Monday, June 24, 2013

Spaceships From 1970s British SF Paperbacks, Part 1














18 Comments:

Anonymous talkie_tim said...

That Brian Aldiss cover looks like the new Mac Pro to my eye.

June 24, 2013 2:50 pm  
Anonymous Ian said...

Unless I'm mistaken, the cover art
for most of the books is done
either by Chris Foss or artists
influenced by him.

Nobody has ever painted spaceships
in a more convincing or evocative
manner; he gave them the look
of being built out of real hardware
while, at the same time, giving
them the look of something out
a dream.

June 24, 2013 7:05 pm  
Blogger Al R said...

The cover of The Last Starship from Earth caught my eye in a newsagents in Barry circa 1974 - something about the title and the image really struck my imagination. Still not read the book...

June 24, 2013 7:37 pm  
Blogger Al R said...

334, of course, that well known space opera.

June 24, 2013 7:39 pm  
Blogger Adrian Midgley said...

Last Starship v good.

June 24, 2013 9:50 pm  
Blogger Paul McAuley said...

I'm pretty sure that 'only' 8/13 of these covers are by the great Chris Foss. More covers next week, and attributions.

June 25, 2013 11:11 am  
Blogger Al said...

I count ten by him.

June 25, 2013 10:58 pm  
Blogger Paul McAuley said...

I can't find attributions for the Anderson and Delany. Do you have evidence they're by CF?

June 25, 2013 11:49 pm  
Blogger Al said...

No, I was eyeballing it based on my childhood and the giant coffee table book of his work that I have. No guarantees!

June 25, 2013 11:51 pm  
Blogger Paul McAuley said...

Does Hardware have all his covers?

One of the images here looks a little like CF's stuff...but isn't.

June 26, 2013 12:14 am  
Blogger Al R said...

I'd say the Delaney is by Tony Roberts. Very active around the same time as Chris Foss.

June 26, 2013 10:07 am  
Blogger Paul McAuley said...

Thanks Al - can't find it on his web site, but one of the other covers is definitely by him.

Only SF cover artist to have appeared in the Tate (when Glenn Brown 'appropriated' his cover image for Double Star).

June 26, 2013 11:45 am  
Blogger Al R said...

Yes, I remember the kerfuffle around that Tate painting - very cheeky. I think Tony Roberts' cover for Van Vogt's Destination:Universe is one of my all-time favorite SF images.

I highly recommend the recent Chris Foss omnibus, by the way.

June 26, 2013 12:31 pm  
Blogger Al said...

I have the omnibus as well and it is wonderful.

I think we're of an age (I'll be 42 in two months) and I have so many childhood memories of his work on books. I didn't even know who he was until a few years ago! Then I saw pictures of his work (and then the omnibus) and it brought back a lot of memories for me.

June 26, 2013 5:41 pm  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

The top one (Aldiss) looks like a Bruce Pennington, another favourite of mine of the era along with Chris Foss.

June 27, 2013 8:52 pm  
Blogger project cassiel said...

I'm sure I read somewhere (it might say so in the Hardware book) that Foss is colour-blind, which explains some of the psychedelic colours in his artwork.

June 28, 2013 5:29 pm  
Blogger Unknown said...

This comment has been removed by the author.

July 05, 2013 4:16 am  
Anonymous Fin said...

Anything yellow and striped is usually Chris Foss - I love his ships, from the first cover of his I encountered (Asimov's Currents of Space). I only found out recently that he worked on designs of Ridley Scott's Nostromo (http://alienseries.wordpress.com/2012/10/23/space-truckin-the-nostromo/)and of course, illustrated the Joy of Sex book.

July 12, 2013 4:22 pm  

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