Friday, April 26, 2019

News...


I know it's been a while since I posted new monsters but this coming Monday I'll be posting two weeks worth of new creatures inspired by the work of one of my favorite contemporary authors, Nnedi Okorafor

Her Binti series, a space opera rooted in a futuristic Africa, got me hooked and since then I've read Who Fears Death (which is currently being developed into an HBO series produced by George R. R. Martin) and it's prequel The Book Of Phoenix, Lagoon (a parable about environemental and societal corruption) and the Akata Witch series (imagine Earthsea but set in an alternative modern day Nigeria). 

The Binti series is a shining example of fiction that makes me work on this blog. Reading it, I had to draw the beautiful, bizarre and alien creatures described in it. As I was reading I was tracing the lines of the Meduse in my head, working out how the jellyfish-people differ and imagining the colors of the ntu-ntu bugs. If her writing wasn't so compelling I'd have put the book down right then and there and started to draw. But her writing is compelling. It's down to earth while being set on Mars. It's got big picture issues told through the lens of a personal experience. I love her work so much and hopefully I'll inspire some of you to read her stories if you haven't already. 


2 comments:

  1. Hey Michael; longtime reader of your blog & also the marketing guy for the Binti series, so I'm excited to see the mention! I'd love to send you a care package but am not sure of the best way to get ahold of you...if you'd like a box of books from Tor.com Publishing, drop me a line at mordicai.knode at tor.com!

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