieval Europe that served as the common default setting for everything from Conan to Lord of the Rings. A character came into my head then: Imaro, a black man who could stand alongside mythical warrior-heroes like Beowulf and Hercules, as well as fictional creations such as Conan and Kull.
Saunders executed his dream very well, uniquely adding to adventure literature & steering how African mythology is conveyed with entertaining fiction. He coined the term “Sword & Soul” and effectively started a new subgenre. Wow! I would argue that he was so effective at writing that he depicted an almost darker Nyumbani continent (i.e. Africa), albeit one based more on history & substance rather than racism. Saunders’ sensitivity toward enslavement and genocide motivated him to replace his longest chapter (Book 3: Slaves of the Giant Kings) when Nightshade printed the second edition. 

I tracked down this copy too and really liked how Saunder's revisted his past work and made it stronger. The Afua chapter in particular seemed more consistent with Imaro's development as an outcast and his conflict with evil forces...and the writing seemed less forced (especially with Tanisha's introduction). The candid remarks from Saunders and Syzumskyj (a loyal fan who urged him to revist Imaro) added value. In short, despite the first edition being a good-read, I would recommend future readers to grab the Nightshade Version if given the option (since it is even better).

1981 Imaro Edition Contents
• Book 1: Turkhana Knives
• Book 2: The Place of Stones 
• Book 3: Slaves Of The Giant Kings (replaced with “The Afua” in the 2006 edition)
• Book 4: Horror in the Black Hills (Cover for 1986 based from this chapter)
• Book 5: The City of Madness (this is not in the 2006 edition of “Imaro-1” from Nightshade…but does appear in the first chapter in Nightshades’ “Imaro-2” renamed Mji Ya Wzimu its original title in from a 1974 publication in Dark Fantasy...actually, the Nightshade edition offers a different chapter in its place called Betrayal in Blood.)

Imaro
Through these five chapters, Imaro evolves from being a fatherless, abandoned child (desiring to belong to a community)… into a vengeful, tribe-less Hercules-like figure (set on destroying evil forces). An excerpt captures his presence best:
The Illyassai was a fearsome sight. His dark skin glistened sweat-slick through garments that hung in skimpy tatters from his massive frame. Crimson-crusted wounds scored his body like glyphs inscribed by devils. Dried blood matted his wooly hair. His face was hardened into an implacable mask of hatred. Unrequited vengeance flickered like a torch In his eyes, yet beneath the lamina of that emotion lay a core of grief so bitter it threatened to consume him entirely…
Imaro vs. Lovecraftian “Mashataan” Sorcery:
Each story compounds the conflict of Imaro versus the being Mashatann, whose minions or followers assume mythological status:
Elephantine legs rose like wrinkled trees from the ground, Long bony arms hung like sticks from a pair of, knobby shoulders. The hands were incongruously delicate and graceful. Other than his head, those hands were the only remotely human features [spoiler’s name] had left…

…Upon the dais hunched a bizarre image sculpted from pitted, gray-green stone. From the waist up, the creature the sculpture depicted resembled Ngai the gorilla, although its skin was hairless and its wide mouth bore fangs even longer than those of the red panther Imaro had slain. It was the lower extremities of the unknown beast’s body that marked it as something alien to the world of natural beings. Its legs were the hindquarters of Mboa the buffalo: thick, muscular haunches tapering to sharp, lethal hooves.
Cover:
The 1981 cover by Ken Kelly captured the tone, but seems to have some glaring disconnects: the cover depicts Book Four Horror in the Hills, but has a hero that appears non-African and the creature approximates the primary antagonist...but is of the incorrect gender. The NightShade’s edition of Imaro-1, has a beautiful illustration by Vince Evans, but given the color-palette & the lack of magic & creatures, appears to showcase a Historical-Fiction novel rather than Fantasy-Fiction. Perhaps some of those design features were intentional marketing concepts.
Imaro Imaro

Finding A Copy:
The series Imaro continues with 3 more books: Imaro 2 : The Quest for Cush, The Trail of Bohu, Imaro: The Naama War, available from Lulu.com. Mshindo Kuumba has emerged as Saunder’s go-to artist for these. Click here to go to Saunders’ website to locate books: Where to purchase new Saunders books
Imaro 2   The Quest for Cush The Trail of Bohu Imaro  The Naama War (Imaro, #4)
Although the first two Imaro books from DAW were reprinted in ~2006 by Nightshade, they are difficult to find now (2013). Used bookstores are your best bet. Ebooks are being developed according to a very credible source, that being virtual-brother-to-Saunders, Milton Davis, who edited Griots: A Sword and Soul Anthology, the foundational Sword & Soul anthology). He recently commented on the Sword & Sorcery Group on Goodreads - LINK
Milton Davis: Charles's current publisher is working on e-book versions of the Imaro books. There's a new Imaro story in Griots and a new Dossouye story in the upcoming Griots: Sisters of the Spear anthology. And to top it all off, I plan to publish the first book (or two) in a new series by him entitled 'Abengoni.

Sword & Soul is highly recommended to fantasy-fiction readers!




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