SHORT TAKES: Voyaging, Volume One: The Plague Star by George R.R. Martin and Worlds Beyond Time: Sci-Fi Art of the 1970s by Adam Rowe: Review by Karen Haber
Voyaging, Volume One: The Plague Star, George R.R. Martin, art and adaptation by Raya Golden (Ten Speed Graphic, 978-1-98486-10-8-5, $19.99, 192pp. tp) October 2023. Cover by Raya Golden.
Hugo Award-nominated artist Raya Golden (Meathouse Man, Starport) brings her acclaimed expressive drawing skills, imagination, and sense of humor to Voyaging, Volume 1: The Plague Star, the winding tale of Haviland Tuf, tall, bald, eccentric space merchant – and cat lover – and his ship of fortune-seeking fools in the graphic novel adaptation of George R.R. Martin’s composite novel Tuf Voyaging (1986) set in the universe of Martin’s The Thousand Worlds.
A Locus Award Finalist, Voyaging, Volume 1 focuses on the journey of a group of treasure hunters who buy passage on Tuf’s ship, The Cornucopia of Excellent Goods at Low Prices, to a ‘‘Plague Star,’’ an orbital entity causing terrible disease in every third generation of a remote world. The plague star is, in reality, an abandoned lab/factory/fortress or ‘‘seedship’’ from the long-vanished Federal Empire’s Ecological Engineering Corps, used in the distant past for genetic terraforming of planets, regardless of the consequences. Tuf’s passengers all plan to gain control of the seedship and use of the technological wonders within to make themselves wealthy and powerful.
Of course, things don’t go well. For starters, not all of the passengers like cats. When Tuf’s ship is damaged by the seedship’s automated defenses, the fun really begins.
A vivid, action-packed story that highlights some of the worst – and best – aspects of human nature, Voyaging showcases human nature in all its flawed, hilarious permutations, and alien life in some frightening death-dealing variations.
Golden superbly renders emotion and intention of characters in both body and face, handling the humorous and the horrific, sometimes in the same panel. Her skill at depicting science fiction hardware is enviable. The art is fun and funny, the adaptation moves along nicely, and the characters shine forth in all their addled complexity. In standard panel art format, this hardcover graphic novel has deluxe production values – paper, color – and deserves attention from graphic novel fans. Voyaging, Volume 1: Plague Star offers much amusement, action – and, of course, cats. I’m looking forward to Volume 2.
Interested in this title? Your purchase through the links below brings us a small amount of affiliate income and helps us keep doing all the reviews you love to read!
Worlds Beyond Time: Sci-Fi Art of the 1970s, Adam Rowe (Abrams 979-1-4197-4869-1, $40.00, 224pp, hc) July 2023.
Worlds Beyond Time: Sci-Fi Art of the 1970s, punches above its weight. This hardcover blast from the past, a 2024 Locus Awards finalist, features a very personal compilation of the greatest hits of a specific decade’s SFnal art by Adam Rowe, editor, retro SF art aficionado and blogger. It offers a lot of nostalgic pleasure, revisiting the Age of Aquarius-influenced work from science fiction legends like Michael Whelan, Leo and Diane Dillon, Jeffrey Catherine Jones, and John Berkey, to name but a few.
The book’s design isn’t elegant but gets the job done, and contains many delights including superb endpages featuring art by Dean Ellis, Angus McKie, Michael Whelan, and Rodney Matthews. I wish the index did not feel quite so crammed into a crawlspace. I might quibble with the amount of space given to certain artists – not enough – but there are design and cost limitations to be considered, availability of the art itself, and the space limitations that bedevil all art book editors.
Divided into eight thematic sections with subcategories devoted to such popular subjects as space cats and space helmet reflections, Worlds Beyond Time is buoyed by Rowe’s enthusiasm and devotion to his subject.
Among the artists featured include Richard M. Powers, Don Ivan Punchatz, Frank Kelly Freas, Leo and Diane Dillon, Frank Frazetta, David A. Hardy, Robert McCall, Jeffrey Catherine Jones, Paul Lehr, Chris Moore, Wayne Barlow, Bob Eggleton, John Berkey, Boris Vallejo, Don Maitz, Clyde Caldwell, and Bruce Pennington.
This celebration of hand skills – actual painting! – at the dawn of the digital era recalls a heady moment in SF art and marks an artistic community on the cusp of change. It’s lots of fun. Highly recommended.
Interested in this title? Your purchase through the links below brings us a small amount of affiliate income and helps us keep doing all the reviews you love to read!
Karen Haber is the author of nine novels including Star Trek Voyager: Bless the Beasts, and co-author of Science of the X-Men.
She is a Hugo Award nominee, nominated for Meditations on Middle Earth, an essay collection celebrating J.R.R. Tolkien that she edited and to which she contributed an essay. Her recent work includes Crossing Infinity, a YA science fiction novel of gender identity and confusions.
This review and more like it in the December 2024 issue of Locus.
While you are here, please take a moment to support Locus with a one-time or recurring donation. We rely on reader donations to keep the magazine and site going, and would like to keep the site paywall free, but WE NEED YOUR FINANCIAL SUPPORT to continue quality coverage of the science fiction and fantasy field.
©Locus Magazine. Copyrighted material may not be republished without permission of LSFF.
