New Tribute Art: The Spook under the Starblaze

This artwork is a tribute to a character named Telzey Amberdon. Telzey, the creation of famed American sci-fi author James H. Schmitz, is a powerful psychic prodigy from the human-colonised planet Orado, and she appears in several stories in which her special abilities frequently get her both into and out of trouble. The scene I chose to illustrate is from a story titled Goblin Night. In this story, Telzey finds herself being hunted by a powerful beast known as a spook, which is under the control of an evil individual. (Incidentally, because of their appearance, spooks are also referred to as goblins, hence the story’s title.)

Although Goblin Night was originally published as a standalone short story, it was later incorporated into the novel-length version of The Lion Game. If you are into cool, sci-fi heroines having adventures akin to those you find in spy thrillers, I definitely recommend reading this novel. As well as, of course, Telzey‘s other stories!😊

Tribute Art: “The Witches of Karres”

One of my recent pastime activities is reading vintage novels, particularly sci-fi and fantasy novels, and when I find one I want to read, I try to get an edition with a cover that I really like. (Side note: I think one of the great things about speculative fiction is its covers, which not only serve to draw you in, but are also able to get your imagination going). However, there are times when the covers I come across are not particularly appealing. And then there are covers which do the story a disservice by not being truly representative of the work (which, of course, you can only find out by reading the whole book). In either of these cases, I tend to find myself imagining what a good cover would be, but I don’t normally go ahead and make one. In fact, the only time I recall actually making a mock cover was last year, when I made one for Terry Brook’s Running with the Demon (one of my favourite books of all time). Now I’ve done a second mock cover, only this time I have taken things a step further and made that mock cover appear as if it was an actual book.

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