Michael Swanwick's Blog, page 4

Chesley Bonestell's Lost Industrial Lithographs #23 of 32

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The Boiler House

One thing I love about Bonestell's lithographs is how much extra work he put into each one to make it visually appealing. He didn't have to render a reflection of the boiler house in that pond. But it really makes the image stand out.

And for those who came in late . . .

In 1918, Chesley Bonestell was commissioned to create a series of lithographs chronicling the construction of the government cyanamide nitrates plant in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. It would be many years before he began painting the astronomicals that made him famous, but he already had tremendous technique.

The lithographs disappeared from public view not long thereafter.

Recently, my wife, Marianne Porter, and I bought what we think is a complete set of 32 at an auction. We had electronic files made of them, which we'll be posting here, one every weekday until they're all online. Then we'll make a torrent containing the complete collection in high density form, for whomever wants them.

All the images are in public domain. You don't have to ask anybody for permission to download them and you may employ them however you wish.

 

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Chesley Bonestell's Lost Industrial Lithographs #22 of 32

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Concrete Chute and Rock Crusher at Power House

 And for those who came in late . . .

In 1918, Chesley Bonestell was commissioned to create a series of lithographs chronicling the construction of the government cyanamide nitrates plant in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. It would be many years before he began painting the astronomicals that made him famous, but he already had tremendous technique.

The lithographs disappeared from public view not long thereafter.

Recently, my wife, Marianne Porter, and I bought what we think is a complete set of 32 at an auction. We had electronic files made of them, which we'll be posting here, one every weekday until they're all online. Then we'll make a torrent containing the complete collection in high density form, for whomever wants them.

All the images are in public domain. You don't have to ask anybody for permission to download them and you may employ them however you wish.

 

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Chesley Bonestell's Lost Industrial Lithographs #21 of 32

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Power House

It's well worth clicking on this image so you can see it in greater detail. But, then again, it's worth viewing all the Bonestell lithographs that way.

And for those who came in late . . .

In 1918, Chesley Bonestell was commissioned to create a series of lithographs chronicling the construction of the government cyanamide nitrates plant in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. It would be many years before he began painting the astronomicals that made him famous, but he already had tremendous technique.

The lithographs disappeared from public view not long thereafter.

Recently, my wife, Marianne Porter, and I bought what we think is a complete set of 32 at an auction. We had electronic files made of them, which we'll be posting here, one every weekday until they're all online. Then we'll make a torrent containing the complete collection in high density form, for whomever wants them.

All the images are in public domain. You don't have to ask anybody for permission to download them and you may employ them however you wish.

 

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Chesley Bonestell's Lost Industrial Lithographs #20 of 32

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View Toward Boiler House

Does it strike you that some of these lithographs have similarities to Bonestell's representations of manmade structures in his speculative astronomical paintings? Well, you're not alone. Here's what artist Ron Miller had to say about yesterday's lithograph, over on Facebook:

Bonestell's architectural work and his astronomical art are related. What he learned---and employed---in his architectural drawings and paintings: light and shadow, perspective, etc., was directly employed in his space art. This is especially the case with his depiction of spacecraft, where perspective was often of immense importance. For instance, in this painting, not only is the perspective of the spacecraft convincing, look at the light and shadows. The shadows cast by the spherical tanks on the wing. Or take that near vertical fin, where light is reflected back onto its shaded side by the illuminated wing...and the reflection in the fin of its own shadow. This is complex stuff and he learned it from doing work such as the drawings he created for the the Muscle Shoals project.

And for those who came in late . . .

In 1918, Chesley Bonestell was commissioned to create a series of lithographs chronicling the construction of the government cyanamide nitrates plant in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. It would be many years before he began painting the astronomicals that made him famous, but he already had tremendous technique.

The lithographs disappeared from public view not long thereafter.

Recently, my wife, Marianne Porter, and I bought what we think is a complete set of 32 at an auction. We had electronic files made of them, which we'll be posting here, one every weekday until they're all online. Then we'll make a torrent containing the complete collection in high density form, for whomever wants them.

All the images are in public domain. You don't have to ask anybody for permission to download them and you may employ them however you wish.

Above: Ron Miller's comments have been reproduced with his permission. If you'd like to see a selection of his astronomical paintings, they can be found here.

 

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3 Hard Shots at the Moon

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Look what came in the mail! 3 Hard Shots at the Moon is a signed and numbered limited edition (300 copies) hardcover containing three hard-sf novellas set on the Moon. It contains John Kessel's "Stories for Men," Ian McDonald's "The Menace from Farside," and my own "Griffin's Egg," along with an introduction by James Patrick Kelly. With a cover and full-color interior illustrations by Maurizio Manzieri.

Also available in paperback and e-book formats from the publisher, Infinivox. You can find their page with complete information about the book--and Manzieri's interior illustrations--here.

And since I have the opportunity to talk about it . . . 

"Griffin's Egg" was originally published in hardcover format by Century/Legend in Britain in 1991. The triggering incident for the novella is a nuclear war on Earth that leaves its Lunar research colony isolated. At the time I was writing, it only made sense that such a war would be a confrontation between East and West--between the USSR and the United States, essentially. Only...

That was a war that SF writers had been predicting since shortly after Hiroshima. The very thought of it bored me. So I created a conflict whose origins were obscure and which no one really understood. The ideologies involved were of no relevance to the story anyway, so why not? And between the time I wrote the story and when it came out in print, a funny thing happened...

The Soviet Union collapsed.

It happened very suddenly, essentially because the people of East Germany were as bored by the East-West Cold War universe as I was. (I oversimplify greatly; feel free to read a few books of history.) If I had gone with the conventional wisdom of the times, "Griffin's Egg" would be painfully dated today. But because I didn't, the future I imagined is still conceivably one we might have.

There's a lesson to be learned here, but I'm not sure I can put it into words. Other than that it's usually better to imagine things differently than everybody else does.

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Chesley Bonestell's Lost Industrial Lithographs #19 of 32

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Constructing the Power House

Ron Miller, who is not only a very fine astronomical artist in his own right but also co-author of The Art of Chesley Bonestell, has most kindly provided a link to the Library of Congress's page about the United States Nitrate Plant No. 2, including a brief history of the plant and what became of it:

Significance: Built as a war measure for the production of ammonium nitrate, a key component in high explosives, United States Nitrate Plant No. 2 became one of the largest plants of its kind with a capacity to produce 110,000 tons of ammonium nitrate per year. The plant and its adjoining industrial town were hurriedly constructed in a nine month period between February and November of 1918 with little regard to cost. After two brief periods of production, one toward the end of 1918, the other in the February of 1919, the 348 acre manufacturing site lay idle for the next fourteen years while Congress and private industry wrangled over bids that had less to do with the nitrate plant than they did with the hydro-power of the adjoining Wilson Dam. As a chemical plant for the production of ammonium nitrate, U.S.N.P. No. 2 was actually a series of discreet plants, each producing an intermediate product in a lengthy and mechanically complex industrial process. On an unprecedented scale, U.S.N.P. No. 2 assembled state of the art technologies for the production of calcium carbide, liquid air, cyanamide, ammonia gas, nitric acid, and ammonium nitrate.

More information and diagrams can be found here.

And for those who came in late . . .

In 1918, Chesley Bonestell was commissioned to create a series of lithographs chronicling the construction of the government cyanamide nitrates plant in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. It would be many years before he began painting the astronomicals that made him famous, but he already had tremendous technique.

The lithographs disappeared from public view not long thereafter.

Recently, my wife, Marianne Porter, and I bought what we think is a complete set of 32 at an auction. We had electronic files made of them, which we'll be posting here, one every weekday until they're all online. Then we'll make a torrent containing the complete collection in high density form, for whomever wants them.

All the images are in public domain. You don't have to ask anybody for permission to download them and you may employ them however you wish.

 

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A Field Guide To Writing Fiction by A. B. Guthrie, Jr.

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I picked this up at a library sale the other day, and I'm glad I did. There are a lot of books out there on how to write. Most of them are overlong and many are a complete waste of time. A. B. Guthrie, Jr.'s slim volume is neither. It is less than a hundred pages long and close to every word of it is useful to an aspiring or beginning author.

From the Introduction:

Bear in mind that I am addressing myself not to people who want to write but to those who will write or are already writing. Too often I encounter men and women, young and old, who speak of the wish to write and the intention of doing so sometime. They populate the meadows of forlorn hopes.

From a brief chapter (all Guthrie's chapters are brief) on beginning lines, after giving several examples of especially effective openings:

But be careful. You can overdo it and strain the reader's credulity. And don't be upset if you can't come upon a novel beginning. If your story is good, a clear opening is enough.

And here's the opening to the chapter on adjectives and adverbs:

Maxim: The adjective is the enemy of the noun and the adverb the enemy of damn near everything else. Nouns and verbs are the guts of language. That's another engraving for your skull.

I could go on. But these examples tell you everything you need to know about this book: It's terse. It's aphoristic. The language is vivid and direct. The advice is all practical. And, oh yes, every word of it is true.

This is not a volume for the experienced writer. If heeded, however, it can spare a newcomer a lot of anguish and frustration on the road to becoming the writer they wish to be.

And I hear you ask . . .

Is there a better book on how to write? Yes, there is, and both Mr. Guthrie and I agree on what it is. John Gardner's The Art of Fiction is extraordinary. Read this volume first, however. It touches on all the basics.

If you don't have the ready cash, both books are readily available via interlibrary loan.

 

Above: The cover blurb says, "A Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist shares a lifetime of secrets on the art of writing fiction." They're not secrets, unless you're just starting out. But they're all things every writer needs to know.

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Chesley Bonestell's Lost Industrial Lithographs #18 of 32

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The Lime Nitrogen Oven Building

To appreciate this one, you have to click on the picture and see it in detail.

 And for those who came in late . . .

In 1918, Chesley Bonestell was commissioned to create a series of lithographs chronicling the construction of the government cyanamide nitrates plant in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. It would be many years before he began painting the astronomicals that made him famous, but he already had tremendous technique.

The lithographs disappeared from public view not long thereafter.

Recently, my wife, Marianne Porter, and I bought what we think is a complete set of 32 at an auction. We had electronic files made of them, which we'll be posting here, one every weekday until they're all online. Then we'll make a torrent containing the complete collection in high density form, for whomever wants them.

All the images are in public domain. You don't have to ask anybody for permission to download them and you may employ them however you wish.

 

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Chesley Bonestell's Lost Industrial Lithographs #17 of 32

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Ammonia Gas Columns by Autoclave Building

Is this great or what? (I apologize that I have so little to contribute, other than fanboy gush. But as a product of the American education system, I've never had an art class in my life.)

 And for those who came in late . . .

In 1918, Chesley Bonestell was commissioned to create a series of lithographs chronicling the construction of the government cyanamide nitrates plant in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. It would be many years before he began painting the astronomicals that made him famous, but he already had tremendous technique.

The lithographs disappeared from public view not long thereafter.

Recently, my wife, Marianne Porter, and I bought what we think is a complete set of 32 at an auction. We had electronic files made of them, which we'll be posting here, one every weekday until they're all online. Then we'll make a torrent containing the complete collection in high density form, for whomever wants them.

All the images are in public domain. You don't have to ask anybody for permission to download them and you may employ them however you wish.

 

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Chesley Bonestell's Lost Industrial Lithographs #16 of 32

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 Lime Kilns

Half of the Chesley Bonestell industrial lithographs have been posted. Those of you who may be interested in the purpose and history of the plant, may find detailed information at the Library of Congress website:

United States Nitrate Plant No. 2, Reservation Road, Muscle Shoals, Colbert County, AL | Library of Congress

And for those who came in late . . .

In 1918, Chesley Bonestell was commissioned to create a series of lithographs chronicling the construction of the government cyanamide nitrates plant in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. It would be many years before he began painting the astronomicals that made him famous, but he already had tremendous technique.

The lithographs disappeared from public view not long thereafter.

Recently, my wife, Marianne Porter, and I bought what we think is a complete set of 32 at an auction. We had electronic files made of them, which we'll be posting here, one every weekday until they're all online. Then we'll make a torrent containing the complete collection in high density form, for whomever wants them.

All the images are in public domain. You don't have to ask anybody for permission to download them and you may employ them however you wish.

 

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