Rating: 
Summary: Settle down,It's not meant to be real...
Review: All these people saying that this is a well illustrated but poorly written book shouldn't take it so serioulsy, who cares if the inhabitants are unbelievable. It's a fiction book, none of these reviewers could come up with anything half as imaginitive as Wayne Barlowe... consult a scientist or biologist, yeah right...it's not real.......just have fun with it.
Rating:
Summary: Can't write but he can sure paint
Review: Barlowe grabbed my attention decades ago with his aliens book, but since that he moved on. Expedition is amazing, a masterpiece as it goes against most established cliche's and chauvinisms about how alien life is supposed to be. Barlowe puts a lot of though in his designs and the result truly fascinating. The guy can't write though.
When leafing through the D-IV book, set aside your preconceptions about alien worlds and let it sink in. Surely, real alien life will be even stranger, but the stuff in this book is already transcendental for 99% of earthlings. Barlowe scrutinously studies his own preconceptions, exorcizes them and dreams up weird alternatives.
Good news he's busy with a sequel, and I bet that's gonna be even better. Let's hope he get's someone else to write the explanatory sidebars.
Rating:
Summary: A great book for your imagination!
Review: Barlowe has created a detailed world full of amazing flora and fauna! The incredible art work in the book is amazing and will let your imagination fly! The only two things that would top this book would be a sequal or a movie!
Rating:
Summary: A wonderful work
Review: Barlowe outdoes himself with this book. A gorgeous treatment of a fictional journey to another world. The paintings are all incredibly breathtaking, and the science and logic behind them is impeccable. A must buy.
Rating:
Summary: Extraordinary Art
Review: Barlowe's account of his journey to a far-off planet, and his encounters with the varying species of flora and fauna, is quite remarkable. The art alone is worth twice the price of the book. Barlowe's unique critters seems truly alive, his imagination truly runs wild throughout the book. The story is adequate, giving a rather eeriely prescient account of future life on earth. This volume can be read over and over again
Rating: 
Summary: Good artwork...but...
Review: Expedition is about an artist's voyage to Darwin Four, in 2358 A.D. The book is his collection of drawings and sketches made during the first manned mission to the planet. Mr. Barlowe is not just an artist, but also has great knowledge about nature and how it works. He tries to mix the two, showing the aliens and explaining how they lived, mated and, sometimes, died. But he leaves so much out - there is very little background on the planet's natural history. We get hints and clues about what early life was like. For example, most creatures use sonar and have biolights, yet are blind. Being blind, the sonar makes sense, but why have biolights then? The atmosphere must have been thick and murky, allowing animals armed with sonar better chances than those armed with eyes, but could the biolights be something from earlier times, before sonar was developed and all animals used visible light?
The science, in other words, is lacking the details I enjoy. It is a great art book, but Dougal Dixon is better at the science, showing evolution and how it works. This is an alien planet and we barely touched the surface of its wonders!
That is why it only gets three points.
Rating:
Summary: Eat your heart out, National Geographic!
Review: Expedition is an absorbing, detailed, elaborate, and fully convincing account of a futuristic voyage to Darwin IV and an observation of it's fauna. The illustrations contain excellent detail and have an almost photographic quality. While reading this book, I was totally emersed.
Rating:
Summary: Just amazing...
Review: Expedition was created with pure imagination, yet the wildlife that inhabit the dream world of Darwin IV are all quite plausible. With breathtaking art, an intriguing story-line, and detailed maps/diagrams, Barlowe's dream flows into your own imagination. Unfortunately the book is too light and leaves the reader wanting more. Perhaps a sequel or series is in order, however, it would be thrilling to see these creations in motion on the silver screen.
Rating:
Summary: The Perfect Book of Extraterrestrial Life
Review: Fantastic artwork, and story of a group of scientists, and an artist sent to explore the primitive world of Darwin IV. Get this book you won't regret it.
Rating:
Summary: Settle down,It's not meant to be real...
Review: Having just purchased a new copy of the classic BARLOWE'S GUIDE TO EXTRATERRESTRIALS, I felt it necessary to catch up on some of the incomparable Wayne D. Barlowe's more recent work. I leafed through several books and settled on EXPEDITION, primarily for my interest in its subject matter (having many graduate hours of zoology under my belt). I see that from the late '80s-onward, Barlowe has been handling both art and writing chores, I assume in order to make his projects more personal and satisfying. Certainly, the man is an immensely talented artist, but I feel that he should have worked with established authors and/or scientists in order to give EXPEDITION more substance, structure, and technical basis.Regarding the story, I feel that Barlowe blew it from the start with the premise that the expedition to the planet Darwin IV was only possible due to the fact that Earth had already made contact with a sort of "sponsor" alien species, the Yma. If that's the case, then why aren't we learning more about the Yma instead of the inhabitants of Darwin IV? Detailing Earth's first contact with another intelligent life-form sounds more interesting to me than the study of an unknown planet. A tighter approach would have been to drop the Yma and then have all of the technology be Earth-based (this IS the 24th century, after all). I definitely feel that when you're theorizing on alien biology, all rules, such as we know them, can stand by the wayside. For a detailed project such as EXPEDITION, however, there should be some logical restraint. While this book contains some very clever biological concepts, such as the Amoebic Sea, Emperor Sea-Strider, Rime-Runner, and Gyrosprinter, they are brought down a notch by the questionable equilibrium of the Daggerwrist population, the feeding and locomotion of the Tundra Plow, and the seemingly inefficient maturation of the Forest Slider. But of course, we've found some organisms on our own planet that are almost as odd, so who's to say what we may find on another?
|
