Tales from the Loop

Simon Stalenhag's Tales from the Loop is a wildly successful crowd-funded project that takes viewers on a surprising sci-fi journey through various country and city landscapes-from small towns in Sweden and the deserts of Nevada to the bitter chill of Siberia-where children explore and engage with abandoned robots, vehicles, and machinery large and small, while dinosaurs and other creatures wander our roads and fields. Stalenhag's paintings and stories take place in an alternate version of Sweden in the '80s and '90s, primarily in the countryside of Malaroarna, a string of islands just west of Stockholm, and how this reality came about: the development of the Loop, a large particle accelerator and the side effects of the massive project. These incredibly captivating works and accompanying text capture perhaps a not-too-distant reality that is both haunting and imminent: addressing the many ways developing technology and nature can create havoc and wonder in our world-plus, its impact on the next generation. This is the English edition of the first book in Swedish that sold out in its initial printing.

About the Author :
Swedish artist Simon Stålenhag burst onto the art scene in 2013 when his first series of paintings were shared on the Internet, and has since become something of a phenomena in the art and sci-fi communities. His original blend of naturalistic landscape paintings with science-fiction elements and a very low-key recollection of growing up in the '80s struck a chord, not just in Sweden, but all over the world. The Verge, Wired, IO9, Scientific American, and The Guardian have all praised his work. But until late 2014, the only place you could watch his art was in digital form on the Internet. Stålenhag splits his time between a small cabin at Mälaröarna (the setting that inspires his work) and an apartment in Stockholm.

Review :
"If you've got a geek in your family who needs a Christmas present, this should be it. They'll love you forever. If you've got a young nerd in need of corruption -- a kid who'd benefit from having their reality shaken and their head filled with impossible things -- this'll do the trick because, Tales has the magic. It's got the robots, the weirdness, the dinosaurs." - NPR.ORG "Simon Stålenhag did not forget the robots. More to the point, Simon Stålenhag can't forget the robots, because in his remarkable, beautiful new art book, Tales From The Loop, he has embedded them into our collective past, offering a vision of an alt-history Sweden in the late 80's and early 90's where they clack through suburban streets, lurk in the backyard trees, or lie, still and cold, abandoned in snowy fields." --Jason Sheenan, npr.org Tales from the Loop is Sci-Fi Art Excellence: "Stålenhag was far and away my favorite sci-fi artist of 2015, and Tales From the Loop will show you why. His universe is a dystopia you wouldn't mind exploring, one that oppresses you with mystery and beauty rather than drab soldiers or vacuous "you have this emotion, therefore you belong in this group" regimes. The Loop is sophisticated sci-fi buried under snowy Swedish dirt. And I can't wait to dig deeper." --Kyle Hill, Nerdist Tales From The Loop Is A Stunning Book Of Alternate Nostalgia: "We're enormous fans of Simon Stålenhag's artwork around here, ever since we first came across him in 2013. His work mixes high-tech futurism with scenes from every day Sweden. Now, he's released a brilliant art book..." --Andrew Liptak, io9.com