A wild seascape, a distant island, a full moon. Gradually the island
grows nearer until we land on a primeval wilderness, rich in vegetation
and huge, strange beasts. Time passes and man appears, with clubs, with
spears, with crueler weapons still--and things do not go well for the
wilderness. Civilization rises as towers of stone and metal and smoke
choke the undergrowth and the creatures that once moved through it. This
is not a happy story, and it will not have a happy ending.
Working in his distinctive, monochromatic linocut style, Stanley Donwood
achieves with his art what words cannot convey, carving out a
mesmerizing, stark parable of environmental disaster and the end of
civilization.