Conference noted::sf

991.0. "Barlowe's "Expedition"" by ATSE::WAJENBERG () Mon Jun 17 1991 10:43

    Some of you may remember an SF art book entitled "Barlowe's Guide to
    Extra-Terrestrials."  That book was a collection of pictures of aliens
    from popular novels.  Barlowe has now come up with his own aliens.
    
    "Expedition" is supposed to be the artistic record of an exploration of
    Darwin IV, a rather Earthlike planet, though somewhat lighter, drier,
    and cooler than here.  The book is full of (to me at least) facinating
    pictures of convincing and half-convincing alien wildlife, with
    explanatory text.  I'd rate Barlowe's biological plausibility and
    interest level at least as high as that of Dougal Dixon (author of
    "After Man" and "The New Dinosaurs," both works of fictitious 
    zoology.)
    
    One thing that makes the Darwinian fauna so alien is that, early on in
    their evolutionary history, echolocation and infrared imaging (as in
    the pit vipers) won out over optical senses.  None of the creatures
    have eyes, and many have weird crests and spines connected with sonar
    imaging and camouflague.
    
    Also, Darwinian fauna descend from quadrupedal stock, but many groups
    freely vary the number of limbs, fusing front or back pairs to produce
    tripeds, or both pairs to produce front-and-back bipeds, or dwindling
    the number to hopping monopods, or becoming limbless and floating off
    on hydrogen-filled bladders.
    
    Not all of it looks fully plausible to me, but I can't say with any
    confidence that the apparently implausible bits are less likely than
    things that really live now on Earth.
    
    Recommended.
    
    Earl Wajenberg

    I second the recommendation.  After thumbing through this in a book
    store, I snapped it up.
    
    len.