#book of fuligin

[ohotnig]

SKETCHBOOK OF FULIGIN is live! ohotnig.itch.io/fuligin ohotnig.gumroad.com/l/fuligin Here's something nice for you, especially if you're a Gene Wolfe fan: brand new digital fanzine, containing 44 pages of my Book of the New Sun-inspired drawings (originally done as personal sketchbook project for one of my most committed patrons). This little book could also be considered an unofficial companion piece for Book of Fuligin (www.kickstarter.com/projects/715611068/book-of-fuligin-honoring-the-legacy-of-gene-wolfe)

You can grab it for free (as usual) or get an extended edition for $3+ donation! Cheers!

[strangerspub]

Book of Fuligin | Garresh

Three pages from Garresh for the upcoming Book of Fuligin; a comics anthology set on Urth, telling stories to honor Gene Wolfe's The Book of the New Sun and celebrate his genre-defining legacy.

[mkllpz]

There’s now a pre-launch page for Book of Fuligin, “a comics anthology set on Urth, telling stories to honor Gene Wolfe's The Book of the New Sun and celebrate his genre-defining legacy”!

The anthology, edited by Ramón Perales and published by Strangers Publishing, will feature “A Column of Ashes,” a new story written by me, illustrated by H. Berlin, and lettered by @mdpenman.

The campaign will launch on Thursday

[lil-tachyon]

"I have seen the eyes of many of these creatures that are supposed to have come from beyond the margin of the world ... but their eyes are the eyes of beasts only. The red orbs of the alzabo were something more, holding neither the intelligence of humankind nor the innocence of the brutes" - Gene Wolfe, The Sword of the Lictor

Oldie from nearly two years ago done for The Book of Fuligin.

[officialcowbow]

For the book of Fuligin

[zakhartong-root]

~ SEVERIAN and THECLA ~ The Book of Fuligin Kickstarter is going on right now!

This anthology looks like it's going to be an amazing book with an incredibly talented crew lined up. Some of my recent favorite artists have stories in here and I can't wait to get at them!

I am not part of it but wanted to do a piece just to point some people in that direction. But please check it out if you enjoy extremely weird scifi/fanstasy worlds.

[pbbeta24]

Drew a 22 page story for this great anthology last year and it's finally here – THE BOOK OF FULIGIN ✨ Created by dozens of insanely talented people and brought together by @Ramonkey_art and @strangers_zine. Check the campaign and get the book here – https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/strangersfanzine/book-of-fuligin-honoring-the-legacy-of-gene-wolfe

[homenecromancer]

imagine: Maximum Ride parody in the style of Book of the New Sun, solely in order to use the word “fuligin” to describe Fang’s wings as often as Gene Wolfe uses it to describe Severian’s cloak

that’s it, that’s the post

[grim-world-creations]

Dossier: Noctissa Grimmory

Noctissa Grimmory

Race: firbolg/ tiefling

Class: sorcerer

Subclass: nuclear (technomancers text book)

Height: 10'9

Weight: 743 lbs

Hair: ruby red, waist length

Eyes: sky blue

Skin: white

Family: Druzzarian Grimmory (dad)

Enemies: Naud Gamigin

Allies: Ultrel Fuligin

Oracle card results.

• Role: aristocratic family. Tracing their lineage and influence back many generations.

• Personality: inquisitive & curious. Keen to investigate and wants to look into new and intriguing things

• Motivation: legacy, personal & betterment. Hoping to leave a personal legacy separate from their lineage. And is driven wishes to better the lives of others in long lasting ways.

• Flaw: amateur. Thrust into a position of power either completely or partially unprepared to handle.

• Intrigue: powerful enemy political. They made a powerful enemy of someone who holds great influence or authority within their body of politics and who is not afraid to use that clout against them

Three lies people have heard about the character:

• is careless and acts on impulse

• that she's only riding on her father's reputation

• is oblivious and unaware of anything around her

Three facts people have heard about the character:

• an inexperienced leader but cares for those around her

• has a tendency to attract strange people into her life

• was sheltered and os struggling with some naivete

Backstory:

Raised by her father Druzzarian Grimmory in the second layer of the hells. Her father an accomplished general and leader of one of the archdevil Grimmories familial heads. Killed under suspicious circumstances. Noctissa was thrust into command of the Grimmory house while the other factions cannibalize her families assets. The archdevil himself tasked her with going to the material plane and recruiting first her inner circle. Then to use them to achieve his goals and investigate the death of her father. With the secondary goal of establishing foot holds on the mortal world as she went.

Naive and curious of a new world too her Noctissa manages a bright and excited demeanor. Trying to play up her naivety to keep her enemies underestimating her.

[manyworldspress]

Don Maitz, cover illustration for The Citadel of the Autarch, by Gene Wolfe (Timescape Books, 1983).

__________________________________________________ Our shop: https://bookshop.org/shop/manyworldspress

[thewordwideweb]

A wealth of Wolfe’s words

Okay all you logophiles (word lovers) – your cup runneth over today, and will spilleth out a small flood of Words of the Day. 

I read an interview recently with one of my favorite authors, Neil Gaiman, and he was talking about some of his favorite authors. Right near the top of that list was Gene Wolfe. Gaiman hailed Wolfe’s four-volume “Book of the New Sun” series as “the best sci-fi novel of the last century.” So naturally, I bought a copy. 

The Book of the New Sun really is an entertaining tale, but Wolfe’s use of language to create an atmosphere can make for some tough going. It seemed there was at least one word (and often many more) on each page that I had never encountered before. The vast majority of them were understandable in the context of the story. Many articles and even whole books have been written just about Wolfe’s lexicon. A lot of people, including me, think Wolfe simply made up many of the unfamiliar words in his books, but he said in interviews that they were all at least rooted in actual words. 

Listing all the weird words would take forever, so here’s a (relatively) quick sampling for your delectation (pleasure and delight): 

Autochthon – an indigenous, aboriginal inhabitant of a place; a native.

Carnifex – an executioner. The protagonist in the story, Severian, is a torturer, and sometimes an executioner.

Monomachy – combat between two people. A duel.

Graisle – a battle horn (which is sounded to rally the troops and start an attack).

Psychopomp – a spiritual guide who takes souls to the place of the dead.

Metamynodon – a hornless rhinoceros (a real animal that has been extinct for millions of years).

Baculus – a rod or staff regarded as a symbol of authority.

Jelab – a hooded cloak.

Pelast – an infantryman with a shield and javelin or spear (this originated in ancient Greece).

Chiliarch – the military commander of a thousand men (also from ancient Greece).

Lictor – This one’s from ancient Rome. The lictor was an officer who worked for the chief magistrate and carried out sentences imposed on criminals. The third book in the series was titled “The Sword of the Lictor.” The sword, called “Terminus Est” (loosely translated as “this is the end”) was prominently featured in the story.

Fuligin – the color of soot. (In the books, “blacker than black”). The torturer Severian wore a fuligin cloak.

Pavonine – resembling a peacock (including the color and iridescence of a peacock’s feathers).

Hobiler – a light horseman.

Delator – a denouncer or informer; one who accuses another.

Spall – to break rocks.

Aubade – I really like this one. It means “a song to greet the dawn.” It is morning music, as opposed to a serenade, which is night music. 

Wolfe also used the word “trumpery,” but as we all know, trumpery is “something showy without use or value; trash, rubbish, worthless nonsense.” 

Hey, don’t blame me. I don’t create the definitions. I just report ‘em.

[ultraclairedg]

Colour in Fantasy

I often add a little bit of what I call “Linguistic Phun” (fun – get it?) at the end of my blog posts, usually a little comment on the roots of certain words used in the post, and often originating from Ancient Greek. Today, I’m starting with some linguistic fun (not in any way related to Ancient Greek as far as I know)

. How many of these colours do you recognise?

 Fuligin

 Paryl

 Octarine

 Flicts

One? Two? None? No idea what I’m talking about ? Well, unless you are absolutely crazy about sci-fi/fantasy in all its forms as I am, the chances are you won’t recognise any of them. They are all, in fact, names for fictional colours which have been invented by their creators. To be more specific, Fuligin is a colour “darker than black” from the “The Shadow of the Torturer” (book series “The Book of the New Sun) by Gene Wolfe. Paryl is a colour far below sub-red and can only be seen by “chromaturgical drafters” in Brent Weeks’ “Lightbringer” books. Octarine may be the most famous of the four as it is the invention of Terry Prachett and is the greenish-yellowish purple which is the colour of magic. Finally, flicts, according to Neil Armstrong, is the colour of the moon.  It was actually invented by Brazilian author Ziraldo and is a kind of beigy colour that has no place on Earth. When Armstrong met Ziraldo during a tour of Brazil after the first moon landing in 1969, Ziraldo asked Armstrong if the moon was flicts. Armstrong answered that it was indeed “flicts”.

I have to admit, I’m a bit of a colour freak. I rarely call anything red just red. For me it’ll be crimson or scarlet or vermilion but never just red. Same thing with other colours. Blue will be azure, cyan or navy; purple can be violet, indigo, heliotrope; green is emerald, forest, verdigris, sage. It matters to get it right. Colour is important, especially in fantasy which depends so much on getting into our imaginations and creating a fantastic world for us to enter and become part of.

The colours above are imaginary and come from literature but colour is so important in films and TV series too.

Have you seen the movie “Little Joe”, with Ben Whishaw as Chris and Emily Beecham as Alice? It’s a pretty good sci-fi film about a group of geneticists/botanists who develop a plant that gives off a scent to make you happy – a kind of floral Xanax (benzodiazepine ). Of course it all goes very wrong, as things do in such films, and what ensues was quite enjoyable and well-acted. But it’s not the film per se that I want to talk about here but rather something that made a big impression on me when I watched this film and that was the use of colour in it and how important the contribution of colour was to the overall atmosphere of the film.

Right at the start of the movie, Ben’s character, Chris, comments on the trainers (sneakers) worn by Joe, Alice’s son. They are a bright crimson colour which look a little “in your face” for a moody teenager and at odds with Joe’s school uniform. In contrast to these very brightly coloured trainers are Chris and Alice’s lab coats, which are a very ecological pale pistachio green. Then you see that the genetically mutated flower is also the same crimson colour as Joe’s trainers and totally stands out from the pallor of the lab coats. Another experimental flower in the lab is a dull, blackish-blue and you just know, immediately, that this flower will fail. This is the use of evocative colour at its best.

So, next time you read a book or watch a film, pay a bit more attention to the use of colour. You may find it adds a little to your overall experience and, perhaps, improves your vocabulary a little too.

[mkllpz]

The Furnace

A page from "A Column of Ashes," written by me, illustrated by H. Berlin, and lettered by @mdpenman, one of the stories included in the Book of Fuligin anthology, crowdfunding for three more days and currently over 250% funded! https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/strangersfanzine/book-of-fuligin-honoring-the-legacy-of-gene-wolfe Don't miss this collection of dark sci-fi/fantasy comics edited by Ramon Perales and published by Strangers Publishing!

[lil-tachyon]

"It turned toward the light, whatever it was, and seemed to open as a flower might, growing tall more swiftly, almost, than the eye could follow it, thinning until it had become a creature of glowing gauze, hot yet somehow reptilian..."

The Salamander from Sword of the Lictor by Gene Wolfe. Drawn for the Book of Fuligin, the awesome New Sun fanzine being put together by@Ramonkey_art

[theoriginalsuki]

I was googling Book of the New Sun art and found this and was like, “yeah, I knew I couldn’t be the only one to see the Kylo Ren / Severian parallels.”  Down to the funny details, like, Severian doesn’t wear a shirt when performing the “mysteries of his profession,” -- hello, TLJ Kylo.  Then his mask, the sword Terminus Est, and the fuligin cloak, or the color black that is blacker than black.  Adam Driver could absolutely pull off the blind devotion and incongruous gentleness of Severian.  Though, he is reallllly tall, and they’d be hard pressed casting Exultants to be taller than him.

Please, some nerd gush over this with me!

About Gene Wolfe’s fiction:

“One of the greatest science fantasy epics of all time.” -- George RR Martin

“A masterpiece.  Totally original, new, incomparable; the beginning of something great.” -- Ursula K LeGuin

[zakhartong-root]

~ SEVERIAN ~ I recently started The Book of the New Sun series since seeing a bunch of other artists doing pieces for it. I'm in the midst of book two and greatly enjoying it! If you're a fan of this series or just of weird and unique scifi/fantasy worlds, keep an eye out for Ramón's anthology The Book of Fuligin. It's full to the brim of amazing talent and art for this series!