Resnick’s Ivory is Solid Speculation

3 Comments / Artwork, Ivory, Reviews / By

Ryun Patterson takes a look at Mike Resnick’s classic Ivory: A Legend of Past and Future,a tale set 6,000 years in the future and which traces the path across the galaxy of the very real and enormous tusks of the legendary Kilimanjaro elephant. In his review on Bookgasm, Ryun states that Resnick writes about Africa “as if he grasps some of the subtleties of the hugely diverse and multifaceted continent. Ivory, which was first published in 1988, demonstrates this, along withResnick’s flair for solid speculation.”

Ryun also takes the time to praise the cover, which always makes me really glad to see, as art and prose are closely linked in our genre, and I applaud those reviewers who take the artwork into account. In this instance, the cover illustration is by Bob Eggleton, and the layout is by our own Grace M. Conti-Zilsberger. Bob turned in what may be my favorite piece he’s ever done, while the bronze band solution Grace came up with for displaying the author’s name has a classical feel that I’m considering adopting for future reissues as well. As Ryun says, “It’s also got the best cover it has ever had and a great, solid feel – which many classic reissues deserve but don’t receive – thanks to Pyr.” Very glad someone noticed!

3 thoughts on “Resnick’s Ivory is Solid Speculation”

  1. Robert

    Lou,

    I’m glad you brought this one back into print, too. And with a cover by Bob Eggleston, one of my favorite artist (including being a cool illustrator of dinosaurs. would love to see him do illustrated editions of ER Burroughs’ Pellucidar series).

    Each of your reissued classic novels seem very carefully considered and chosen (with great new cover art). Each seems to be a good novel that never quite got its due. How did you go about choosing those — what was the process? Can you mention any other reissues you’re considering?

    Robert

  2. Robert

    …re the idea in Ivory of keeping records of “Big Game” across the galaxy, it might be interesting to see where and how that theme crops up in SF. Think Neal Asher has written some short stories recently on this topic.

  3. Lou Anders

    Hi Robert
    1. Yes, Bob would be great on Pellucidar. Whelan was already my ideal for Barsoom, and I loved Neal Adams Tarzan. Ashamed more of that isn’t widely available.
    2. I don’t think there is one criteria or process for the reprints, other than, hopefully, works of quality that aren’t currently available.
    3. We aren’t going to do too many reprints as I’m drowning in original material now, but I’m very excited that we’ll have one of my favorite works, Robert Silverberg’s SON OF MAN, out next spring.

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