Friday, March 6, 2015

Kickstarter Day 17 (12 to go): canyoneering pics and other Kickstarter recs

Still about $1500 from the interior art goal on The Labyrinth of Flame Kickstarter.  Will the KS make it? I've got my fingers firmly crossed, as I think about certain scenes that'd be really cool to have illustrated...but we'll have to see.

Since I've been thinking a lot about the scenery and terrain in the book recently, today's pics are canyoneering-related: a few shots taken on a descent of Baptist Draw & Upper Chute Canyon in Utah's San Rafael Swell.

Me rappelling the longest of the drops in Baptist

In the narrows
I love the way slot canyon rock glows in reflected sunlight
One of my favorite pics of me and my husband
And instead of a regular book rec today, I'm going to share a few other Kickstarter publishing projects I think are pretty cool.  Check these out and see if they interest you:

1)  The Boy Who Spoke to the Earth (Dreamling Books): a kids picture book about the joy of wilderness, chock-full of beautiful art? TAKE MY MONEY.  Seriously, I backed this in a hot second; can't wait to read the book with my son.

2)  Genius Loci: Tales of the Spirit of Place (Ragnarok Press).  The guys at Ragnarok have put out some awesome anthologies already, and this one has a great line-up of authors (plus Jaym Gates as editor).

3) Imagined Realms Book 2: A Scifi Art Book by Julie Dillon.  Hugo award-winning artist Julie Dillon is amazing; enough said.  She's offering posters and prints and such in addition to the art book itself.

4) Queen of Nothing: A Marla Mason novel (Tim Pratt). Tim's successful Kickstarters for his previous Marla Mason books were among those I studied in planning my own Kickstarter.  I've heard nothing but praise for the series, and look forward to trying the books myself.

5) Dark & Day novels and comics (Jake Grey). Concept seems interesting, and I liked the art. They're so, so close to funding!





  
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2 comments:

  1. Steve MCMarch 6, 2015 at 3:51 PM

    I think I know why they call it the Baptist - facing a drop like that would make most anyone religious.

    And thanks for the intro to Julie Dillon's work!

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    Replies
    1. Courtney SchaferMarch 7, 2015 at 6:14 AM

      You should see the raps at the end of Zion's slot canyons! Some of them are so long you have to use special rappel devices to manage them. When rapping on a super long rope, at first the friction is intense because the amount of rope hanging beneath you is so heavy. But then the lower you get, the less friction there is; so if you haven't taken that into account with your set-up, you can end up unable to control the speed of your descent (and going splat at the end). Thankfully, enterprising canyoneers solved that issue with belay devices like Petzl's Piranha http://www.canyoneeringusa.com/techtips/how-to-use-a-petzl-pirana/. Also, it's always a good idea to have the first person down do a fireman's belay for the rest of the party (i.e. 1st person down holds end of rope, ready to pull it tight to lock it off in the descender's rappel device and stop an out-of-control rappel).

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