Science Fiction Cover Art

[Graham1973]

The cover by Chris Moore for the 1988 Sphere Books edition of Larry Niven's 'Ringworld' (1970)

 

[Graham1973]

The cover art by Ken Page for issue 826 of the German science fiction magazine 'Atlan'

 

[Graham1973]

A trio of Eddie Jones cover artworks, for which publications are unknown, but probably one of the German magazines he supplied art for in the 1970s/80s

 

[Michel Van]

The cover art by Ken Page for issue 826 of the German science fiction magazine 'Atlan'

ATLAN is spin off from Perry Rhodan Series it run for 850 issues in Germany.
it focus on Life and adventures of the character Atlan de Gonozal.

 

[Hood]

A totally not ripped-off Star Wars cover - the dub reggae album Scientist and Jammy Strike Back! of 1982.

 

[Michel Van]

A totally not ripped-off Star Wars cover

it got parts of Flash Gordon and Peter Elson also...

 

[Hood]

it got parts of Flash Gordon and Peter Elson also...

Yep the track listing covers all the sci-fi greats:

Storming The Death Star
Mission Impossible
The Alien Aborts
Buck Rogers In The Black Hole
The Death Of Mr. Spock
The Princess Takes Her Revenge
The Crushing Of The Stormtroopers
Flash Gordon Meets Luke Skywalker
The Son Of Darth Vader
C-3PO + R2D2 = The Force

 

[Grey Havoc]

And a Battlestar Galactica Colonial Warrior helmet thrown in for good measure.

 

[Graham1973]

Read it some time ago back in the Cambrian.

The setting was on a mist-shrouded swamp planet and the caverns beneath its surface. The story I read about the book itself later that it was a potential sequel for Star Wars if it was only a moderate success and there would be a reduced budget. Fog and gloom certainly save on set construction costs. Of course the swamp planet idea was used in the end...

Stumbled across a YouTube video (Possibly AI Generated) discussing the aborted movie just posted to YouTube.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aFj9SbSngs

 

[Graham1973]

Tim White's stunning cover art to Robert A. Heinlein's 1953 story collection 'Revolt in 2100'

 

[Brett Davidson]

Shanghai Hulud.

 

[Michel Van]

I love the Sandworms from Velneuve version

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdI6Texwl7M

 

[martinbayer]

Placet Is a Crazy Place came to my mind watching snippets of the clip above (since the original Dune movie adaptation was already a snoozefest of epic proportions, I've never bothered to watch the remake effort).

 

[Graham1973]

Something I never expected to find.

 

[Graham1973]

A moment in history, the cover by an unknown artist to the computer game 'Marauder' (1982) published by 'On Line Systems', later in the same year the company changed it's name to 'Sierra On-Line' and became a legend in computer gaming.... Again, I think that the cultural shadow of 'Star Wars' (1977) can still be seen.

 

[siegecrossbow]

The cover by Jim Burns, for Gene Wolfe's 1972 anthology 'The Fifth Head of Cerberus', while several other artists who provided covers for this book based their Cerberus on a Doberman, Burns chose to base his take on the legendary creature on a Great Dane....

I have the title story in my thousand page sci-fi collection. If I recall correctly the protagonist was a clone of a very wealthy individual and tutored by a robot and ended up committing murder.

 

[martinbayer]

A moment in history, the cover by an unknown artist to the computer game 'Marauder' (1982) published by 'On Line Systems', later in the same year the company changed it's name to 'Sierra On-Line' and became a legend in computer gaming.... Again, I think that the cultural shadow of 'Star Wars' (1977) can still be seen.

Indirectly yes, but I believe the fighter design is more closely based on the Viper from Battlestar Galactica TOS.

 

[Michel Van]

anther cover from Philippe “Manchu” Bouchet
for Iain M. Banks "Use of Weapons"

 

[siegecrossbow]

 

[Graham1973]

The covers to the 1977 edition by FanTac Games and the 1980 edition by Fantasy Games Unlimited of the science fiction wargame 'Space Marines' by A. Mark Ratner. Cover art for the 1977 edition was by Dave Sutherland, the cover art for the 1980 edition was by Jeff Dee.

 

[DWG]

anther cover from Philippe “Manchu” Bouchet
for Iain M. Banks "Use of Weapons"

Not so sure about his Diziet Sma (the woman), but I like his take on Zakalwe (the weapon in question). I'm not sure I'd have pictured Skaffen Amtiskaw (the drone off her left shoulder) quite that way, but heavily shielded is probably fair.

 

[Grey Havoc]

https://www.reddit.com/r/RetroFuturism/comments/1nf0ig1/david_mattingly_cover_art_for_macroscope_by_piers

View: https://www.reddit.com/r/RetroFuturism/comments/1nf0ig1/david_mattingly_cover_art_for_macroscope_by_piers/

 

[Graham1973]

Cover artwork by Chris Moore for the 1979 UK edtion of author Marta Randall's 1978 novel 'Journey'. The site I found this stunning image at revealed the image had been recycled for a 1990s issue of Omni Magazine, but for some reason had not been able to identify it's original use, but then I only knew what it was because I'd owned a disintegrating copy of 'Journey' for a time. As far as I know the books sequel 'Dangerous Games' was not published in the UK so sadly there is no Chris Moore cover for that story.

 

[Graham1973]

Chris Moore artwork for the anthology of Philip K. Dick fiction originally entitled 'The Days of Perky Pat' but subsequently renamed 'Minority Report'.

 

[publiusr]

https://www.reddit.com/r/RetroFuturism/comments/1nf0ig1/david_mattingly_cover_art_for_macroscope_by_piers

That ship almost looks believable.

Cthulhu art…and prose:
https://bookandfilmglobe.com/books/that-is-not-dead-which-still-sells/

 

[robunos]

The CGI cover by Marc Lee, to 'Nothing Personal' (2025) the tenth volume in the 'Wars Edge Berserkers' series by Ryan W. Aslesen. While the other novels, such as 'Magnificent Bastards' (2023) who's cover is posted earlier in the thread, have focussed on hovertanks, this is the first volume in the series to feature Mecha units.

This is interesting. I saw this illo, and thought it might be a good start for a 'Battletech' 'mech design, so I saved it for future reference. Today, reading some 'Battletech' fiction, I came across a 'mech type called the 'Blood Reaper' that I wasn't familiar with. Checking on Sarna.net, I find that the'Blood Reaper', and the 'Nothing Personal' mech are almost identical.
The 'Nothing Personal' mech's feet are different, there are more tubes in the missile launcher mounted in the shoulders, and the arm mounted weapons appear to be autocannons rather than energy weapons. Other than that, the two are the same.
Digging further, the 'Blood Reaper' first appears in the 'Technical Readout 3085', a 'Battletech ' sourcebook first published in 2010, with the updted version appearing in 'Recognition Guide: ilClan, Vol. 33' published in 2023. As mentioned in the above Post,'Nothing Personal' was published in 2025. As the publishers of 'Battletech' are notoriously protective of their Intellectual Property', and I've never seen 'Battletech' imagery published in non-'Battletech' stuuf, I'm wondering if this use was authorised . . .

cheers,
Robin.

 

[Graham1973]

The cover artwork by Peter Andrew Jones, for the 1978 UK reprinting of 'The Silent Invaders' a 1963 story by Robert Silverberg.

 

[Graham1973]

This is interesting. I saw this illo, and thought it might be a good start for a 'Battletech' 'mech design, so I saved it for future reference. Today, reading some 'Battletech' fiction, I came across a 'mech type called the 'Blood Reaper' that I wasn't familiar with. Checking on Sarna.net, I find that the'Blood Reaper', and the 'Nothing Personal' mech are almost identical.
The 'Nothing Personal' mech's feet are different, there are more tubes in the missile launcher mounted in the shoulders, and the arm mounted weapons appear to be autocannons rather than energy weapons. Other than that, the two are the same.
Digging further, the 'Blood Reaper' first appears in the 'Technical Readout 3085', a 'Battletech ' sourcebook first published in 2010, with the updted version appearing in 'Recognition Guide: ilClan, Vol. 33' published in 2023. As mentioned in the above Post,'Nothing Personal' was published in 2025. As the publishers of 'Battletech' are notoriously protective of their Intellectual Property', and I've never seen 'Battletech' imagery published in non-'Battletech' stuuf, I'm wondering if this use was authorised . . .

cheers,
Robin.

Thanks for finding that, I'll check to see if the artwork has changed....

 

[Graham1973]

The post-Apocalyptic cover by Vincent Prask to the fourth issue of 'Australian Realms' an Australian gaming magazine that was published from the late 1980s to the mid 1990s.

 

[Graham1973]

'School of Foss' artwork on the cover of the 1984 computer game 'Space Walk' by Mastertronic. The art itself was by Mark J. Brady.

 

[Michel Van]

Richard Corben again
Cover for The 1977 Annual World’s Best SF, edited by Arthur W. Saha and Donald A. Wollheim.
reprint in various Comic publication of Warren, Heavy Metal, Underground Comixs (also Metal Hurlant?)
i love how the beings and equipment are soo Aliens

 

[Graham1973]

Peter Elson cover art, but I'm not sure what for, the title is given as 'The Eye in the Sky', but there are actually several stories with that title.

 

[Michel Van]

Peter Elson cover art, but I'm not sure what for, the title is given as 'The Eye in the Sky', but there are actually several stories with that title.

it's 1979 publication of Phillip K. Dick "Eye in Sky"

Source
https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?1856885

 

[Brett Davidson]

View attachment 783981

It's by Peter Goodfellow, a Scottish artist who turned more to landscapes in his later years.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Goodfellow_(artist)
He also did some illustrations for the booklet for Jeff Wayne's The War of the Worlds.

 

[Brett Davidson]

More by him. The blue plumber's nightmare is for a collection/fixup of short stories by Edward Bryant called Cinnabar. The humanoid figure with a sheep is for an edition of Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? The split sphere with the eye is for an edition of Ursula LeGuin's City of Illusions. The gold one appeared in one of the Terran Trade Authority books. The human silhouette on the lunar background appeared on a cover for the magazine Omni.

 

[Brett Davidson]

Same artist, three books by Philip Jose Farmer. I haven't read them, so I don't know if the cover for one of them is relevant, but it obviously refers to Gustave Moreau's 'Oedipus and the Sphinx' of 1864.

 

[Brett Davidson]

Angus McKie created the cover art for the paperback editions of Brian Stableford's Hooded Swan series, depicting the eponymous starship. The images were later picked up by Stewart Crowley for his Terran Trade Authority books, though presented as illustrations for a different story. Stableford had a pretty sarcastic sense of humour, like his narrator, Grainger, the ship's pilot. 'Hooded Swan' was an alternate name for the dodo and Stableford used it as an ironic commentary on the obsolescence of the idealism of its creators against the emergence of a galactic empire from the mergers of multistellar corporations. McKie was more literal, modelling the silhouette of the ship on a swimming swan. In any case, the design proved to be a favourite with readers of both franchises. To start with, here are a few of McKie's most beautiful and evocative covers.

 

[Brett Davidson]

Kevin Davies made this model of the Hooded Swan.

 

[Brett Davidson]

This one is by Jeff Bond.

 

[southwestforests]

This one is by Jeff Bond.

That image has me wondering what the Trade Authority would think of someone who was aiming to misbehave,