William-Adolphe Bouguereau – “A Childhood Idyll” (1900), featured in “Life Cycles in my Space Opera’s Far Future”
Wilhelm Kray – “Sea Creatures” (1828-1889), featured in “Upgrading the Life of Linda”
Paul DiMare – NASA Study for Manned Mars Mission (1989), featured in “Road Trains of Mars”
Francis Danby – “Shipwreck” (c. 1850), featured in “No Escape for the Cheap”
John William Godward – the Priestess (1893), featured in “Indistinguishable from Nature: Toward a ubiquitous Dark Web”
Constance Mayer – The Dream of Happiness (1819), featured in “All My Little Dreamlets”
“Portrait of Emma Hart” by George Romney (c. 1784), featured in “Toward a Libertarian Artistic Movement”
John William Godward – Dolce Far Niente (1897), featured in “Idle Geopolitics”
Donald Davis – “Endcap view with suspension bridge” (1975), featured in “Worldbuilding Space Megastructures: Beyond Dyson Spheres”
John Martin – “The Fall of Babylon” (1831), featured in “Twenty Years of Terror”
George Spencer Watson – “The Saddler’s Daughter” (1923-24), featured in “Triumph of the Fleece Vest”
William-Adolphe Bouguereau – “The Nut Gatherers” (1882), featured in “Art, Nature, and Freedom: Toward a Better Future for Education”
William-Adolphe Bouguereau – “Nymphs and Satyr” (1873), featured in “Worldbuilding with Parthenogenesis”
Unknown (but good!) Illustrator – “Sif was Queen of the Fields” (1897), featured in “More Thoughts on my New Calendar”
George Clausen – “The Student” (c. 1908), featured in “Toward a New Vision for Online Education”
NASA – “High Altitude Venus Operational Concept” (2014), featured in “Worldbuilding Cloud Cities on Venus”
Karl Wilhelm Diefenbach – “Sphinx mit Undine” (1902), featured in “The Long Night of Elite Imagination”
Antonio Sant’Elia – “Casa a gradinata” (1914), featured in “Personal Transportation of the Near Future: Flying Cars and Beyond”
Rogelio de Egusquiza – “Tristan and Isolde” (1912), featured in “Ever Rending: Another Bond Movie I’d Make”
Edvard Munch – Vampire (1895), featured in “Vampires of the Oort Cloud?”
Albert Bierstadt – “Alaska” (c. 1889), featured in “An Alternate History of Cascadia”
Lawrence Alma-Tadema – “Spring” (1894), featured in “Worldbuilding Near-Future Space Demography”
Rick Guidice – “Toroidal colonies, cutaway view, exposing the interior” (1970s), featured in “Artificial Gravity in Outer Space: Centrifuges and Beyond”
Edward Coley Burne-Jones – “Psyche’s Wedding” (1895), featured in “The Future of Marriage”
Jacques-Louis David – “The Farewell of Telemachus and Eucharis” (1818), featured in “Becoming a Superior Man: Easier than You Think?”
SpaceX – “A Performance Inside Starship” (2018), featured in “Interplanetary Travel in the Solar System of the Near Future”
Thomas Cole – “The Ages of Life: Youth” (1842), featured in “Leveraged Stocks for long-term Investing”
Karl Wilhelm Diefenbach – “Solitude” (1851-1913), featured in “Lifestyles in a Fully Globalized Future”
Augustus Leopold Egg – “Past and Present” (1858), featured in “Worldbuilding Motorhomes”
Jonas Lie – “Path of Gold” (1914), featured in “Ecumenopolis: Thoughts on Worldbuilding City-Planets”
George Romney – “Emma Hart as Circe” (1782), featured in “The Star Wars Sequel Trilogy I Would Have Made”
“Design for The Magic Flute: The Hall of Stars in the Palace of the Queen of the Night, Act 1, Scene 6”, after Karl Friedrich Schinkel (1816), featured in “Cosmic Ley Lines: Space Opera to Space Fantasy”
Karl Wilhelm Diefenbach – “Martyr and crucified, son Helios” (1895), featured in “Some Thoughts on Harry Potter”
Unknown artist, edited by Albertus Seba – Illustration of squid (circa 1735), featured in “After Thalassa: Squid Brains of Enceladus?”.
Constantino Brumidi – Sketch, Telegraph (c. 1862-67), featured in “A Telegraph World”
Bror Lindh – “Northern Light” (1900), featured in “Worldbuilding Seasons on Planets with High Axial Tilts”
Frederic Leighton – “The Fisherman and the Siren” (1858), featured in “The Siren Song of Job Security”
Adamas Nemesis – “Girls’ Night Out” (2021)
Ivan Aivazovsky – “Peter the Great at Krasnaya Gorka” (1846), featured in “The Twilight of Conservatism”
John William Waterhouse – Consulting the Oracle (1884), featured in “World Religions in Alternate Histories”
Gabriel Loppé – “Unknown Title” (1882), featured in “Skiing and Space Diving on Other Worlds”
Delphin Enjolras – “Portrait of an Elegant Lady Reading” (1910), featured in “New Year, New Sci-Fi Romance Novel”
Unknown author – Reclining young woman with skull, c. 1900, featured in “Folkways From Our Past Return”
Adamas Nemesis – “Base 10 versus Base 12 parchment” (2021), featured in “Worldbuilding Number Systems”
Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres – “Napoleon on his Imperial throne” (1806), featured in “Gödel’s Loophole: My Pet Theory”
Marie-Denise Villers – “Portrait of Charlotte du Val d’Ognes” (1801), featured in “Thinking Outside the ‘FIRE’ Box”
Tresca, Salvatore (Graveur), Lafitte, Louis (Dessinateur du modèle) – Vendémaire calendar (1797-98), featured in “Worldbuilding New Calendars”
Rick Guidice – Bernal Sphere “Interior including human powered flight” (1970s), featured in “Our Future in Space Habitats: More Thoughts”
Marcus Herzberg – “Tall buildings in Dubai at night” (2018), featured in “Gleaming Cities of the Eclipsed”
William-Adolphe Bouguereau – “The Birth of Venus” (1879), featured in “One Dominion to Rule Them All?”
Mihaly von Zichy – “Romantic Encounter” (1827-1906), featured in “I’m ‘The Most Dangerous Personality Type'”
Tom Roberts – “The Opening of the First Parliament” (1903), featured in “I Joined the Fediverse”
Ivan Aivazovsky – “The Great Pyramid at Giza” (1871), featured in “Twilight of a Decade”
Ivan Aivazovsky – “The Ninth Wave” (1850), home page header image
Domenico Corvi – “Allegory of Painting” (1721-1803), featured in “Artists Exit Stage Left?”
George Romney – “Lady Hamilton as a Bacchante” (1780s-90s), featured in “I Never Went to College…or High School”
Karl Wilhelm Diefenbach – “Capri III” (1900), featured in “The Rise of Deplatforming and the Decentralized Web”
Karl Wilhelm Diefenbach – “Der Rettung entgegen” (1851-1913), featured in “Worldbuilding Immortals in Science Fiction”
Archibald Thorburn – “On the stooks – Blackgame” (1902), featured in Worldbuilding Avian Intelligence”
Adamas Nemesis – “Starburst” (2021)
Frederick Edwin Church – “Our Banner In The Sky” (1861), featured in “Worldbuilding Flags: Some Thoughts”
Karl Wilhelm Diefenbach – “Toteninsel” (Isle of the Dead) (1851-1913), featured in “Panpsychism and Beyond”
Herbert James Draper – “A Water Baby” (c. 1895), featured in “Stop Worrying and Love the Birth Dearth?”
Luis Ricardo Falero – “Moonlit Beauties” (1851-1896), featured in “Romantic Realist Science Fiction: A Sublime and Beautiful Future”
James Tissot – “Goodbye on the Mersey” (c. 1880), featured in “Industrialization in a World Without Oil”
Léon-François Comerre – “Moon” (1850-1916), featured in “Infinite Scattering: The Future of Spacefaring Civilization?”
Adamas Nemesis – “Travel the Solar System at 1g” (2021)
“Siegfried and the Twilight of the Gods, page 180” by Arthur Rackham (1911), featured in “Starve the Beast: Still the Path to Smaller Government?”
Adamas Nemesis – “Glowbugs in flight” (2021), featured in “Double, Double, Stories and Trouble”
Gustav Wertheimer – “The Kiss of the Siren” (1882), featuring “Making Diet and Exercise Easy and Fun”
John William Waterhouse – “The Crystal Ball” (1902), featured in “Crystal Cities in Other Galaxies”
Artur José de Sousa Loureiro – “Spirit of the New Moon” (1888), featured in “To Orbit by Space Gun” and “Worldbuilding the First Moon Landing”
J. Frassanito & Associates for NASA – McDonnell Douglas proposal for X-33 single-stage-to-orbit spaceplane (1996), featured in “Catching a Lift”
Benes Knüpfer – “Duel of the Tritons” (1848-1910), featured in “Some Thoughts on James Bond”
Hubble Space Telescope – “The Cosmic Horseshoe” (2011), featured in “The Sun as Gravitational Lens: A Breakthrough Technology?”
Wenzel-August Hablik – “Starry Sky” (1909), featured in “The New Star Trek I Would Have Made”
James Tissot – “Plymouth Dockyard” (1887), featured in “College Ships: A Pathway to Seasteading”
William-Adolphe Bouguereau – “Not Too Much to Carry” (1895), featured in “The Surprising Path to a Happy Everyday Life”
Leonardo da Vinci – “Study for the Head of Leda” (1503-10), featured in “The Renaissance Man, still the Master”
Alfons Mucha – “Spring” (1898), featured in “Ready for Rapunzel”
William-Adolphe Bouguereau –
“The Nut Harvest” (1883), featured in “Fresh Air, Green Space, and Unsung Paths to Healthy Living”
Jean-Léon Gérôme – “Truth Coming Out of Her Well to Shame Mankind” (1896), featured in “Of Fediverses and Frustrations”
Ivan Constantinovich Aivazovsky – “Gibraltar at Night” (1844), featured in “For a Darkness Protection Act”
William Gale – “Rocking the Baby” (1867), featured in “Of Single Mothers by Choice”
Alfons Mucha – “Dance” (1898), featured in “Toward Nuclearpunk: Solarpunk with a Twist”
Adamas Nemesis – “Emerald Nebula” (2021)
Jules Joseph Lefebvre – “Servant” (1880), featured in “Third Rome, Viking Tsars, Russian Turan, and Beyond”
Adamas Nemesis – “Fly me to the moons” (2021)
Albert Bettannier – “The Black Stain” (1887), featured in “Redrawing the Map of Ukraine”
Karl Wilhelm Diefenbach – “An Allegory of Lost Love” (1851-1913), featured in “Shadows Never Lie: The Next Bond Movie I’d Make”
Vilhelm Melbye (attrib.) – “Shipping off the Eddystone Lighthouse” (1824-82), featured in “Worldbuilding Communications with Smoke, Mirrors, and Analog Computers”
Karl Wilhelm Diefenbach – “Question to the Stars” (1901), featured in “To Further the Decentralized Web, Think Bigger” and “Taking My Space Opera into the Really Far Future”
Lawrence Alma-Tadema – “The Baths of Caracalla” (1899), fearured in “Sisterhoods and Hives of my Space Opera”
Paul Gustave Fischer – “The Royal Theatre Ballet School, Copenhagen” (1889), featured in “Interests Too Many, and Never Enough”
Peter Nicolai Arbo – Valkyrien (1869), featured in “Constant Acceleration: Across the Solar System and Beyond”
Jean-Léon Gérôme – Pygmalion and Galatea (1890), featured in “Sponsus ex Twittera”
An antique New Year’s postcard in Berlin, Germany (c. 1911), featured in “Beginning the Night of the Calendars”
Adamas Nemesis – “Through the Looking Glass” (2021)
Pierre-Auguste Cot – “Springtime” (1873), featured in “Antifragility in Love and Life”
James Tissot – “Room Overlooking the Harbor” (c. 1876-78), featured in “The Puzzle of Credentialism”
James Poole – “Donati’s Comet” (1858), featured in “Colonizing the Oort Cloud: The Final Frontier of the Solar System”
Edwin Blashfield – Spring Scattering Stars (1927), featured in “Worldbuilding a Space Opera Setting of My Own”
William-Adolphe Bougeureau – “Nymphs and Satyr” (1873), featured in “Courtesans and Drugs: All Things in Moderation?”
Antoon van Welie’s portrait of the gorgeous Geneviève Lantelme (1911), featured in “My Dream Relationship”
Albert Edelfelt – “At the Piano” (1884), featured in “Academia, Dark and Otherwise”
“Emma Hamilton as Joan of Arc” (1780s-90s), featured in “Nemesis Among the Machines”
Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun – “Lady Hamilton as a Bacchante” (1790), featured in “Jean Sibelius and the Music of a Sci-Fi World”
Thomas Francis Dicksee – “Distant Thoughts” (1886), featured in “A Stream of Thoughts Against Lockdown”
Adélaïde Labille-Guiard – “Portrait of Louise-Elisabeth of France with her son” (1780s), featured in “Forget Humanoid Aliens: Try Dinosaur Aliens”
John Martin – “Manfred and the Witch of the Alps” (1837), featured in “Improving the Star Wars Sequel Trilogy”
William-Adolphe Bougereau – “The Motherland” (1883), featured in “Big Families on the High Frontier: Worldbuilding Space Colony Demography”
Robert Wilhelm Ekman – “Ilmatar” (1860), featured in “Worldbuilding Exotic Oxygen Atmospheres” and “Letters from the Airy Deep: New Novel Coming Soon”
Peder Mørk Mønsted – “The Woodland Glade” (1898), featured in “Germanic America’s Strange Dearth”
Luis Ricardo Falero – The Planet Venus (1882), featured in “The Strange New Worlds of ‘Warp Dawn'”
Adamas Nemesis – “A Trip to Starlit Spa” (2021)
Les Bossinas – “Wormhole travel” (1998), featured in “Worldbuilding faster than Light Travel”
Cesare Maccari – “Cicero Denounces Catiline” (1889), featured in “Presidential Debate Reform: A Radical Proposal”
Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun – Lady Emma Hamilton as either Ariadne or a Bacchante (c. 1790-92), featured in “Feminine Companionship: An Unsung Ideal”
John Martin – “Pandemonium” (1841), featured in “Our Dystopian Moment: The Fruit of Our Dystopian Futures”
Fritz Zuber-Bühler – Distant Thoughts (1822-96), featured in “Beginning the Adventure of writing a Novel”
George Romney – “Emma, Lady Hamilton” (c. 1785), featured in “Taking my Space Opera into the Far Future”
Pierre-August Cot – “Primavera” (1873), featured in “Pensioners, Aristocrats, and Financial Independence”
Frank Lloyd Wright – Sketches for Broadacre City (1932), Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license, featured in “Thoughts on Futuristic Transportation”
Victor Gabriel Gilbert – “The ball or an elegant evening” (c. 1890), featured in “A Social Vision for College Ships”
Thomas Cole – “The Course of Empire: The Savage State” (1836), featured in “Worldbuilding with Dunbar’s Number”
Frederic Edwin Church – “Aurora Borealis” (1865), featured in “Thalassa, or Proxima Centauri b: The Pale Green Dot”
Adamas Nemesis – “Spaceplane approaching Neptune orbital Sphere” (2020)
George Romney – “Study of Emma Hamilton as Miranda” (1780s-90s), featured in “Thoughts on Ariel and the Adamas Nemesis Girls”
Thomas Le Clear – “Young America” (1863), featured in “Abolish Elections: For Sortition and Direct Democracy”
Luis Ricardo Falero – “Nymphe” (1892), featured in “Aquamusicals in Space: Worldbuilding Zero-G Sports”
Adamas Nemesis – “Sunset flight to cloud city” (2020)
Alexandre Cabanel – “Echo” (1874), featured in “Post-Liberalism: An Echo, Not a Choice”
George Romney – “Lady Hamilton as Cassandra” (1780s-90s), featured in “Checking in on American Politics: 2020 Edition”
Ivan Aivazovsky – “Black Sea (A storm begins to whip up in the Black Sea)” (1881), featured in “The Lavender Glow of a Radon Sea: Worldbuilding Exotic Oceans”
NASA – “X-30 NASP” (1990), featured in” The Shapes of Spaceships”
Karl Wilhelm Diefenbach – “The Fairy Dance” (1895), featured in “The Coming Union of Intelligence and the Cosmos Primeval”
Witold Pruszkowski – “Falling star” (1884), featured in “Panspermia, the Alpha, and the Omega”
Adamas Nemesis – “Charting the Airy Deep” (2020)
Pierre Bouillon – “The Child of Fortune”, (1801), featured in “For Proportional Representation”
Elisabeth-Louise Vigée Le Brun – Self-portrait with Her Daughter (1789), featured in “Thoughts on Names for Characters and Babies”
Henrietta Rae – “Roses of Youth” (1859-1928), featured in “A Not-so-Minor Dream for the Minor Outlying Islands”
Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun – “Portrait of Princess Karoline of Liechtenstein” (1793), featured in “A Second Sci-Fi Romance Novel is Coming Soon” and “Dear Future Me: New Sci-Fi Romance Novel Released”
Winslow Homer – Girl in the Hammock” (1873), featured in “No Solace for the Single?”
Gaston La Touche – “Le Ballet” (1890-1913), featured in “Dancing in Space: Worldbuilding More Zero-G Sports”
Alfons Mucha – “The Arts: Painting” (1898), featured in “Toward More Visual Storytelling”
George Romney – “Lady Emma Hamilton as Cassandra” (1780s-1790s), featured in “Lockdown, the Culture of Fear, and the Politics of the Future”
John Smmons – The Morning Star (1867) (detail), featured in “Worldbuilding the Cool, the Romantic, and the Fantasy into my Space Opera Setting”