Tuesday 19 November 2013

Web Of Friends.

Just look at this superb illustration. A page plucked from the notebook of the famous stellar cartographer Donby Galloway, who is at present completing an update on an earlier entry on The Ood Homeworld somewhere in the vicinity of The Sensorite Sense-sphere for the newest edition of the best selling Donby's Galaxies. It is a hand drawn copy, done by Donby himself, of a fresco found on the wall of a long abandoned temple on the now uninhabited planet of Vortis. It is believed to be a visual representation of one of the original natives called a Menoptra. Donby Galloway is a researcher who's achievements within the field of space exploration and stellar cartography have never been..
              Actually it is just a lovely drawing of a Menoptra by my good friend Mark. Up until now it has only been seen by my eyes but it is so lovely I decided to share it in this week of weeks.
              And dedicate it to the memory of Bill Strutton and John Wood who between them produced for Target books the second Doctor Who novelization I ever read;Doctor Who and the Zarbi(The Web Planet). An endearingly sixties English vision of an alien world. It actually begins with Ian Chesterton putting on his old school tie, quite literally.
               A little book I still have and even after all these years still has the power to fill me with a sense of joy and wonder at the sight,touch and even smell.
               And to think some people believe time travel to be impossible.