April 17, 2019

S is for Space Creature

        My theme for this year’s April A-Z Blog Challenge is fantastical creatures, celebrating my upcoming book, On the Virtues of Beasts of the Realms of Imagination.  Please check out my Kickstarter Campaign for lots of fun information about the book.

        Like robots, space creatures are often neglected when people look at the creatures of fantasy, presumably because of the slightly arbitrary distinction between fantasy and science fiction.  You may be surprised to learn that people have been telling fantasy tales about travellers to the moon, heavens, stars, and other planets for as long as we have writing that preserves the stories they told, and those tales include all manner of  fantastical space creatures.

        “The story illustrated for you here is of a struthioform astronaut from the far-distant planet Pelavium upon its first discovery of life forms on a moon of Nemelun, with which Pelavium shares a star.  Among these newly encountered species are a tentacled crater-dweller, a grove of sentient trees or vines, and the aviansect that dwells thereon, while a cautious frondbrow looks on shyly.  All these space creatures are new discoveries to the struthioform, but it should be noted that the struthioform is equally new to them.”

        For a few more posts on older fantasy involving space creatures, check out 
        I’m not as well-practiced at drawing space creatures, but I certainly had fun trying to invent a few.  What sorts of aliens would you most want to have pay a visit to Earth?  Or encounter on your own space travels?

        The other creature representing S in my book is the salamander, which you can link to by way of

[Picture: One Giant Leap, rubber block print by AEGN, 2019.]

4 comments:

Rob Z Tobor said...

You can't beat a good space based tale . . . . .

A Tarkabarka Hölgy said...

You are absolutely right! People's ideas of alien species are their own kind of folklore :)

The Multicolored Diary

Deborah Weber said...

Space creatures rock. I especially love your sentient trees and the frondbrow. You make me want to book passage on a rocket ship right now.

Kristin said...

I'm not surprised because when you look up at the night sky and see all of that, you know that something else must be out there.