According to the National Day Calendar, National Science Fiction Day was launched in 2011 and was meant to correspond with this being the birth date of legendary sci-fi writer Isaac Asimov—author of the Foundation Trilogy and I, Robot (the short-story collection, not the Will Smith movie), among many other titles—who was born in 1920. It’s a celebration, the NDC says, that “encourages reading or watching science fiction.”
Well, if you’re looking for some quality sci-fi to read on this special day, might we suggest a couple of SWC releases?
On Wings of Steel: The Darkside Chronicles, Book 1 is a steampunk sci-fi novel by Richard C. White, the author of quite a few SWC titles, including the popular writer/gamesmaster reference book Terra Incognito: A Guide to Building the Worlds of Your Imagination. Erica Halgrim is a proud new member of the Angels of Steel: a courier service whose all-female members navigate through the streets of Underworld and the skies of the Aerie with the aid of winged flying devices that allow them to traverse the toxic Dark Cloud that separates the downtrodden masses on the ground from the wealthy socialites who live aboard enormous airships. But her job becomes secondary, however, when Erica attends a soiree at the Aerie with her fellow Angels and witnesses what appears to be an unfortunate accident (but could it perhaps have been murder?) and she becomes a suspect!
A Princess of Mars, originally published in 1912, is the first in the “John Carter of Mars” ten-novel series by Edgar Rice Burroughs, best known as the creator of the pulp-fiction jungle lord, Tarzan. Unlike Tarzan’s African adventures, Princess is the story of a post–Civil War era American who suddenly finds himself transported to the Red Planet, where he must constantly fight to stay alive against all sorts of alien threats—and where he falls in love with Dejah Thoris, the titular Martian princess. It served as the basis for Disney’s 2012 film adaptation, John Carter—a movie that didn’t deserve the poor treatment it got from the studio and is definitely worth checking out, if you’ve never seen it—and inspired works like Alex Raymond’s Flash Gordon, George Lucas’s Star Wars, and James Cameron’s Avatar.
The StarWarp Concepts Illustrated Classic edition of A Princess of Mars features six incredible illustrations by artist supreme Eliseu Gouveia (Carmilla, Lorelei: Sects and the City, Stargate: Atlantis), and a special introduction by Mars-fiction expert John Gosling, author of Waging the War of the Worlds.
A Princess of Mars and On Wings of Steel are available in print and digital formats. Visit their respective product pages for ordering information.
