![]() ![]() But while superbly executed, Barlowe's visualization of an alien world falls short imaginatively and is naturalistically unconvincing. SF fans who relish the bizarre for its own sake may enjoy this volume. Sent along as the mission's artist, Barlowe ( Barlowe's Guide to Extraterrestrials ) describes his ``excursions'' to survey Darwin IV and the unusual animals he encountered: creatures like the monopodalians, who pogo-stick across a barren, icy landscape, or the winged but flightless Stripewings that are in ``evolutionary flux.'' Numerous ``observed'' details, such as the length of a Darwinian day (26.7 hours) and the feeding, hunting and mating behaviors of various creatures, help maintain the illusion of realism and immediacy such a first-person narrative demands. An abundance of lavish full-color illustrations and detailed black-and-white sketches dominate Barlowe's fictional account of a 21st-century exploratory space flight to the imaginary planet Darwin IV. ![]()
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