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During the 2010s, science fiction's immortal adversaries King Kong
and Godzilla, representing our conflicts per Carl Sagan's "dream
dragons" analogy, made comebacks in American cinema. The
blockbuster Kaiju resurged onto the screen, depicting these
protectors of an Earth plagued by mankind's hubris and folly. With
Earth's future hanging in the balance, their climactic 2021 staging
settled a score between the two giant monsters, resolving Toho's
classic 1963 film King Kong vs. Godzilla. As formidable creatures
emerging from Time's Tomb on Mother Earth, metaphorical Kong and
Godzilla are considered here in light of new millennial
environmentalism's stark reality. This book, nostalgic in tone,
explores the meaning of Kong and Godzilla as planetary
saviors-titanic protectors of a theoretical "living Earth"
Gaia-defending the globe from a prehistoric plague of adversaries.
With the first illustrated edition of Jules Verne's Journey to the
Center of the Earth, 1867, readers began a fascination with the
concept of dinosaurs and prehistory. Although rudimentary
paleo-fiction had actually gotten its start decades earlier, it was
the partnership of Verne and illustrator Edouard Riou which gave
dinosaurs a visual life and essentially set the stage for their
artistic and literary depiction. Over the next century or so,
writers would time and again come back to dinosaurs as an element
of fantastic fiction, often using these creatures--through the
venue of the written word--to reflect the world of the writers' own
time. From Jules Verne to Michael Crichton, this literary survey
examines how paleoliterature originated, developed and matured from
its inception in the 1820s to the present day. It follows
historical trends on the crafting of classic dinosaurs,
investigating the enlivened figurative and metaphoric meaning of
fictional dinosaurs and related prehistoria. Also discussed are the
ways in which dinosaur fiction mirrors contemporary ideas about
subjects such as geology, the Cold War, environmentalism, time
travel, evolution and bioengineering. Texts included are limited to
those which are available in English and which emphasise dinosaurs,
although other favoured pseudo-dinosaurs are sometimes discussed.
Featured authors include Ray Bradbury, H.G. Wells, and Poul
Anderson, among others. In select cases, the novelisations of movie
scripts are also utilised. An appendix provides brief summaries of
deserving dinosaur texts, organised alphabetically by author.
Illustrations and an index are also included.
A new book, expanded from the 1995 first edition, describing
detailed, step-by-step procedures for sculpting, molding and
painting original prehistoric animals, emphasising the use of
relatively inexpensive materials including oven-hardening polymer
clay and wire. Additional tips are offered on how to build
distinctive dino-dioramas and scenes involving one's own original
sculptures that you will learn how to conceive and build. This book
will appeal to - and inspire - the latest generation of prospective
prehistoric animal lovers who would like to break into the industry
of paleosculpture. Techniques range from the ""basic"" to
""advanced."" The authors also discuss what it means to be a
""paleoartist,"" both in the past and present.
From their discovery in the 19th century to the dawn of the Nuclear
Age, dinosaurs were seen in popular culture as ambassadors of the
geological past and as icons of the ""life through time"" narrative
of evolution. They took on a more foreboding character during the
Cold War, serving as a warning to mankind with the advent of the
hydrogen bomb. As fears of human extinction escalated during the
ecological movement of the 1970s, dinosaurs communicated their
metaphorical message of extinction, urging us from our destructive
path. Using an eclectic variety of examples, this book outlines the
three-fold ""evolution"" of dinosaurs and other prehistoric
monsters in pop culture, from their poorly understood beginnings to
the 21st century.
Over centuries, discoveries of fossil bones spawned legends of
mythological monsters such as giants and dragons. As the field of
earth sciences matured during the 19th century, early fossilists
gained appreciation for prehistoric creatures such as
Tyrannosaurus, Triceratops and Stegosaurus. This historical study
examines how these genuine beasts morphed in the public imagination
into mythical, powerful engines of destruction and harbingers of
cataclysm, taking their place in popular culture, film, and
literature as symbols of 'lost worlds' where time stands still.
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