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Shadowjack - First Bloom: A Chronicle of Humanity's Future in Space

I'm really proud of this album. I spent maybe 6-8 months on this project, I honestly don't remember. At the same time, I created 11 original digital pieces of various spaceships and sci-fi environments for a book I wrote and designed, and got print ready. Had it printed, as well as 50 CDs, and about 20 posters. I took the whole mess to London Comic Con 2013. I broke even.

Available on Bandcamp. Currently, it's pay what you want.

darkphotonstudio.bandcamp.com/

More #FirestormArmada. Pink underlayer, ProAcryl Warm Yellow airbrushed top layer, PA Golden Yellow edge highlights. The metallic parts are a payne's grey base, then Vallejo game air silver and PA Burgundy gradient for the lenses.

These Sorylians will be the last of my old Spartan FSA. I've got no inspiration for the Terrans and there's a friend I'd rather give them to and see what he comes up with.

#spaceships #wargaming #miniaturepainting #minipainting #miniatures
#wargames #firestorm

Still working through an old box of Spartan #FirestormArmada models. The game is having an odd little resurgence at my local, and this brings me up to two fully painted basic fleets. The paint job is ivory and burgundy (Pro Acryl) base layers with a black wash and heavy brighter drybrushing. I wanted a slightly mottled and worn look. And of course the plunging red slash the dagger-like warships need.

#spaceships #wargaming #miniaturepainting #minipainting #miniatures
#wargames #firestorm

Got these guys as part of a spaceship ebay lot, painted them up on a whim. I figure they'll pair well against my recent bombers & interceptors project. They're from a game called #JovianWars, which is the wargame version of #JovianChronicles from #DreamPod9, an anime inspired hardish SF space opera. Fantastic designs, great art. Both of these are meant to be out-of-the-book colors.

#spaceships #wargaming #miniaturepainting #minipainting #miniatures
#wargames #mech #mecha #mechs #gundam

Recent Science Fiction Purchases No. CCCXLIII (Philip K. Dick, Roger Zelazny, Chuck Rothman, Philip José Farmer, and an anthology on Future Love)

Which books/covers/authors intrigue you? Which have you read? Disliked? Enjoyed?

1. Deus Irae, Philip K. Dick and Roger Zelazny (1976)

  • Richard Corben’s cover for the 1980 edition

From the back cover: “One their own, they have written landmarks works that have added whole new dimensions of wonder to the field of science fiction. Now, in Deus Irae, they have created what ALA Booklist calls “the most successful collaboration in years!”–set in in bizarre world where you will encounter…

A bunch of backwoods farmers who happen to be lizards…

A tribe of foul-mouthed giant bugs who worship a dead VW sedan…

An automated factory that can’t decide whether to serve its customers–or kill them.

Across this nightmare landscape–pursued by an avenging angel on a bicycle–one man makes a painful pilgrimage in search of the one who changed the world so drastically–the legendary, by very, God of Wrath…”

Initial Thoughts: I’ve heard that this co-written book by Dick and Zelazny is far from their respective best. I’m still curious!

2. Staroamer’s Fate, Chuck Rothman (1986)

  • Enric’s cover for the 1st edition

From the back cover: “QUARNIAN DOW. Space salvager, planet tamer, dreamstone thief, revolutionary–Quarnian was a woman with a destiny, a gold star syron gifted with the ability to “know” the future and to see into the hearts and minds of others. But the very talent that let her bend others to her will was the curse that made her a lone adventurer, called by some inner voice to world after world, challenge after challenge.

Now the destiny was again calling Quarnian… this time to a rendezvous with a long-lost legend–and a journey of discovery that could change the fate of all who roamed the skies…”

Initial Thoughts: I acquired this one as it contains a generation ship. I am an aficionado of the generation ship. Here’s a list I’ve compiled on the topic with links to those I’ve reviewed. I assume the novel will be poor despite the theme.

3. Flesh, Philip José Farmer (1960)

  • Ellen Raskin’s cover for the 1969 edition

From the back cover: “HE WAS THE SUNHERO. STUD-GOD TO A MILLION ADORING FEMALES.

After 800 years of exploring the stars Space Commander Stagg had expected a hero’s welcome–but this was awesome. First, they grafted real antlers on his head. Then they invested him with the pure sex power of 50 bulls and turned him loose on a screaming frenzy of fire-up virgins. Now he was on an ecstatic public fertility tour that took in every available female–and could soon take his life…”

Initial Thoughts: In January, I acquired the 1st edition of Farmer’s Flesh. He revised the novel for all the post-1968 printings. If rewrites occur within my date ranges, I’m always interested in the nature of revision especially as the early 1960s vs. late 1960s were radically different in the allowed content. Perhaps the revisions reflect this. We shall see!

4. Future Love: A Science Fiction Triad, ed. Roger Elwood (1977)

  • Don Carroll’s cover for the 1st edition

Contents: Anne McCaffrey’s “The Greatest Love” (1977), Joan Hunter Holly’s “Psi Clone” (1977), and Jeffrey A. Carver’s “Love Rogo” (1977).

From the back cover: “Anne McCaffrey, who is probably well known to most readers of this book, examines in her story a mother love that goes beyond the physical, in a new and different sense of that phrase; a sense, in fact, not possible until present-day medical technology gave us the means of realizing it. That particular gift of Anne McCaffrey is that she can infuse such an intense human light and warmth into a hitherto-unknown, laboratory-cold subject that it takes on the familiar, common quality of everyday readerly lives.

Joan Holly, who has also been writing SF successfully for years, deals with a different kind of parent-child pattern. Again there is a love situation emerging out of a relationship which would have been impossible before present-day science gave it to us as something that could happen. But here again, through Joan Holly’s creativity, we have an intense, swift-running story, like a landslide channeled between canyon walls so deep they almost shut out the light.

Jeffrey Carver goes one step beyond the interaction of ordinary human love. He plunges the reader into a small whirlpool of individual lives, carried along with the rushing current of power, plunging ever more swiftly toward the bring of a waterfall. Here, the love is not between human and human, but between human and something else–a love that in the end betrays.”

Initial Thoughts: I have not read any work by Holly or Carver. As for McCaffrey, she was an adored author of my childhood—I read and reread and reread her Pern novels (and the endless prequels and side-series and volumes written with her son). I suspect she’s an author that would lose a bit of the luster if I returned to my nostalgic favorites.

For book reviews consult the INDEX

For cover art posts consult the INDEX

For TV and film reviews consult the INDEX

Science Fiction and Other Suspect Ruminations · List of Generation Ship Science Fiction Novels/Short Stories

Rage of the #Oligarchs - #NaomiKlein: ‘What They Want Is Absolutely Everything’

The all-star academic and Shock Doctrine author breaks down the dark logic of Trump and Musk’s path of destruction — and what the world’s richest people really want

May 4, 2025

Excerpt: [Klein] "But now, #capitalism has entered a radical and #apocalyptic phase. There is no #utopian vision in any of this. Instead, there’s a final battle. And this is where it gets really dark. The people who are advancing this agenda are also building their #LuxuryBunkers and their #spaceships to #Mars. They don’t believe that there is a future. These people believe history is ending, literally. It’s end times! Get onto your rocket ship, or get into your golden city in the sky. And that is distinct."

Read more:
rollingstone.com/politics/poli

Archived version:
archive.ph/BPCNe

#Oligarchy #CorporateColonialism #EndTimesFascism #LoveMotherEarth #CapitalismKills #EndStageCapitalism #ChristoFascism #FarRight #Fascism #WorldPol #USPol #EndTimesFascism #Zionists #Fascists #BelieveInTheFuture
#Resistance #LoveYourMotherEarth

Naomi Klein at Bedford Square Gardens on June 13, 2024 in London. (Photo by David Levenson/Getty Images)
Rolling Stone · Naomi Klein: ‘What They Want Is Absolutely Everything’By Tim Dickinson

I've been meaning to do some better fighters for a while. I've got a few of the tokenized Firestorm models, but while I appreciate their portability, they just don't make for a great tableau.

I've had some B5 wars fleet scale 'thunderbolts' sitting around since I scored them at a convention flea market. They're rough casts, hard to get sharp details out of them. But I've got a whole bunch 'em, so...

#spaceships #wargaming #miniaturepainting #minipainting #miniatures
#wargames #baylon5 #b5w

Goofing around with some old #FirestormArmada Aquan spaceships. There's a guy at the local with a humongous collection that came out of hiding and I'd forgotten how much I like the game. Especially compared to the bloated lumbering mess that the third edition of #DystopianWars has become (the publisher actually agrees with me, they're working on a new edition to fix those problems).

#spaceships #wargaming #miniaturepainting #minipainting #miniatures
#wargames #firestorm

I've been working on a new set of spaceship 3d models for miniatures games.

This time it's the "High Elf Fleets" for use in One Page Rules Warfleets game. Also compatible with Void Admiral as the Ancients faction.

I never copy existing models, but try to make it "inspired by and compatible with but also it's own thing"

Will be available on my Patreon and MyMiniFactory.