Terry Pratchett's Discworld Collector's Edition 2005 Calendar
01/10/2004 . Source: Phil Jones 
pub: Gollancz. Calendar. Price: £12.99 (UK). ISBN: 0-575-07636-4. Buy from Amazon US - Buy from Amazon UK
nb: US titles may only be available from Amazon US, and UK titles from Amazon UK. check out website: www.orionbooks.co.uk
Gollancz
It's that time of year again. You go round looking for a suitable calendar for your friends and family. I got the 2004 Discworld calendar so I was interested to see what next year's offering brought us.
Well, for starters this year, Terry Pratchett himself selected the twelve Discworld scenes that have been (overall beautifully rendered in various art media). Eleven different artists have contributed to this calendar with the most (to me anyway) familiar Paul Kidby contributing two paintings: 'Going Postal' (the same as the frontcover as the hardback edition of 'Going Postal') and the Librarian (the full painting can be seen in 'The Art Of Discworld').
Generally, I would say Paul Kidby hits it on the mark when it comes to interpreting Discworld and its characters but some of the other artists just don't (for me anyway). The other artists are Edward Miller, Les Edwards, Sandy Nightingale, Jackie Morris, David Frankland, David Wyatt, John Howe, Angelo Rinaldi, Jon Sullivan and Stuart Williams.
There are short biographies of all the artists along with TP himself, which provides a good bit of background which you don't normally see in a calendar. There are well-researched dates for major real-time calendrical data for the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the United States. Also included are Discworld dates such as: 'Wear Lilac' if you were there day (25 May) and one I'm looking forward to 'Treacle Pie Day' (24 June).
There are for me some wonderful artwork to be found here. I did say some did not quite fit with my view of the Discworld universe but overall better than last year's calendar. 'Monstrous Regiment' by John Howe is superb along with Sandy Nightingale 's vision of the Bursar in 'The Bursar's Hitherto Unrealised Talent' capture Terry Pratchett's descriptive writing perfectly.
Some of the paintings I'm not so keen on, but I think that's more down to the style of them rather than content. Overall, there is plenty here to keep most Discworld fans happy until the 2006 calendar comes out.
Phil Jones |
|
Add SFcrowsnest.com daily news updates to your
own web site or blog - just cut and paste the code
below...
POST YOUR COMMENTS  CLICK HERE TO HAVE YOUR SAY
|
