Visit My Alien Worlds
Grade 4-6-A SF illustrator showcases his talents in a full-color set of futuristic scenes replete with multi-limbed aliens, complex-looking machinery, and humanoid figures posing in Star Wars-style space armor. Though the accompanying travelogue, which introduces planets of a republic in the Andromeda Galaxy, seems to have been done to order (the writer gets second billing on cover and title page), the connection between text and pictures is often weak. For example, as the narrator enthuses about the rooms in a floating, 400-story hotel, the accompanying scene shows a forest of skyscrapers, in the foreground of which a sinister-looking crew is trying to pry something open. In fact, several illustrations feature unsavory types engaged in ambiguous, but probably illegal, activities; SF fans and gamers will enjoy concocting scenarios for them, even though they don't add up to a coherent story. This title is also available as a free download.John Peters, New York Public LibraryCopyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.