Happy birthday to Parsecs & Parchment! Throughout my time in the SFF book blogosphere, Jon’s blog has been a must-read for me, as his stamp of approval is rare and hard-earned. He’s introduced me to some fantastic authors that really made my year, and my TBR is littered with his top recommendations. I’m honored that he has asked me to write a guest post to help him celebrate his blog’s anniversary.
My own blog, The 13th Shelf, is not just about sci-fi and fantasy books. I think one of the best things about SF&F is that it’s a genre that has affected all sorts of media and art forms. I love how the limitless potential of speculative fiction finds its way out of book covers and into our lives in beautiful and inspiring ways.
Today I’d like to share some SFF art prints to decorate the walls of your reading spaces, and in celebration of Parsecs & Parchment’s birthday, I’d like to host a giveaway for one of the prints featured here. Read the rules and requirements at the end of this post!
Rather than the somber greens and grays of a Peter Jackson movie, these depictions of classic Tolkien locations pull inspiration from American mid-century animation styles to show Middle Earth as a bright and vividly detailed world that would not be out of place in a 1950s Disney movie. Framed together near your favorite reading nook, they bring a refreshing pop of color to SFF shelves that are often rife with book covers dominated by blacks, blues and washed out pastels.
Thynell’s whimsical watercolors evoke all the nostalgia of vintage picture books, with faraway castles, dragons and unicorns set amid dreamy, ethereal forests—perfect for anyone whose love of fantasy blossomed in the illustrations of hand-me-down children’s books.
Pop Chart specializes in…well, charts. Big charts, with an insane amount of detail. They have an interesting collection of book-themed posters (including scratch-off prints for those wanting to read 100 classics), but for the SFF set, the Harry Potter posted is a fun choice. (If adult fantasy is more your thing, check out their Game of Thrones print, which illustrates everything from the armor, weapons and crowns of all the houses to their castles and horses.)
Stephan Martiniere is one of my favorite concept artists—and perhaps he’s yours too, and you just don’t know it. There’s a good chance you own his work, and it’s sitting somewhere on your SFF book shelf. His fantastically detailed art graces many of the most well-known speculative fiction books of the past 10 years, and it’s not hard to see why. He offers high-quality prints of all his book covers, allowing you to decorate your wall with the scenes and landscapes of some of the best contemporary SFF.
PARSECS & PARCHMENT’S BIRTHDAY SFF PRINT GIVEAWAY
PRIZE: ONE of the following:
Last Studio: one Travel Middle Earth Print Set, (8 prints total, 5.5″ x 7″ each)
Ulla Thynell: one (size small) unframed print of your choosing (see options)
Popchart: one Magical Objects of the Wizarding World (print only) OR one The World of Ice and Fire (print only)
Stephan Martiniere: one 13″ x 19″ unframed print of your choosing (see options)
TO ENTER: Hop on over to JonBob’s Twitter account and follow, like & retweet the pinned giveaway post. That’s it 🙂 If you know which print you’d like if you win, comment underneath. Oh, and there’s a bonus entry if you also follow the blog. The winner will be announced on Sunday 20th September. Good luck!
REQUIREMENTS: US only (sorry non-US folks)
You can find Rin on Twitter @13thShelf or over at her blog The Thirteenth Shelf, where she writes succinct reviews of books and book-ish things for the busy reader. She loves tea, mathematics, cats, French & Japanese cuisine, paranormal podcasts, journaling, enamel pins and abstract art.
