Science Fiction Cover Art

[Graham1973]

The John Harris cover for the 1997 anthology 'The Science Fiction Century', edited by David G. Hartwell and published by the Quality Paperback Book Club of New York.

 

[Graham1973]

The cover by Wayne Barlow for Vonda M. McIntyre's 'The Entropy Effect', one of the early 'Star Trek' novels released by Pocket Books in 1981.

This one is famous amongst the Star Trek fan comunity for being the first place the name 'Hikaru Sulu' is mentioned, as for Sulu's moustache, that's a secret I'll leave for those who read the book.

 

[The K2]

Dig the fighter aircraft. If this was already posted, my apologies.

 

[Graham1973]

The cover by Oliver Frey to the 1982 anthology 'Exciting Stories of Fantasy and the Future' published by Hamlyn as part of their Falcon Story Club, it contains some of the bleakest endings in literature aimed at children I've ever seen.

 

[Graham1973]

The cover created by Nick Strathopolis in 1990 for 'Rynosseros' a collection of Australian SF author Terry Dowling's 'Tom Rynosseros' stories set in a Vancian future Australia. This edition is a 2003 reprint published by MirrorDanse Books.

 

[Graham1973]

The cover created by Nick Strathopolis in 2007 for 'Rynemonn' a collection of Australian SF author Terry Dowling's 'Tom Rynosseros' stories set in a Vancian future Australia. This editon was published by Coer De Lion Publishing.

There are four collections of the 'Tom Rynosseros' stories, the other two volumes, which are not in my collection are 'Blue Tyson' and 'Twilight Beach'.

 

[Graham1973]

Two recent anthology finds which are exercises in recycling.

1992s 'The Giant Book of Science Fiction Stories' reprints a 1986 anthology and uses a Jim Burns image that I think originated with 'Planet Story' (Though I'm sure I've seen other versions of the female character who's at the heart of the picture.), 1997s 'The Giant Book of New World SF - Short Novels of the 1960s' reprints a 1991 volume entitled 'The Mammoth Book of New World Science Fiction', the cover is a Chris Moore piece that once graced William Gibson's 1988 short story collection, 'Burning Chrome'.

Both volumes were published by Magpie Books under their 'The Book Company' imprint.

 

[Rhinocrates]

A recent private commission by Jim Burns, 'A Martian Fantasy.' It's a compilation of various visions of Mars from HG Wells and Edgar Rice Burroughs to the present.

 

[hesham]

Hi,

https://flic.kr/p/2agUCNz

View: https://www.flickr.com/photos/57440551@N03/44155920525

 

[Sineva]

Colonial IV spaceship looming over a futuropolis, painting by Angus McKie

Gets a full page in this

This one I remember from the TTA book Spacecraft from 2000 to 2100 AD
In my neck of the woods they advertised the book on tv with several pics from it including this one,which really caught my eye as an 8yo.
I`ve always liked Angus Mckies stuff,I`ve still got his graphic novel from Heavy Metal publishing,So beautiful and so dangerous.

 

[Graham1973]

Another moment in Star Trek history, the first original (e.g. not based off episode scripts.) novel length work based on the series. This 1968 effort is also to my knowledge the only work by science fiction author Mack Reynolds to still be reissued in print. The cover as are the interior illustrations are the work of Sparky Moore (No relation to Chris Moore).

 

[Michel Van]

This here bring Sci-fi art to the point:

 

[Rhinocrates]

Interviews with some great sf artists. You can't link directly with all the first two, but follow the links to YouTube.

Chris Moore:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVelrJLxRCM&t=3s


John Harris:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgJvfAAiSYc


Jim Burns - with a little bit on his attempt to become an RAF pilot and his work with Ridley Scott:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRhSmAqCiY8&t=1s

 

[Graham1973]

Chris Foss's cover to the last volume in Jack Vance's Demon Princes series, 'The Book of Dreams'

 

[publiusr]

More recent imaginings

Researchers envision sci-fi worlds involving changes to atmospheric water cycle

Human activity is changing the way water flows between the Earth and atmosphere in complex ways and with likely long-lasting consequences that are hard to picture.

phys.org

 

[Graham1973]

The delightfully goofy (with an interesting cameo) cover art by James Warhola for the 1987 story collection 'Tales from the Spaceport Bar' edited by George H. Scithers & Darrell Schweitzer.

 

[Graham1973]

The cover by Doug Beekman for the 1989 story collections 'Another Round at the Spaceport Bar' edited by George H. Scithers & Darrell Schweitzer.

 

[Graham1973]

The covers by unknown artists for the UK release in 1988 and 1992 of 'Tales from the Spaceport Bar' and 'Another Round at the Spaceport Bar' edited by George H. Scithers & Darrell Schweitzer.

 

[Justo Miranda]

Hi

 

[Graham1973]

The cover by James Gurney to William Greenleaf's 1982 novel 'The Tartarus Incident'

 

[Graham1973]

Atilla Heja's cover to William Greenleaf's first novel, 1980's 'Time Jumper'

 

[Graham1973]

Algol was a fanzine that existed between 1964 and 1978 before going professional under the name Starship in which form it lasted until 1984. For a period they used artwork covers created by professionals. These two 1970s covers feature art by D. A. Dickinson and Eddie Jones.

 

[Graham1973]

Cosmos was a short lived science fiction magazine that appeared for four months in 1977. The four covers were done by George Schelling (May) Vincent DiFate (July), Jack Gaughan (September), Jack Gaughan (November).

 

[publiusr]

The vault

Science Fiction Sets & Vehicles

Outer Limits TOS Spacecraft

It was only about a decade of separation between Star Trek and Star Wars---but it felt longer.

For one, woodcrafting was about sculpting blocks down to a desired, flowing shape.
For the other, it was about greebling things up for very busy surface details.

With CGI, like cars (what with the Audi-rip-off Ford Taurus)---ships became prone to blobification in the digital era.

Spacecraft in 1977 looked so much different than trekships of 66---but now there is what I call the Homeworld Stagnation that has lasted for decades and continues to poison the well.

Sci-fi spacecraft have gone from graceful, to pebbly, to swollen.

 

[Rhinocrates]

Spacecraft in 1977 looked so much different than trekships of 66---but now there is what I call the Homeworld Stagnation that has lasted for decades and continues to poison the well.

Sci-fi spacecraft have gone from graceful, to pebbly, to swollen.

Amen.

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/StandardHumanSpaceship

 

[Graham1973]

The cover by Steve Crisp to Jack Vance's 'Trullion: Alastor 2262' (1973), note also the interesting cameo from another fictional universe in the background.

 

[publiusr]

Ah, the new Federation starship…
USS Robespierre.

Actually Christopher Bennett had something similar in a recent novel.

 

[martinbayer]

There are a few fundamental first principles for future exoatmospheric spacecraft design. For starters, for any pressure vessel, be it a human habitat or a propellant tank, a sphere is the ideal shape based on a mass per volume ratio. The second best choice, based on considerations such as launchability or (artificial?) gravity, are cylinders. After that, it's up to flat surface panels, either for heat rejection or for solar power generation. And if there are any propulsion units, their thrust vector with any forseeable technology better be aligned with the center of gravity of the craft - I'm looking at you, Enterprise...

 

[Rhinocrates]

Maciej Rebisz dances across the line between realistic speculation and stuff that wouldn't be out of place in Stewart Cowley's Terran Trade Authority books. There's a distinct Peter Elson influence.

 

[Rhinocrates]

Angus McKie did a series to illustrate Brian Stableford's Hooded Swan series. Stableford, alas, died a couple of months ago and was very prolific as a writer, historian and translator of sf. He had a very strong sense of irony - 'Hooded Swan' is a name for the dodo and creators of an advanced starship synthesising human and alien technology (and hopefully culture) thought that it would make its contemporaries obsolete, as dead as the dodo, which is the first level of irony. However, being who he was, he added another level in a a plot extending through the series of a commercially-driven galactic empire emerging that would eventually have no place for such idealistic endeavours. The narrator and protagonist, Grainger, is the ship's pilot and a breezily cynical commentator on the pretensions of both his employers and that imperial forces he foresees arising.

 

[Graham1973]

...I'm looking at you, Enterprise...

So was artist Robert Tinney when he did the cover art for BYTE magazines December 1977 issue.

 

[Rhinocrates]

McKie took a rather literal interpretation based on the 'Swan' name. This is my own take on the Hooded Swan, based on descriptions in the books. She was supposed to land on her tail and have an articulated exoskeleton over a quasi-musculature.

 

[Rhinocrates]

Some images without the text.

 

[Rhinocrates]

Stewart Crowley used the Hooded Swan art for the Interstellar Queen in his Terran Trade Authority series and McKie has inspired some fanart too.

 

[Rhinocrates]

Brian Stableford followed up the Hooded Swan series with the Daedalus series, about the crew of a starship sent out to recontact interstellar colonies after a century-long hiatus. They were 'hard sf' in the sense that Stableford's qualifications were in biology and sociology and he plausibly explored scenarios related to these disciplines. His narrator and protagonist, Alex, was just as cynical as Grainger but a scientist more willing to lecture on what he found. Grainger knew how the Hooded Swan flew but explained only as much as he needed to as a pilot while Alex just didn't give a damn about the mechanical stuff - though he did get on well with the equally cynical pilot who was pretty much a female version of Grainger. Tim White did a few of the covers. All we know about the eponymous starship is that it was black and cylindrical and equipped with sophisticated laboratories and wasn't suited to hopping about on a planet once it had landed.

The one with the yellow sky is from The City of the Sun, about a colony that had built a city based on Tommaso Campanella's Renaissance utopia of that name.

 

[Rhinocrates]

Brian Stableford co-authored The Third Millennium with David Langford, a fictional future history inspired by HG Wells' The Shape of Things to Come. This is Tim White's art for the paperback edition.

 

[Rhinocrates]

Stableford then used The Third Millennium as a worldbuilding template for another series about the effects on society of genetically-engineered 'emortality' on society. That is, a succession of technologies can extend life almost indefinitely, but don't necessarily protect one from misadventure or murder. Donato Giancola illustrated some to these.

 

[Rhinocrates]

Finally, US editions of the Hooded Swan and Daedalus series. Frank Kelly Freas did Rhapsody in Black, Promised Land, The Paradise Game, The Fenris Device, and Swan Song from the Hooded Swan series; Jack Gaughan did the cover for Halcyon Drift, the first of that series; Don Maitz did Balance of Power and The City of the Sun from the Daedalus series; Terry Oakes did The Florians from that series and HR Van Dongen did The Paradox of the Sets, the last of that series, which was not published in the UK. First, Freas:

 

[Rhinocrates]

And the others:

 

[Rhinocrates]

Better resolution versions of Freas' art. The Hooded Swan appears in the background of the cover for Rhapsody in Black as a classic sci-fi rocketship.