Night City

Science Fiction

Science Fiction

Scifi Artists Jim Burns: The pre-eminent hard science fiction artist today. His work is strongly based in reality; devising eerily familiar alien based worlds and strange organic technology. Boris Vallejo: Boris Vallejo, along with Julie Bell, are world reknowned sci-fi artists who paint idealized visions of the male and female form. A must see for any so-called science fiction fan. Don Maitz: Delicate and serene, his images are fantastical blends of dream, myth and science caught in the amber of his paints.. Syd Mead: World reknowned futurist and designer of the next century, Mead has created world that have been lived in from Blade Runner to Star Wars and beyond A master.   Michael Whelan: Whelan's fantasy art is muscular and dramatic; perfect for his role as chronicler of the great fantasy series of today.	Scifi Authors Orson Scott Card : A deeply religious author who writes carefully constructed novels that reinforce and question his own deeply held morality. The tales of Alvin Maker is a classic of alternate universe fantasy Storm Constantine: Part of a new migration of British science fiction writers that has taken the arrogance and raw energy of punk and brought it to the the old-guard genre. Her Wraethru saga is a post-apocalyptic, gender bending science fantasy. Harlan Ellison  Curmudgeonly brilliant author of numerous genre titles, a master short story writer and brilliant writer of commentary social and antisocial.  William Gibson: Very few novels have hit me with the impact that Neuromancer did. I have read it once a year for the past 12 years and still get as much out of it as I did then. As influential to the 1990's as Catcher In The Rye was to the 1960's. A guidebook to the new technologies though written on an old typewriter before the micro-computer revolution. Invented the term Cyberpunk. Frank Herbert: Though the sequels were serviceable and the other series were enjoyable too, Dune was the only masterpiece Herbert ever wrote. An awe-inspiring meditation on the Messianic need for salvation and the dangers that it holds. Ursula K. Leguin Herbert: One of the greatest writers to have ever written in science fiction. A poet of uncommon ability whose philosopher's soul captures the deep recesses of space and the even deeper recesses of collective myth and fantasy. Mike Resnick: Author of Santiago and over a dozen set in the set universe, a universe of vistas from African myths and grand pulpish intrigue and adventure. Neil Stephenson: Neil Stephenson's Snow Crash was a virus on the face of science fiction. If Gibson's Neuromancer blew the covers off an old man's genre then Stephenson blew the cover to smithereens. It was a blend of cyberpunk sheen off a post-apocalyptic Bug Bunny cartoon. Gene Wolfe: A great writer that just happens to write in the ghetto of genre literature. If he wrote in Spanish, he would be as well respected as Garcia-Marquez. A writer's writer. More invention in one paragraph of the New Sun series than in an entire Terry Brooks novel. Roger Zelazny: The Amber series is a great fantasy epic. They are told in a breezy minimalist tone similar to a hard-boiled mystery novel that really captures the characters well. Sadly Mr. Zelazny died not long ago, but left this and many other tales to enjoy.

Fantasy

Important Fantasy Sites
Fantasy Art Brom: Master of dark fantasy. His worlds are unique, mysterious and dangerous but always strangely inviting. Tim Bradstreet: Bradstreet's art exudes the grime of the street and the sweat and cigarette smell of his characters. Even the pictures of vampires and sorcerers have a strong foothold on reality. Thomas Canty: Beautiful and serene artwork from a great fantasy artist. His work exudes the Pre-Raphaelite mystique, one of many today that have returned to the settings and themes that those 19th century painters made their livings from. Frank Frazetta: The master of fantasy art. Period. Exclamation point. Brian Froud: Quintessential British Faerie artist who seems to steep himself in the folklore and myth of the British Isles Robert Gould: The modern master of Pre-Raphaelite mystique and the leader of today's return to that Romantic movement of fantasy art. John Howe: The other quintessential J.R.R. Tolkien artist. Unlike Alan Lee whose work is brimming with the moods of the ancient Celtic myths that reside in the interstitial fluid of Middle Earth, Howe's reveals the dark and muscular evil of Tokien's creations. Jeffrey Jones A wonderful fantasy artist. All the lyricism of the Pre-Raphaelites mixed with the power and fury of Frank Frazetta flows through Jeffrey Jone's brush. Mike W. Kaluta: A marvelous artist and student of late 19th century illustrators. His figures have a grace and style not normally found today. Nostalgia rubs off his work from the page. Most famous for adapting The Shadow for D.C. Comics. Alan Lee: The quintessential J.R.R. Tolkien artist. His work is brimming with the moods of the ancient Celtic bogs and the blood of the Druids. Ted Nasmith: One of the bright young fantasy illustrators working in the field of Tolkien studies. His work brings a new sense of scope and majesty to the central world in fantasy literature. Keith Parkinson His work for TSR's gaming division brought a much needed brand of naturalism to heroic fantasy. Luis Royo: An artist of uncommon draftsmanship. His heroes are larger than life, and no one draws more beautiful women and women warriors than Luis Royo. P. Craig Russell: A marvelous, classically trained artist whose art nouveau stylings and roccocco filligrees enlivened 1970's comix art. Adapted Elric of Melnibone for Marvel Comics. Charles Vess: is the modern heir to the old-world, mythic landscapes of Arthur Rackham. HIs work reeks of the Celtic woods of Britain. Barry W. Smith: A legendary comix artist. His style is baroque and stylized drawing from the richness of the Old Masters. Created the legendary art conglomerate The Studio with mates Kaluta, Wrightson and Jeff Jones. Yoshitaka Amano: A brilliant multi-media artist equally at ease designing games for the Sony Playstation or for Japanese animation houses. His collected works have shown in galleries across the world. An accomplished fantasy artist.	Fantasy Authors Clive Barker: Stephen King called him the future of modern horror. That may have been premature at the time, but he certainly has become a multi-media phenomenon with credits in film and the theater as well. In the end he is a sublimely threatening novelist who challenges the reader's basic nature with every paragraph as great horror should. Peter S. Beagle: Author of the Last Unicorn which is the penultimate classic of modern high fantasy. His books are always immensely readable and accomplished. Stephen Brust A welcome heir to the crown of Fritz Leiber who created the urban heroic fantasy genre. Brust's Draegera series creates a deeply personal mythology based more on Eastern European fairy tales and myths than the usual pseudo-Tolkien-esque fantasies lesser writers have produced.  Jonathan Carroll A literary wunderkind whose novels have the supposed sophistication and wit of any mainstream novel with the trappings of real genre. Call it magic realist if you want but we in the know realize who our great fantasy writers are: Jonathan Carroll is one of them. Nancy Collins: A great writer of gothic tinged, dark fantasy and horror. Her characters are warped and wounded, at the fringes of the fantastique. The original punk queen of the vampires, her Sonja Blue character would eat Buffy for lunch. Glen Cook: His Black Company series is a soldier's eye view of a heroic fantasy from within the ranks of the last of the mercenary companies of the South. The grime and stench of battle comes oozing off the page. Charles DeLint: Charles DeLlint's work argues for the defenition that fantasy does not have to escape the world to be effective fantasy. His novels are worlds much like our own that touch however much to a world that is older and stranger, the world of the Druids. Raymond Feist: A gamer and a writer in the same package who writes like a writer who decided one day that his game was as interesting to others as it was to himself. A thank you to him who thought that way. Robin Hobb: Acclaimed writer of the Assassin Trilogy. Her finely detailed and original world speaks for the care and originality that is so lacking in most ther writers of this genre. J.V. Jones: A practioner of classic adventure fantasy and a writer as easy to read and acomplished as the other, more famous, English - female - initialed fantasy writer. Robert Jordan: Though his Wheel of Time series has recently careened out of control in weight and mass and dangling plotlines, no other modern fantasy novelist has bothered to create such a massive series as detailed and internally coherant as Jordan. The War and Peace (x9) of the high fantasy novel. Guy Gavrel Kay: Author of Tigana and the Fionavar Tapestry, along with the Lions of Al-Rassan, which are all classicly imagined high fantasy in the vein of Tolkien, Peter Beagle and Evangeline Walton. That he served as editor along with Christopher Tolkien on The Silmarillion is even more of a testament to his breadth of talent. Tanith Lee: An author of almost overwhelming stylistic and thematic integrity. Every novel is inventive, original and thought-provoking. Ignore the trappings of fantasy. Read her. George R.R. Martin: This new fantasy epic from one of the most respected authors in science fiction literature shows what a truly gifted author can do to even the most cliched situations and settings. Martin brings the exactness of historical literature to the stock high fantasy novel. It will never be the same again. Michael Moorcock: Elric stood the heroic fantasy novel on end. A pale, albino sorceror who would bring the destruction of his world, he was a far cry from the muscular and heroic Conan clones that had cornered the market at the time. One of many responsible for the New Wave movement that brought modern literary forms to genre in the 1960's. Tad Williams: A marvelous writer who just happens to be writing all-encompassing epics of heroic fantasy. A wonderful writer in a jungle of hacks and has-beens.	Classic Authors James B. Cabell: One of the original fantasy authors writing in the English language. An old world stylist living in the new world and one of the most influential obscure writers to have ever lived. Wrote an epic across generations in the life of one man - Don Manuel of Poictesme and his heirs . Lord Dunsany: An early master of high fantasy, the 18th Lord Dunsany inspired an entire genre, including writers like H.P. Lovecraft and R.E. Howard only to be half forgotten amongst even hard core fanatics. His King of Elfland's Daughter is brilliant in prose and wonder from a place beyond the fields we know." E.R. Eddison: Creator of one of the first wholely original worlds in fantasy literature. A writer whose characters are larger than life, and always strive for the ancient virtues of glory to kingdom and to themselves. An influence of J.R.R. Tolkien's. Robert E. Howard: THE great sword and sorcery writer. Influential beyond his time and questionable talent. A writing savant who put everything of himself into his characters, of which Conan was the best and most famous, and consequently lost his desire to live when his mother died of cancer. He died of a bullet hole to the temple in his early thirties. A wasted life. Fritz Lieber: Grand old master of Sword and Sorcery and of the intelligent and adult variety. The most influential writer besides Robert E. Howard and a much more accomplished writer I might add. H.P. Lovecraft: The many tentacled menace of Cthulhu and his ilk would have never stirred the imaginations of Peter Straub, Stephen King or Clive Barker if H.P. Lovecraft had never writter his many short stories and novelettes in this wide ranging and highly influential saga. GeorgeMcDonald: Victorian preacher, writer, lecturer and early fantasist who was a friend to both Mark Twain and Lewis Carroll and a major influence on both C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. Abraham Merritt: One of the great and nearly forgotten pulp authors. Noted for the Ship of Istar and Burn, Witch Burn! William Morris: Pre-Raphaelite master and early fantasist. Writer of one of the earliest created world novels in The Well at the World's End Talbot Mundy: Adventurer and early pulp author of weird fiction. Writer of Tros of Samothrace and others. Mervyn Peake: Singular author of what can only be described as an alternate world fantasia of crumbling Gothic architecture and modern satirical excess in The Ghormenghast Trilogy. Clark A. Smith: Poet, artist and pulp fiction writer extraordinaire, this early fantasy, sci-fi and horror writer was one of the original masters in these infant genres. A contemporary of H.P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard. Evangeline Walton: Famous for her rendition of the Tales of the Mabinogion which constitute the interstitial matter of Celtic Mythology. Her work was witty and immensely likeable while unfortunately being lost in the murk of much modern fantasy.

Comix

Important Comix Sites
Comic Book Writers Brian Michael Bendis: Hard-boiled writer extraordinaire becomes best selling superhero writer? True. Bendis may be the best writer in comics which he certainly is when writing dialogue. His characterization is crisp, detailed without being bogged down with extraneous detail. He is a writer's writer. Warren Ellis: Ellis may be the most talented writer in comics. A tirelessly inventive writer of boundless energy, quick witted and dangerously controversial and confrontational. Creator of The Authority and Planetary for Wildstorm - two influential takes on the tired super-hero genre. Neil Gaiman: Sandman is an exiting, mysterious, and often horrific fantasy. An accomplished and seminal work. Peter Milligan: His Shade, the Changing man is a gonzo-modernist nightmare into the heart of American darkness told an innovative comix writer. Alan Moore: Watchmen is a dense and thought provoking exploration and deconstruction of the super-hero myth by the most accomplished writer in the genre. Grant Morrisson: consistently challenges the medium and the widely held expectations that critics and admirers have sprung upon him by easily switching back and forth between the avante-garde comix work (Doom Patrol) that began his career to his more recent mainstream work (J.L.A.) that harkens back to the Golden and Silver Ages of Superhero comix. Highly talented innovator. Greg Rucka: Greg Rucka began his career as a full-fledged mystery writer of his popular Atticus Kodiak novels, and followed it up as a writer for the independent mini-series Whiteout. He has hit the stratosphere with Batman, Daredevil and other mainstream titles lending his talents to such tried and true fare giving these characters street credibility and smarts. Animation Peter Chung: Aeon Flux brought a skewed and fantastically over the top sensibility to MTV animation. Its heightened sexuality and violence brought to the forefront the silliness that hides in the backgrounds of all action adventure films and fiction. Gainax Studios: It is inconceivable that many of the key individuals in this partnership were barely out of their teens when their masterpiece Wings of Hoeniamisse was released in the late 1980's. Gainax created a brilliant animated science fiction film worthy of the best of Asimov or Heinlein. Miyazaki Hayao: His work is characterized by its depth, humanity and flawless characterization. An environmentalist in the truest sense of the word his work exudes the quiet dignity and raw passion of nature, a deeply rooted nostalgia for the faded memories of the past and the quirky rhythms of youth. Oshii Mamoru: (Japanese) One of the great Japanese animation directors. Often, like in his post-apocalyptic, religious fantasia Angels Egg, his work is deeply personal and often metaphorically impenetrable. At his best these personal themes and images give weight and substances to his more accessible films like Patlabor I and II or his adaptation of the Masamune Shirow manga Ghost in the Shell. Otomo Katsuhiro: Akira was loud and violent with a hard driving score owing more to American action blockbusters than to American animation. It changed our preconceived notions of Japanese and of American animation. Bruce Timm: may be the most influential animator in 40 years when UPA changed the look of an entire industry. Timm's stark and glamorous designs brought the vibrancy and adult stylings that revolutionized comix in the 1980's to the moribund field of American Saturday Morning animation.	Mainstream Artists Mike Allred: Madman is a thoughtful, multicolor grab-bag of 1950's Cold War paranioa and Golden Age super-heroes. Allred lends this mix a surprisingly philosophical moral center. John Cassaday : Wonderful new realist artist whose Planetary for Wildstorm and Marvel's Captain America are both classics for his attention to naturalisticdetail. Travis Charest A marvelous young comix artist. His work in Wildcats is clean and perfect for the idealized nature of the characters. Wonderfully moody artwork. Frank Cho: Liberty Meadows is a marvelousl mix of Good Girl art and Berke Breathed humor. Who needs anyone else but Frank Cho and Adam Hughes. Colleen Doran: A Distant Soil is her life's work. Begun in early childhood, this blend of generational space-faring romance, and romantic, Arthurian laced fantasy is broadened by a dead pan wit and a touch of gritty hard-boiled crime. Tony Harris: Beauty, stylized or otherwise, comes from the principles of illustration and design set forth by the early pioneers of American Illustration. Tony Harris is one of their heirs. Adam Hughes: Heir to Vargas and Gibson and other "good-girl" artists. A romantic at heart he embues his idealized figures with a warmth and humor that bespeaks of the artist behind the easel. Marvelous. Mike Mignola: Hellboy is a wonderful homage to old horror movies and stories of Lovecraftian terror and dread. Spooky and often funny as hell. Frank Miller: Sin City is a stylized and explosive pastiche of hard-boiled excess and minimalist fervor. A modern comic noir masterpiece. Steve Rude: This satirically laced science fiction series is a marvel for Rude's stylish, classically trained artwork. The influences of the great American illustrators like Loomis and Rockwell oozes off the paint as does the work of classic comic artists like Jack Kirby, Jim Steranko and Curt Swan. Jim Steranko: An American multimedia phenomenon. Musician,Publisher,Writer and foremost of all illustrator. His design work changed the staid sqaure-ness of Marvel Comics in the 1960's, bringing a pop-art sensibility to that well-worn establishment. Dave Stevens: The Rocketeer is a wonderful recreation of a bygone era. Stevens' meticulous figure work reeks of the same nostalgia and romance that Indiana Jones tapped into. Stevens also almost single-handedly resurrected the career and image of1950's icon Bettie Page. This book is the original inspiration for that warm-hearted (though tepid) Disney film that lacked a bit of the Stevens' warped sex-appeal and goofy humor. Matt Wagner: Wagner's' Mage series is a great urban fantasy and his Grendel is asprawling multi-generational exploration of the consequences rage. To have created either would have cemented his reputation. Both are cornerstones of mainstream comix art. A truly influential comix creator.	Independent Comix Eddie Campbell: Bacchus is a wonderfully warped fantasy about the dying days of the Greek Gods and this pocked-marked and scarred dionysian hero that has survived throughout time. Los Brothers Hernandez: Gilbert Hernandez: Heartbreak Soup: The multi-generational saga of a Mexican family from its small town origins to its big city future. As rich in magic-realist detail as any in Garcia-Marquez. Jaime Hernanez: The saga of two friends named Maggie and Hopie and their adventures in life and love in this post-punk, ethnically rich expanding of Archie's, Riverdale.? Terry Moore: Strangers In Paradise is an inspiring mixture of low comedy, high drama, crime, and romance. Paul Pope: Paul Pope is a one of a kind comic artist. His work is challenging, intricate and from the same sensibility as the Brothers Hernandez. Jeff Smith: Bone is a weird hybrid of Walt Kelly and J.R.R.Tolkien. Beautiful characterization and memorable scenes. Eric Shanower: A clean line art style that I love, a classical subject of Greek Heroes and Myth, and a writer of immense talent. Miscellaneous Comix Enki Bilal: A highly influential European artist in the school of Jean Giraud but his work is much darker and the images are indicative of his Eastern European roots. Richard Corben: Corben's work has always been better appreciated by the Europeans that better understood the parodies of warped, American overheated, pre-adolescent fantasies in his work. Jean "Moebius" Giraud : His dreamy, new-age style was forged from a spiritua l awakening Giraud had in the 1970's. It would permeate his future work in numerous genres and influence an entire generation of artists and writers on three continents. The poetic-master of the European comic. Herge : Tintin is beloved of four generations of worshippers to the Herge shrine. His timeless tales of the youthful adventurer Tintin and his dog Snowy are enlivened by the meticulous, clean lines of Herge's artwork. Vapid Children's literature? I think not. Tanino Liberatore (french): Ranxerox is his magnum opus of violent mayhem and bruising, punk rock energy. The true Terminator for the 1980's, it is still as raw and unflinching today as when it first appeared. And created no less with Liberatore's magic marker. Unbelievable. Milo Manara : A master at capturing the romantic excesses of adults wandering into states of erotic bliss. A soft-core giant and chronicler of the female form.

Spartans

Spartans was a diner in Huntingon Park, California that our friends and I used to get together at and much like the protagonists of Barry Levinson's Diner we'd goof, eat chili fries, read, drink massive amounts of coffee and play Dungeons and Dragons, waiting to grow up. We all eventually did but to a certain extent each of us has continued to draw upon our experiences at Spartans. This webpage is my way of recapturing a bit of those years for myself.

Science Fiction and Fantasy Links

Links Comix Science Fiction Fantasy

Desert Island Reads

• The Last Unicorn-Peter S. Beagle
• Lord of the Rings-J.R.R. Tolkien
• Jhereg-Steven Brust
• Stormbringer-Michael Moorcock
• The Black Company-Glen Cook
• Shadow of the Torturer-Glen Wolfe
• Shatterday-Harlan Ellison
• Land of Laughs-Jonathan Carroll
• Nine Princes of Amber-Roger Zelazny

Recommended Reading

The Baker's Boy J.V.Jones A complex tale of sorcery and swordsmanship, intrigue and affairs of the heart-Library Journal	The Waterborn J.Gregory Keyes Working with mythic themes that are both teasingly familiar and totally alien, Keyes has created an impressive debut.
Dragon Stephen Brust No one writes fantasy like Stephen Brust, except for Roger Zelazny who Brust readily admits to as an influence.	Storm of Swords George R.R. Martin Tired of 100 pound best sellers that go nowhere, introduce meaningless characters and have no plot? Try George R.R. Martin and his Song of Ice and Fire.

These are favorites of mine, a pretty good cross-section of books, that I would consider having with me if and when I get stranded on a deserted isle.

Gallery

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About

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  General:
  ..Futbol: RCD Espanyol, AS Roma, Arsenal. Sketching; in pencil and in words, the people around me. Listening; to melancholy words and music, and singing them in a drunken stupor. Reading; trashy novels, where truths lie. Teaching; my students, who give me far more than I give them. Loving; my children, who keep me grounded and my friends who keep me in single malt beverages.
  

  
  
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  Music:
  ..Anything that has truth in it. John Hammond or Tom Waits singing each other's blues. The cabaret of a Jack Lukeman or Rufus Wainwright. The soul of a Sam Cooke or Otis Redding. The Beatles or The Stones, but also The Monkees or The Archies; an intersection of cheese and heartfelt melody. Beny More, but not Celia, Jose Alfredo but not Chente. Luka Bloom, Christy Moore and the Clancy Brothers. Billy Bragg, Elvis Costello and the Clash. Silvio and Pablo. Fernando Delgadillo. Neil Finn, but not Tim. Cesaria Evora. Piaf, Brel and Gainsbourgh, but not Azvanour. Soundtracks that explore new territory, except when they visit Hollywood or Broadway, but definitely when they visit Bollywood.Pretty much everything except dumb emo, pseudo-whispering noodly crap.

  
  
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  Movies
  ..The Godfather 2, Chinatown, Taxi Driver, La Femme Nikita, Amarcord, Throne of Blood, Game of Death, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, The Seventh Seal, The Killer, even sappy chick flicks like Sliding Doors and the Lake House, plus pretty much every movie made out of a Nick Hornby novel. I'm not a big fan of Quentin Tarantino, or comic-book movies.
  

  
  
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  Television
  ..Today: Californication, Life on Mars, Dexter, and Ashes to Ashes. House and The Sopranos. Justice League, Family Guy, Invader Zim and The Simpsons. Recently: Babylon 5, E.R. and Alias. Past: Night Court, Taxi, Benson, Facts of Life, Twin Peaks, Crime Story, Batman TAS, Friends and Cheers, but mainly M.A.S.H.

  
  
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  Books
  ..Bloodsucking Fiends, You Suck and The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove by Christopher Moore. The Land of Laughs and Voice of our Shadow by Jonathan Carroll. Fever Pitch, High Fidelity and About a Boy by Nick Hornby. My literary idols are Harlan Ellison and Dashiel Hammett. I love classic sci-fi, comparative mythology, and books about soccer

  
  
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  Heroes
  ..Harlan Ellison, Jackie Robinson, Francisco Lopez, Roberto Baggio and David Heifetz.