Expedition: Being an Account in Words and Artwork of the A.D. 2358 Voyage to Darwin IV: Amazon.ca: Wayne Douglas Barlowe: Books

Product Description

From Publishers Weekly

An abundance of lavish full-color illustrations and detailed black-and-white sketches dominate Barlowe's fictional account of a 21st-century exploratory space flight to the imaginary planet Darwin IV. Sent along as the mission's artist, Barlowe ( Barlowe's Guide to Extraterrestrials ) describes his "excursions" to survey Darwin IV and the unusual animals he encountered: creatures like the monopodalians, who pogo-stick across a barren, icy landscape, or the winged but flightless Stripewings that are in "evolutionary flux." Numerous "observed" details, such as the length of a Darwinian day (26.7 hours) and the feeding, hunting and mating behaviors of various creatures, help maintain the illusion of realism and immediacy such a first-person narrative demands. SF fans who relish the bizarre for its own sake may enjoy this volume. But while superbly executed, Barlowe's visualization of an alien world falls short imaginatively and is naturalistically unconvincing. Many animals look like dinosaurs designed by a committee and discerning readers will suspect that Darwin IV wouldn't work as an ecological system, no matter how alien.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Book Description

In 2358 Wayne Douglas Barlowe joined the first manned flight to Darwin IV, a newly discovered world beyond our solar system. Here he provides naturalistic paintings that vividly capture the alien creatures he encountered. Illustrations, full-color paintings, and maps. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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17 Reviews

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4.7 out of 5 stars (17 customer reviews)

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Settle down,It's not meant to be real..., Jan 17 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Expedition: Being an Account in Words and Artwork of the A.D. 2358 Voyage to Darwin IV (Paperback)

All these people saying that this is a well illustrated but poorly written book shouldn't take it so serioulsy, who cares if the inhabitants are unbelievable. It's a fiction book, none of these reviewers could come up with anything half as imaginitive as Wayne Barlowe... consult a scientist or biologist, yeah right...it's not real.......just have fun with it.

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Catching up with Barlowe, Dec 25 2003

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Babytoxie (Dallas, TX USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Expedition: Being an Account in Words and Artwork of the A.D. 2358 Voyage to Darwin IV (Hardcover)

Having just purchased a new copy of the classic BARLOWE'S GUIDE TO EXTRATERRESTRIALS, I felt it necessary to catch up on some of the incomparable Wayne D. Barlowe's more recent work. I leafed through several books and settled on EXPEDITION, primarily for my interest in its subject matter (having many graduate hours of zoology under my belt). I see that from the late '80s-onward, Barlowe has been handling both art and writing chores, I assume in order to make his projects more personal and satisfying. Certainly, the man is an immensely talented artist, but I feel that he should have worked with established authors and/or scientists in order to give EXPEDITION more substance, structure, and technical basis.

Regarding the story, I feel that Barlowe blew it from the start with the premise that the expedition to the planet Darwin IV was only possible due to the fact that Earth had already made contact with a sort of "sponsor" alien species, the Yma. If that's the case, then why aren't we learning more about the Yma instead of the inhabitants of Darwin IV? Detailing Earth's first contact with another intelligent life-form sounds more interesting to me than the study of an unknown planet. A tighter approach would have been to drop the Yma and then have all of the technology be Earth-based (this IS the 24th century, after all).

I definitely feel that when you're theorizing on alien biology, all rules, such as we know them, can stand by the wayside. For a detailed project such as EXPEDITION, however, there should be some logical restraint. While this book contains some very clever biological concepts, such as the Amoebic Sea, Emperor Sea-Strider, Rime-Runner, and Gyrosprinter, they are brought down a notch by the questionable equilibrium of the Daggerwrist population, the feeding and locomotion of the Tundra Plow, and the seemingly inefficient maturation of the Forest Slider. But of course, we've found some organisms on our own planet that are almost as odd, so who's to say what we may find on another?

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Superb artwork but he should consult a scientist, Jan 16 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Expedition: Being an Account in Words and Artwork of the A.D. 2358 Voyage to Darwin IV (Paperback)

While there can be no quibbling with the quality and beauty of the artwork seen in this book, W D Barlowe would do well to consult a scientist or two (preferably a biologist, a chemist and a physicist) to get a handle on what is physically possible and what is not.
Certainly a planet full of liquivorous predators would be inefficient and covered in meter-thick piles of decomposing bodies.
Even very massive creatures would be unlikely to use skids for part of their locomotion when they also have developed legs.

The bottom line is that this is a beautifully illustrated, if poorly concieved and written book. It surpasses most soft science fiction in terms of believability based on the merits of the artwork alone.

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Most recent customer reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Can't write but he can sure paint
Barlowe grabbed my attention decades ago with his aliens book, but since that he moved on. Expedition is amazing, a masterpiece as it goes against most established cliche's and... Read more

Published on Jun 21 2002 by www-dagon-nl

5.0 out of 5 stars The Perfect Book of Extraterrestrial Life
Fantastic artwork, and story of a group of scientists, and an artist sent to explore the primitive world of Darwin IV. Get this book you won't regret it.

Published on Jan 17 2001