Reprints of Classic Early Space Fiction

Otto Willi Gail's "By Rocket to the Moon" (1931) is now available. It
includes all of the original illustrations as well as an illustrated
afterword about the author and his sources.

R

Ron Miller wrote:

Otto Willi Gail's "By Rocket to the Moon" (1931) is now available. It
includes all of the original illustrations as well as an illustrated
afterword about the author and his sources.




Any new thoughts on the 90 foot wide Martian landing cylinder that hold
a max of five Fighting Machines inside of it?

Pat

Pat Flannery wrote:
Ron Miller wrote:

Otto Willi Gail's "By Rocket to the Moon" (1931) is now available. It
includes all of the original illustrations as well as an illustrated
afterword about the author and his sources.




Any new thoughts on the 90 foot wide Martian landing cylinder that hold
a max of five Fighting Machines inside of it?

Pat

I hope you've gotten my email by now...

I thought the drawings were terrific! I took the liberty of passing
them along to my brother, who has also been working up a design based
closely on the descriptions in the book---though I know that he is
coming up with something quite different.

R

Ron Miller wrote:

I thought the drawings were terrific! I took the liberty of passing
them along to my brother, who has also been working up a design based
closely on the descriptions in the book---though I know that he is
coming up with something quite different.


Got the e-mail a couple of days ago. Thanks for the complements! :-)
Unlike Verne, whom one suspects had a detailed drawing of the Nautilus'
innards before him as he wrote the book "20,000 leagues" I think that
Wells was sort of making them up as he went along, or had a rough sketch
of one at best.
His sketch of a Martian creature in "A Critical Edition Of The War Of
The Worlds" doesn't jive with his description of them in the book, as
the two bunches of tendrils bordering the mouth are diminutive in size
in the sketch.
What got me hooked on WOTW as a kid was my brother's copy of this:
http://drzeus.best.vwh.net/wotw/0027.jpg
Which I read years before I knew George Pal had made a movie of it.
Surprisingly, the rather over-the-top looking painting of Verne's
"Terror" on the cover of Classics Illustrated version of "Master Of The
World" seems to agree quite well with the device described in the book:
http://cardscomicscoins.com/usrimage/ci163orig.jpg ...although I don't
remember the canards...diving planes when she converts into a sub?
This one looks like the hybrid mating of a butterfly and a lionfish:
http://www.julesverne.ca/images/book...rld_terror.jpg
Not all that terrifying. ;-)