Science Fiction Cover Art

[Graham1973]

This is a thread for interesting or unusual science fiction cover art. As a first post here is the cover to 'Beyond The Stars' a 1983 collection by Octopus books that aside from the usual round of short stories included chapters excerpted from the following novels:

'Star Wars' (Alan Dean Foster, pen name: George Lucas)
'Dragonfall 5 and the Super Horse' (Brian Earnshaw)
'Round The Moon' (Jules Verne)
'Citizen of the Galaxy' (Robert A. Heinlein)
'Escape from Splatterbang' (Nicholas Fisk)
'The Keeper of the Isis Light' (Monica Hughes)
'Dr Who and the Monster of Peladon' (Terrence Dicks)

The last of those was a definite surprise, as is the fact that despite what the cover shows, there's nothing relating to 'Battlestar Galactica' in this volume...

 

[Graham1973]

The front and back cover art by Tony Roberts for 'The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction' one of the more stunning works by this artist, especially the rear cover.

 

[Graham1973]

As a final posting for today, the original cover to Terry Pratchett's 'Dark Side of The Sun', by Tim White.

 

[Rhinocrates]

Overall favourites for me would be John Schoenherr and Bruce Pennington.

 

[Rhinocrates]

Pennington's a good sport - he was quite happy to parody his own cover for Dune Messiah for National Lampoon's own parody of Dune.

 

[Rhinocrates]

Really, really, really recommended site:

70s Sci-Fi Art

Art. Sci-fi art. From the 70s.

70sscifiart.tumblr.com

And now it's a book:

Worlds Beyond Time Sci-Fi Art of the 1970s

In the 1970s, mass-produced, cheaply printed science-fiction novels were thriving. The paper was rough, the titles outrageous, and the cover art astounding. Over the course of the decade, a stable of talented painters, comic book artists, and designers pr

www.abramsbooks.com

 

[Rhinocrates]

If it's 'interesting or unusual', then the more abstract or surreal is eligible. In that case, Richard Powers' work dives deeper into abstraction but is still technically meticulous - despite superficial resemblances, he wasn't Jackson Pollock. Perhaps nearer Max Ernst's work with decalcomania.

 

[Rhinocrates]

I grew up with OMNI and that was about the time I discovered Jim Burns. The 70s saw the 'concept album' and then came what we may as well call the 'concept book', though these were usually collections of multiple artists' work around a single author's narrative. Stewart Cowley's Terran Trade Authority series are probably the best known. Another, which was introduced in OMNI as a synopsis and a few selected illustrations was a collaboration between Harry Harrison and Jim Burns, Planet Story.

 

[Rhinocrates]

I like the artists I've selected above because of their ability to create atmosphere with a strong expression of the paint medium. Burns I like because his detailing makes the technology look 'real' without just making his machines collections of boxes covered in greebles - see https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/StandardHumanSpaceship . They're refreshingly different, looking like they'd be made by Ferrari - or Giger on antidepressants. This is a standalone piece.

 

[Graham1973]

A personal favourite amongst Pennington's artwork, 1950s characters in the foreground, a rusty flying saucer in the brooding sky

 

[Graham1973]

Cover art by Paul Alexander used for one of the 'Best of Trek' anthologies, a blending of pulp and Disney's 'The Black Hole' to produce something stunning.

 

[sferrin]

The Flood, from the Halo universe, were based on The Vang. Military Form is the second of three books.

 

[Graham1973]

Where it all started for SF artist Chris Foss, a cover for Arthur C. Clarke's 'Earthlight' that fitted the text, that was later recycled for an unrelated Andre Norton story.

 

[Graham1973]

From my collection, the cover John Schoenherr did for Analog Magazine's July 1975 issue which contained the early George R. R. Martin story 'And Seven Times Never Kill Man', from which an illustration has been taken.

 

[Graham1973]

The robot looks very similar to one that showed up in an episode of the Logans run tv series.
I had an sf soundtrack record from the 70s,Star Wars and Other Space Themes,by geoff love and his orchestra,that had a cover rather like this one,with a montage of well known sf movie/tv images.
The images in question were very close to the originals that we all know and love but also a little different,just like the ones on the cover of this book,it makes me wonder if perhaps they didnt have the relevant permissions so went with close copies-ish,such as the cylon raider with a tail.

I'd love to see a picture of that.

 

[Graham1973]

Again from my collection, the cover of a 1979 reprinting of the volume 'A Book Of Boy's Stories' released by Hamlyn in 1964. The interior art is credited to 'Pat Nevins', it's not clear if he was also responsible for the cover.

 

[sferrin]

Can't believe I forgot this one. One of the first Sci-Fi books I read as a kid.

 

[martinbayer]

Again from my collection, the cover of a 1979 reprinting of the volume 'A Book Of Boy's Stories' released by Hamlyn in 1964. The interior art is credited to 'Pat Nevins', it's not clear if he was also responsible for the cover.

Angry Astronauts...

 

[Silencer1]

From my collection, the cover John Schoenherr did for Analog Magazine's July 1975 issue which contained the early George R. R. Martin story 'And Seven Times Never Kill Man', from which an illustration has been taken.

Thanks for sharing! I read this story just a month ago for the first time. And these illustrations perfectly matches the story' overall mood. Those furry creatures (original inhabitants of the planet) looks pretty non-agressive and, simultaneously, menacingly. So the end of story became unexpected and satisfying.

 

[Graham1973]

Another great cover I remember was this one,I got the book for my 10th birthday,along with Great space battles,which was part of the excellent TTA series.

Great cover, Chris Moore from the cut of the spaceships.

 

[publiusr]

We need a compilation of newer novel covers in a TTA format---then too, AI designs means no license worries.

I had an sf soundtrack record from the 70s,Star Wars and Other Space Themes,by geoff love

Ever hear this one?

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_8M-L08Ypc


uh...

Three things I learned from Maynard Ferguson

Remembering the sweet brilliance that was the Maynard Ferguson of the late ’50s.

www.broadstreetreview.com

 

[Graham1973]

Another from my collection.

The wraparound cover created by David A. Cherry for author C. J. Cherryh's anthology 'Visible Light' (1986), and before anyone asks, yes that is a portrait of the author on the cover.

 

[Rhinocrates]

Lebbeus Woods is best known in architectural circles but he also illustrated a collection of classic stories by Arthur C. Clarke, The Sentinel. The one of a solar sailing craft if from 'The Wind From the Sun', the one of an airship with a tree in the foreground and a cyborg in a capsule are from 'A meeting With Medusa', the flaming cityscape is from 'Rescue Party', the man in a spacesuit is from 'Jupiter V' and the one of the somewhat demonic figure is for the short story 'Guardian Angel' that later grew into Childhood's End.

 

[Rhinocrates]

Arthur C Clarke was contacted a few times by Stanley Kubrick after they had worked together on 2001; A Space Odyssey but Clarke, despite his friendship and immense respect for Kubrick, felt that the effort would 'kill' him and wasn't very keen. Nonetheless, he did suggest a story that later became the novel The Songs of Distant Earth. Kubrick's reply was 'Interesting...' but he didn't take it further. One is by Woods again for the proposal included in The Sentinel and the other is by Michael Whelan for the novel as it was eventually published. The painting by Whelan illustrates the arrival at or maybe the departure of the starship Sagan from a world orbiting a double star - it's the third point of light. If I wrote any more about the plot it would be spoilers galore...

 

[Rhinocrates]

Clarke did write a couple of sequels to 2001: 2010 and 2061, with cover art by Whelan. 2010 was made into a film with Roy Scheider and Helen Mirren with designs by Syd Mead and is OK on its own terms. There's also another by Clarke, 3001, which in my opinion is awful - it's one of those utopian novels in which a stick-figure character from more-or-less our own time is given a guided tour of a futuristic theme park.

 

[Rhinocrates]

You don't get to see much original cover art these days. It's all graphic design and photoshopped stock photography. Publishers have decided that artists are just too expensive. First they treated them like shit (absconding with money, obscuring their signatures on book covers so they couldn't establish their own identities in the marketplace, and so on) and now they've dispensed with them altogether. Jim Burns is still alive and well and producing art but it's mainly private commissions and prints of older work. He has done a lot of digital quickies for the magazine Interzone, but like all sf magazines now, it's under pressure and is going online-only soon. Cover for Robert Charles Wilson's novel Bios from over a decade back featuring a couple of teleoperated drones (he actually read the book) and a commissioned work, 'Downtime in Alcyone's Glow.' Gardner Dozois used his work for other jobs for the covers of the last several editions of The Year's Best SF anthologies before his death.

 

[Rhinocrates]

Guy called Sebastian Melmouth, aka SMS or Smuzz to his mates, of which I'm one. Frequent contributor to Interzone, illustrating authors like Brian Stableford. Yes, the young HG Wells is in one of those and the blue, yellow, and white one is for a short story by Stephen Baxter called 'The Ant-men of Tibet,' a kind of sequel to Wells' The First Men in the Moon. Currently working on a project related to someone I know... sorry, can't describe that right now - intellectual property rights stuff.

 

[Rhinocrates]

First, Chris Moore's cover for Cemetery World by Clifford Simak. It features two huge cyborg tanks meeting at the end of a 'Final War' that has devastated the Earth. Simak is - if he's remembered at all - often dismissed nowadays as a 'pastoralist,' a second-rate Bradbury, but he's a lot more challenging than that and his examinations of robots and AI are comparable to Dick and Asimov. AI-mediated art and robot wolves are a part of our world today, after all.

The other illustrations are by John Schoenherr for Analog, where Cemetery World first appeared.

Have a close look at Schoenherr's cover for Analog. That immense tank standing before rows of gravestones has opened a door, and a figure is standing there. Now why might that be? That's art that makes you want to buy the issue and find out why.

My favourite line from the story: 'Wolf was Hell on rabbits.'

 

[publiusr]

We’re any of Egge’s art here used on novel covers?

Science Digest / October, 1982. Lost Tribes of Easter Island; Kids Striking it Rich in Software; Cities of the Sun (Terraforming a Gas Giant); Geodesic Virus Changes Science; Solar Activity and Earthquakes; Primordial Predators; Einstein and Healing;

1st Edition - Soft cover - The Hearst Corporation, New York - 1982 - Condition: Fine - New York: The Hearst Corporation, 1982. The October,1982 issue of Science Digest, Volume 90, Number10. Quarto, illustrated stapled wraps, 112 pp. Fine. Faint dust at rear cover, else flawless. Modest toning...

www.abebooks.com

 

[riggerrob]

This reminds me of a panel discussion during and in e fiction convention in Vancouver before COVID when a well-published author explained the publishing process. Once the author sells his novel to a publisher, he loses artistic control. The publisher then commissions cover art to an artist who may or may not have time to read the novel. The author rarely gets a veto on art-work.
For example, I am currently re-reading one of Spider Robinson’s “Callaghan’s Crosstime Saloon” novels. The cover art includes three convincing aliens, but none with the same fur or eyes or ears as characters mentioned in the novel. Still an uplifting read, but with only a loose connection to the cover art.

 

[publiusr]

It’s obvious that the Martians had no ability to erect statues—they were clearly raised by humans as the artist conception depicts.

 

[sferrin]

 

[Michel Van]

if we show cover then, also best collections books on sci-fi Covers:
The Terran Trade Authority series

Terran Trade Authority Handbook SPACECRAFT 2000 To 2100 AD : Stewart Cowley : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

TTA, Terran Trade Authority, Spacecraft, Spaceships, SciFi Art

archive.org

 

[Justo Miranda]

SF covers

 

[Justo Miranda]

Post-2

 

[Justo Miranda]

Post-3

 

[Justo Miranda]

Post-4

 

[robunos]

if we show cover then, also best collections books on sci-fi Covers:
The Terran Trade Authority series

Terran Trade Authority Handbook SPACECRAFT 2000 To 2100 AD : Stewart Cowley : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

TTA, Terran Trade Authority, Spacecraft, Spaceships, SciFi Art

archive.org

Don't forget the others in the series . . .








cheers,
Robin.

 

[Michel Van]

Don't forget the others in the series . . .

i have them in my bookshelf

i could post Perry Rhodan covers
but with 3255 editions its bit overkill

here a link to it (1961 to 2024)

Titelbildgalerie PR 1 - 99 – Perrypedia

www.perrypedia.de

 

[TsrJoe]

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