Kevin's Watch

very interesting book fell into my lap at the local coffeehouse this afternoon: URSHURAK created by The Brothers Hildebrant (see above) and Jerry Nichols. Man, where do I know these guys from? Possibly from their world renowned artwork and characterizations from The Lord of the Rings?

From a famous series of LOTR calendars?
and a certain STAR WARS poster?

I'm sure our resident artists jemcheeta and Zarathustra know who they are, if you don't you're either too young or have been hiding under a pile of rocks. Anyway, in my vast Fantasy experience, I've never encountered this book. Looks fascinating! It first came out in '79 with incredible illustrations and paintings and the story is, apparently about:

...a land peopled by Elves and Amazons, wizards and Gwarpys (which I think are very weird looking dwarfs), witches and monsters. Ursurak, a land of extremes--of beauty and ugliness, violence and peace-where an epic struggle between the forces of good and evil will be fought, a struggle that will decide the fate of the world.

That's pretty dam generic, eh? Maybe I did encounter it, very briefly, back in the day, and automatically discarded it along with Xanth and various Brooks-trappings. Regardless of how the story turns out it's worth it simply for the art work. Seen it? Read it? Heard of it?

(yes, they even did the first cover of The Sword of Shanarra )
My copy's in very good condition:

Pick mine up in a bargain book shop years ago (may be tens of years ago)

details of why we should seek out the book?

Well, I don't think many copies sold, so there should be some value (but what I'm basically asking here is either; have you ever seen it, read it, know of it's existence...)-and while I've yet to read to it's worth it for the art work alone. Yes the artwork is VERY good and I don't say that lightly--as a good deal of The Brother's Hildebrandt's stuff I've dismissed in the past as "Baski trying to imitate Frazetta", if you know what I mean .

danlo wrote:Well, I don't think many copies sold, so there should be some value (but what I'm basically asking here is either; have you ever seen it, read it, know of it's existence...)-and while I've yet to read to it's worth it for the art work alone. Yes the artwork is VERY good and I don't say that lightly--as a good deal of The Brother's Hildebrandt's stuff I've dismissed in the past as "Baski trying to imitate Frazetta", if you know what I mean .

Read it years and years ago (damn near when Morgoth was called Melkor), wasn't bad at the time. Wouldn't mind reading it again just to see if it's still what I remember, or if my experience since then makes it seem less than it was then.

Wow!
Weird weird weird....
I was just thinking about that book a few months ago. I was wondering what happened to it. It had been in my cellar for years and years.
I bought it mainly for the pics.
I forget the ending but the beginning was a total LotR rip off if I remember correctly.

HLT wrote:I forget the ending but the beginning was a total LotR rip off if I remember correctly.

Yeah, that's what I'm afraid of--might be the "Brooks curse" of that time rubbing off on them...