Astrovitae Issue 2
Review by John Meszaros
Astrovitae is a magazine devoted to creators in the
speculative fiction subgenre of speculative biology. Though people have imagined
fantastic beasts and beings since the beginning of our species, speculative biology focuses on developing organisms using our current
knowledge of biology, ecology, physics, geology, and other sciences. Though even
within these limits there is a wide spectrum, as some creators may work with
strict hard science rules while others prefer to design fantastic beasts closer
to myth and folklore.
This second issue of Astrovitae shows significant refinement
from the already impressive first issue. There
is a new section on speculative biology news featuring interviews, YouTube
videos, Kickstarters, and new projects. It’s a good way to keep abreast of the
bewildering variety of speculative projects out there. This issue also features
the first of a regular book review column, beginning with Christian Cline’s The
Teeming Universe.
Collaborative projects are the focus of issue two, with articles
on the online Discord-based Specposium convention, the Project Sil Discord, and
a preview of Almost Real magazine. The latter showcases the Keraunoplast,
fascinating slime mold-like organism that feeds directly on electricity and can
actually bond with old space junk to form cybernetic life forms. This issue
came out in September 2021, and it’s fascinating to see how the imposed
quarantine of the Covid pandemic and the subsequent burst of more online
communication through Discord, Instagram and other social media has led to the
birth of so many new speculative biology projects.
Hyperlinks embedded in the Pdf pages are a really useful
feature. Readers can click an article’s byline to go to the creator’s website
or other social media. Clicking the section heading will also take one back to
the table of contents.
As with the previous issue, Astrovitae #2 is divided into
several sections: Captivating Worlds, with overviews of large world-building
projects; Artist Spotlight, which looks at the creators themselves and
their bodies of work as a whole; and Creature Compendium: which zooms in
on individual organisms.
Captivating Worlds
begins with an in-depth look at the natural history of Mathijs Megens’ Amethyst
Beach Shield, a chemosynthetic armored organism.
The next entry, Domenic Pennetta’s Project Perditus
is a survey of a world that resembles Earth in the early Paleozoic, with
creatures that will feel familiar to many paleo-enthusiasts, while still
retaining their own alien-ness.
The Alternate Cenozoic Project by Thien Anh Nguyen is
a what-if about an earth where the large dinosaurs were not killed off by an
impact form space, following in the tradition of works such as Dougal Dixon’s The
New Dinosaurs, and the Speculative Dinosaur Project.
Sea Serpents of the Arthechocene by Alejandro Martínez
Fluxá
is set in the future after human-caused mass extinctions. With all the large
pinnipeds and cetaceans gone, sea snakes evolve to fill the niche of large
oceanic predators and filter-feeders, becoming the long, whale-like tiamats.
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| Giant sea snakes by Alejandro Martínez Fluxá |
Evan Proctor’s Before Planet Feni is primarily an outline of the dominant species on the titular planet, as well as some background about the planet’s explorers. Hopefully there will be more to come in this work.
The World of Nijin-Konai by Lorenzo Battilani is a
hard science look at a primarily aquatic alien world, delving into microbiology
and genetics with a radiation resistant enzyme and redundant genes that allow
the planet’s organisms to adapt to the lethal UV radiation of their native
star. Battilani also discusses the
complex neurological, metabolism and anatomy of his creature in minute detail
that could have come from a college biology textbook.
Artist Spotlight features an article by YouTube
creator Biblaridion detailing how their channel grew from a tutorial on
concepts in evolutionary biology to a detailed study of a fictional world.
Reinhard Gutzat offers a meditation on the sometimes rocky
intersection of creativity and biological accuracy during an artist’s development
process.
Artist Sibilla Pepi
offers a look at their design process as they develop a feathered wyvern based
on the biology of real-life birds.
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| A detailed look at the heads of Ichtyomorphs from Lorenzo Battilani's world of Nijin-Konai. |
Creature Compendium showcases individual speculative
creatures in the manner of pages taken from a field guide and includes a giant
diving beetle, an alien tadpole, a balloon-like organisms that lives in the
atmosphere of a gas planet, and more.
The authors write with the enthusiasm and vernacular of
seasoned biologists well versed in scientific nomenclature. Their creatures are
given unique taxonomic names and anatomical terms, adding greatly to their
believability. These complex names can get a bit overwhelming, however, leading
to what one might call “textbook burnout”. Sometimes I found it necessary to go back and
reread articles to fully absorb all the names. This terminology might turn off
a reader with a scientific background, but the imaginative variety on display
should hold most interests. This is a minor critique, though, and the magazine
overall is a professional-quality publication that would be at home in any
library shelf. I am particularly pleased to see more projects focusing on the
hypothetical evolution of Earthly creatures.
Astrovitae issue 2 is vailable both as a free downloadable
PDF from the magazine’s website and as a virtual book that one can flip
through on Yumpu.com
