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    Tales From the Loop
    Tales From the Loop
    Tales From the Loop
    Ebook122 pages36 minutes

    Tales From the Loop

    By Simon Stålenhag

    4.5/5

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    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Now an Amazon Prime Original Series!

    Perfect for fans of E.T. and Stranger Things—the first narrative artbook from acclaimed author and artist Simon Stålenhag about a fictionalized suburban town in the 1980s inhabited by fantastic machines and strange, imaginative beasts.

    In 1954, the Swedish government ordered the construction of the world’s largest particle accelerator. The facility was complete in 1969, located deep below the pastoral countryside of Mälaröarna. The local population called this marvel of technology The Loop. These are its strange tales.

    From the same author who wrote the imaginative artbook The Electric State, this “haunting,” (The Verge) “sophisticated sci-fi” (The Nerdist) follows the bizarre stories from otherworldly creatures and is a page-turner you won’t be able to put down.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSimon & Schuster
    Release dateApr 7, 2020
    ISBN9781982150709
    Tales From the Loop
    Author

    Simon Stålenhag

    Simon Stålenhag (b. 1984) is the internationally acclaimed author, concept designer and artist behind Tales from the Loop and Things from the Flood. His highly imaginative images and stories depicting illusive sci-fi phenomena in mundane, hyper-realistic Scandinavian and American landscapes have made Stålenhag one of the most sought-after visual storytellers in the world. Tales from the Loop was ranked one of the “10 Best Dystopias” by The Guardian, along with such works as Franz Kafka’s The Trial and Andrew Niccol’s Gattaca.

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    Reviews for Tales From the Loop

    4.5/5

    85 ratings7 reviews

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    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 5/5
      A haunting and beautiful reimagining of a '70s and '80s childhood through a science fiction lens.
    • 5/5
      I got this on the strength of Stålenhag's paintings, which I'd seen online and made up a completely different backstory for (standard dystopian scifi). What he actually does is much more interesting: it's very much a young boy's fantasy but told well enough to be an engaging read as an adult. And of course the paintings are gorgeous: a very familiar 80s European suburbia made strange and unsettling.
    • 5/5
      A quite brilliant art book sublimely giving an opening onto a bizarre world on Eastern Sweden in a 1980’s that never was. This is an interesting and intriguing premise with beautiful art and a great deal of immersive ness that I found amazing. I’d recommend it to those that hadn’t heard of it.
    • 5/5
      Tales from the Loop is an extraordinary art journey through the history of a world that never was. Told as a collection of memories from a child who grew up in the shadow of the marvels of The Loop, it paints a mysterious and foreboding image of the rise and fall of a technologically advanced civilization from our past. This unsettling illustrated novella leaves one nostalgic for a time and place that has never been.
    • 3/5
      2023 book #36. 2014. The memories of a boy growing up near a fictional giant particle accelerator in Sweden in the '80s and the weird technological artifacts in the area. Mostly haunting drawings. The basis for a series on Amazon in 2020 which I started watching but didn't finish
    • 5/5
      LOVE this.
    • 5/5
      I can't get enough of these books. Stålenhag manages to capture what the world was like in my head. I know all of this takes place completely outside Canada, but honestly, the landscape, the snow, the lighting, the entire 70s vibe mixed with all the robots and dinosaurs and weird, reality-bending machines calls up what I wanted every trip away from the family home to be.

      In my mind, this was my world.

      The storyline that Stålenhag creates perfectly captures what's going on in the images, and adds to it. And I have to say, the Amazon TV series managed to completely capture the same feel.

      Excellent stuff.

    Book preview

    Tales From the Loop - Simon Stålenhag

    A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE LOOP PROJECT

    The revolutionary powers inherent to nuclear technology became apparent at the end of World War II. It was obvious that comprehensive research within the field of fundamental physics would lead to breakthroughs of great military and civilian importance. In the Soviet Union, the seemingly random discovery of the magnetrine effect had given birth to the wondrous magnet ships, and it had completely revolutionized the transport industry. These events seemed to indicate that broad research would pay off; a wide array of experimental research programs were initiated in Sweden, including in the field of fusion. It was in those pioneering days in the early ’50s that the plans for a government owned and operated particle accelerator were hatched. Soon it became clear that it would become the biggest accelerator in the world, more powerful even than the one that had been completed in Nevada a few years earlier.

    The project was named The Facility for Research in High-Energy Physics, but was often called the Mälarö facility or, more commonly, the Loop. Construction began in 1961 and took eight years. It was operated by the newly formed Riksenergiverket (National Energy Agency) and consisted of around twenty research teams with a total of 129 scientists and science students. Including service personnel, the facility eventually had several thousand employees. The Loop was inaugurated in 1969, and the first experiment was conducted in July 1970. The capacity of the facility was increased over the years, and the Loop remained the world’s most powerful accelerator until its decommissioning in 1994.

    The illustrations in this book focus on my generation of Mälarö children and the environment we grew up in. As to the facility itself, its machines and other technology, I have tried to illustrate it all in detail. I have based my illustrations and descriptions on a massive amount of my own field notes and photos, but also on documentation from vendors and subcontractors. I have also gone through a lot of reports and documents pertaining to the Loop project that have been made available by Riksenergi. The goal of my work has in no way been to depict the rise and fall of the Loop project objectively or exactly; rather to give a personal, subjective, and sometimes simply entertaining look into how the project, and Riksenergi, affected the people and the landscape, and how it was to grow up in that environment. Sometimes I even leave Mälaröarna to describe other places and memories that I have considered to be pertinent to the mood and tone of the book.

    The stories I tell here are mostly based on the memories of myself and others: especially my childhood friend, Ola, who possesses a near-eidetic memory and has been able to recall all our schoolyard stories down to the smallest detail. I am eternally grateful to him for his help with the content of this book.

    Simon Stålenhag, Kungsberga, spring 2014

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