About this title: In the year 2358, celebrated wildlife artist Barlowe sets off on a manned space flight to a distant planet. This book is an account in pictures--and some words--of that trip.
Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Workman Publishing Company
Date Published: 1990-01-12
ISBN-13:9780894806292ISBN:0894806297
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"In high school, I used to grab my discman and walk to the big Barnes & Noble at the mall sometimes after classes and spend hours browsing through the science fiction section, reading whatever caught my attention. I particularly enjoyed the big art books and "technical manuals" for things such as Star Wars, Star Trek, the Colonial Marines from the Alien film franchise, and, of course, the works of Wayne Barlowe. His seminal work Expedition repeatedly caught my teenage self off guard with its evocative and breathtaking speculative paintings of the fauna of an alien world, and it's anyone's guess how many times I read this book in those comfy chairs at that B&N.
Expedition does tell a story, but it is secondary to the exozoological art. Several centuries from now, long after mankind has reduced Earth to not much more than a toxic, radioactive wasteland devoid of virtually all birds, fish, and mammals above the size of a rat, benevolent aliens descend from space to help us re-cultivate what is left of our planet. Soon their long-range probes relay back satellite images of a planet in a nearby star system that may harbor its own life. The aliens mount an expedition to Darwin IV and take along a variety of Earth scientists, a unique few who will be able to view lifeforms such as the earth hadn't seen since long before they were alive.
The explanation that the book has for itself is that it contains the works of the expedition's resident artist, who was brought along to capture the living spirit of the alien biomes on paper, as opposed to the more "sterile" scientific surveys of the other participants. And so Barlowe presents to us page after page of beautifully rendered and wholly bizarre alien species, with commentary from the expeditionary artist as to these animals' supposed ways of life.
Barlowe is effective in creating a cohesive world that comes across as plausibly as anything like this project is apt, and even now, finding this book again at least a decade after I last read it, I still am fascinated by the creatures within: their biology, their hunting methods, their locomotive abilities, their relationships to other species within their habitat. But the super-geek in me comes out rather frustrated in the end; I WANT more technical dissection of these animals! It seemed evident that Barlowe had worked out far more information than he had put into the book, and I wanted to know far more about how these imaginary animals of his worked, how they lived and survived and flourished and developed and fit into their special ecosystem niches. For being a beautiful work of science fiction, it's too light on science for my tastes, even if it would have all been exozoological pseudo-science.
But that complaint aside, this work is stunning and I find myself remembering the wonder I felt when looking at this book every time the newspaper tells me that scientists have discovered another planetoid orbiting a nearby star. Is there an actual Darwin IV in our future?"
"Barlow's clever science-fiction merges here with his stunning illustrations, creating a world that is daringly different and primal. This is a magnificent piece, with Barlowe's background in naturalism only adding to its robust quality."
"Bought a new copy of this fantastic book - it was lifted by some elementary school kid while I was doing an art class years ago. I remembered the book and nabbed one from Amazon. It is a beautifully illustrated book by an artist with thorough knowledge of biology and anatomy, but used in a unique way - he invents an entirely alien ecosphere and treats the subject like an artist on an exploratory mission. I sent it off to get autographed - I only collect autographs of people who have made a singular difference in the way I think about the world. Mostly, they are not famous..."
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