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Landscape-Painter — Cerberus
Published: 2012-07-10 09:06:46 +0000 UTC; Views: 3565; Favourites: 54; Downloads: 55
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A scene from one of my most favorite readings in recent times, 'Revelation Space' by Alastair Reynolds. It's lighthugger Nostalgia For Infinity, there on orbit of Cerberus. Wreckage of Lorean on lower orbit.Relatively easy success of the previous painting made me want to do another one of the same kind. Perhaps I rushed this a bit too much, being based on a famous book and all, but that's the way it is when I get excited. It was joy to paint anyway. The line between light and shadow on a planet is surprisingly difficult thing to paint. Such a simple geometric thing and yet takes most of the time. I need to try and think of an actual method for that, instead of just slapping paint mindlessly on canvas.
Acrylics, 40x70cm
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Comments: 13
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The Lighthuggers are amung my favorite ships in sci fi.
(Also the painting is amazing!)
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Good question, which I'm going to answer embarrassingly late but in detail. I'm sure they were in the book covers. And the hull was supposed to be cylindrical anyway. At the moment of creation I liked the hull to have some sharp corners and octagonal profile for reasons unknown. Reynolds sketched one himself and added note that length to width ratio and detailing may vary.
approachingpavonis.blogspot.co…
I interpreted it so that any shape or surface is ok as long as there's the main hull and two thingies that make it go. If I would totally redesign it myself, it would have four engines exactly on center line and more classic streamline. I dunno, I could think these things endlessly over and over...
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Wow, that's pretty much exactly how I imagined the lighthuggers looked like.
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Thanks! I'm glad it wasn't my vision alone. Generally people seem to like more details and accessories in spaceships, but simple is sweet.
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Good picture. Also Larry Niven is a good writer. I thought ringworld was great.
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Thanks!
Of Niven I've read only Ringworld and thought it great, too.
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Cool painting- though I liked "Orbit Insertion" even better, just can't beat those classic rocket ships!! 
Is Revelation Space a good SF read? I've been having the darnedest time finding SF novels that grab me recently. I tried Heinlein's Space Cadet recently, and while I found some cool imagery and ideas, Tex's cowboy boots kept bogging me down. I decided to start a Ray Bradbury reading binge- The Illustrated Man, The Martian Chronicles, Fahrenheit 451, Something Wicked This Way Comes (not really SF, but still on the list...) are all on the list, once I can get them from the library and pry them away from the fingers of my family, that is. So far, I have started on The Illustrated Man. I'm grabbed, so to speak. "Kaleidoscope" is an interesting story, if a bit depressing. "No Particular Night or Morning" is a good story as well, even though it too is depressing. I also picked up Arthur C. Clarke's The Songs of Distant Earth, so I'm pretty set for now. Always on the outlook for more, though...
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Really streamlining make no sense for relativistic speeds. Particles colliding with the hull would strike at such great velocity they would be interacting at the sub-atomic level meaning the Newtonian physics involved in deflection angles would not apply. The ice shield is the real piece of kit for a ship like that. He notes that it is heavy ice allowing for greater density, water and therefor ice absorbs Cerenkov radiation much more readily than most metals affording greater protection for the crew during high velocity flight. Proposed designs for interplanetary vessels in modern times often call for the water reserves to be stored in a layer between the outer and inner skin of the habitation modules. Cosmic rays are zipping around with such high energy even a plodding ship traveling to Mars would face the Cerenkov radiation issue and the water shell would provide a high level of shielding.
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Strictly speaking, yes, streamlining the ship doesn't deflect impacts with cosmic dust and gas... however, the number of impacts the ship will actually receive depends on the volume of space the ship sweeps out as it hurtles through space, so making it long and thin (like a needle) rather than short and fat will minimize potential impacts, and reduce the area (and thus mass) of the required shield. The ship will not be streamlined in the atmospheric sense of the word at all, unless the designers watch too many old SF shows. But it is far thinner than most designs for interplanetary spacecraft. Probably it will be some long collection of most decidedly non-streamlined fuel tanks, rockets, and habitation pods sheltering behind a thick bumper designed to absorb micrometeor impacts and radiation. At truly ultra-relativistic speeds, the thickness of shielding required and the wear caused by the relativistic bombardment make even these measures inadequate, so only some form of magnetic shielding (difficult, since the interstellar medium has neutral atoms in it as well...) might work, but this is not yet entirely worked out. Unless you have a Star Trek deflector shield.
Ironically, high relativistic speeds solve the "cosmic rays bombarding the crew from all directions" problem, since they get progressively more "beamed" until they seem to all come from the forward direction, and are absorbed by the bumper you need for protection from meteoroids anyway.
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The same criticism that goes for most scifi, goes also for Reynolds. The usual gripes about characters and plot structure, or whatever. I've never had too much trouble with that. I suspect most people, who claim to read the so-called "real literature" and rant about the value of drama, are just petty voyeurs craving for soap-opera. Oops... now I started ranting... You have to excuse me. I worked in a book store and have seen more than my share of pretentious hipster who think it cool to hate sci-fi. Anyways, back to subject. Reynolds really knows stuff, about real science, and that makes his books something special. In all his stories there's recurring thing, he explains some future technology and gets carried away with it, almost raving, and goes on and on to amazing possibilities. It's like magic. So, in some respects you could compare him with Clarke. Also, he has such exellent visions of body horror.
If you want other recommendations, I'd say try 'Leviathan Wakes' by James S. A. Corey. Book cover said "kickass space opera!". It turned out not space-opera, but it really was a kickass story. You seem to have all the classics covered, but there's some modern stuff for you.
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I'm not a hipster who thinks it is cool to hate SF- fantastic tales of the future have been my favorite since childhood. I had Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, and then I found Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles and The Illustrated Man. Then, of course, I was on to Arthur C. Clarke and so on. I'm not looking for soap opera, I'm looking for fun, well written SF stories. I think the I'll have to check out Reynolds some time- sounds interesting. Thanks for the recommendations!! Oh, and as you like rocket ships, I think you will like this web site- [link]
By the way, if you haven't read James Blish's Cities in Flight novels, I suggest giving them a try. I haven't read them for a looong time, but I liked the Cities in Flight series. To this day, I still remember the bridge on Jupiter and wonder exactly what a mesotron pistol looked like...
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