Upon receiving my copy in the mail of Entropia: A Collection of Unusally Rare Stamps, I was not sure what to expect. Was it an art book, a novel, a stamp collection? My curiosity had been piqued by Christian Lorenz Scheurer, the concept artist and illustrator for such videogames as Final Fantasy IX, Spore, and Lost Odyssey, who described the mysterious item in an interview with Innertraveler as a cross between Nick Bantock’s Griffin and Sabine and the dreamlike worlds of Hayao Miyazaki. As it turns out, having read the book twice (and eagerly anticipating read-through number three) I still have difficulty cramming the conceptual universe of Entropia into a suitable class or category. An indigenous species native to the tropical rain forest of Scheurer’s abundant imagination, the book is a literary and visual cross-pollination that is altogether unique.

The history of Entropia as told through the collection of otherworldly stamps turns upon an epic struggle for power between the beneficent Queen Pingo the Young and tyrannical Childish Robot Czar. However, the story of these remarkable personalities is conveyed tangentially through descriptions of the diverse locations depicted in the book’s stamp. Queen Pingo, while clearly the most significant historical figure, receives no more preferential narrative treatment than the brave gondoliers who sweep precious firefish plasma from the waters of Takashiro Bay, or the youngster outcasts who matriculate as students of alchemy and palm-reading to the Institute for the Occult and Bizarre. Reading the book back to front or whimsically flipping through pages at random yields its own rewarding experiences, whose sole disorienting aspect is the dreamlike quality of Entropia’s florescent landscapes and memorable denizens.

The best reason I can think of for citing Hayao Miyazaki in describing Entropia is that both appeal to the fascination of childlike imaginations, infused with sadness and even a touch of the macabre. There are no facile morals or saccharine sentiments to belittle younger readers. And Entropian flights of fancy, such as an artist’s odes to Minicow milk or the rise of an airship metropolis on flammable Murango gas, yield disastrous outcomes. The feature of the book’s imagined world offering no fairytale ending or more decisive closure than, say, the world around us, makes the story less amenable to being thoroughly digested, disposed of, and done with. Quite the opposite. Alluring and appealing, Entropia invites innumerable visits.

For more artwork, be sure to check out websites christianlorenzscheurer.com and Radioentropia. Entropia is available for order through Amazon.co.uk. A new interview involving the book’s author and the author of this review is now available at Square Haven.

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