When I was a kid I had a book with that first one in it -- I never noticed the beach umbrella! Even in space, you can lay out.

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I was about to say the same thing - I definitely saw that image in a book I read back in my library-instead-of-learning-reading-with-the-other-first-graders days.

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In space, no one can hear you burn.

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It's like an Arthur C. Clarke / James Lileks mashup.

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The artist is Don Davis whose site is http://www.donaldedavis.com/

A really good listing of space art is at http://www.hobbyspace.com/Art/index.html

And if you want to actually DO something about making this real, check out http://www.hobbyspace.com/Active/index.html and especially http://www.space-frontier.org/ and the organization founded by Gerard K. O'Neill http://ssi.org

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No doubt, these paintings were inspirational for this:



Egan

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I was about to ask what game this is from. But then I noticed the very tall wall, with a sprawl of geometric concrete and metal on the other side, so this must be taken from Clarke's Rama novels.

Like everyone else here, I also read That Book when I was a kid - the one with drawings of the O'Neill cylinders.

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Really? I thought it was a screencap of Babylon 5…

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That's actually what it is. :>

Egan

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what's ur avatar? it's awesome, whatever it is.

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The first thing I too thought of was Rama.

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I had a book with both of those pictures in it. Years later, when reading Arthur C. Clarke's Rendezvous With Rama, I realized the bottom picture is probably a lot like what he had in mind--if indeed the artist didn't get inspiration from that very book.

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The book I had with those pictures was Colonies In Space (1977), was it the same one?

I love this line in the Amazon reviews: "This is a very good book and honestly my favorite book of all non-fiction (excepting scripture, of course)."

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Just look how big CDs were in 1970:



We've come a long long way.

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Oh wow I totally had all this art as a kid. I probably still have some in poster form. FLASHBACK CITY

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It's like Halo... only peacful... with space yuppies.

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It was the 70s -- those aren't yuppies, they're space swingers.

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compare:

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If I was in space I certainly wouldn't wear a tie.

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That's a nice glass of Space Chardonnay and they're listening to some nice jazz-funk fusion...nice

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The future's still awesome, it's just got crappier aesthetic designers now.

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My ex had a book in his childhood that talked about being on Mars by sometime in 1990. At sixteen, in 1990, he was inexplicably depressed.

I remember all the kickass art from all the issues of OMNI that my mom's roommate would kick me. My bedroom walls were covered with it until I graduated to frosted-haired prettyboy rockstars.

L.

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Bradbury had some short stories about living on mars in 1990. I loved them, but now they make me sad.

Where is my rocket car?

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You'd probably enjoy Kim Stanley Robinson's Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars series. And get a copy of the Traveler's Guide to Mars by William K. Hartmann, as a companion piece.

We used to dream big. Of all the things we've lost since the 70's, I think that's the most profound. I love William Gibson's writing, but the bitter cynicism that underlies his style sadly - and accurately - reflects our times.

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FWIW, I thought Red Mars was crap.

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I read Red Mars, Green Mars, and Blue Mars years ago. Found them to be completely tedious and pointless. Then I decided that maybe I was too harsh and recently started reading them again. Turns out that (so far) they're still tedious and pointless.

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YMMV. Lately I've been reading John Varley's stuff for the first time, and he's good, but he doesn't knock my socks off the way he does others. I think after a certain point, you get jaded and it seldom seems there's anything really new under the sun.

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that first one is kinda how i imagined freeside in neuromancer, only more mall-like, less grass.

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I thought neuromancer too, only a happy perky version with less underground treachery.

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Ha, same here!

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Is there a word for when you remember when something was new and exciting, but now it's so old that everybody's forgotten it, and now it's new again? But unfortunately styled?

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New Jersey?

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