Favourite SF book covers

In response to "Most boring SF book covers", I want to see the best SF covers.

Yes, I know it is superficial, but if I am paying good money for a book which I know I like, I don't think it unreasonable to expect some effort to go into the cover itself.

Suggestions?

First one that comes to mind for me is Michael Whelan's cover for 2010: ODYSSEY TWO.

Gorgeous.

Also Barclay Shaw's covers for Harlan Ellison's books in the mid-80's.

I always liked the new cover for A Clockwork Orange. It really spoke about the protaganist to me when I read it, especially since I was a teenager at the time.

http://www.librarything.com/work/1473

Most SF covers are my "favorites".

Here's one of my recent favorite covers. It's the colors or something and it's still on my TBR list:

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0765342111.01._SX140_SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg

I've always thought the Ace covers for the Michael Moorcock books from the late '80's were beautiful. Of those my favorite has always been the cover for The Sailor on the Seas of Fate:

Since Elric isn't properly sci-fi, another one I always thought was beautifully desgined was the Isaac Asimov collection Robot Visions:



(I like the way Ralph McQuarrie does robots)

BTW, Cliff, kudos on the 2010 cover. That's another wonderful cover. There were some really neat designs for Arthur C. Clarke books put out then, revolving around nudes and planets. I know it sounds funny, but they are some great covers. I'll pick these up whenever I see one at a used bookstore.

Here's the cover for The Sands of Mars:



(Sorry if I'm flooding the thread.)

This is one of my current favs, by Wayne Barlowe:

http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/images/n2/n13130.jpg

Here's another fav -don't know the artist:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/e3/TheGodwhale%281stEd%29.jpg

Here's a Kelly Freas I like-he used a piece of Jello as reference for that floating lens in the painting:

http://oivas.com/bjb/img/viruss.gif

And I haven't read this book, but I luhhv this Freas spacebabe:

http://www.toddbehr.com/chandler/Catch-the-Star-Winds.jpg

Then or course there's this James Bama classic for The Illustrated Man:

http://www.iupui.edu/~crbs/Bradbury/Bradburyjpegs/ill_man5.jpg

This Emswhiller cover takes on the impossible task of representing the enormous events in this book and ends up with an image of Biblical proportions:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v432/jgmallard/Ace/ISBN/03300.jpg

Always loved this one :

http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/images/n0/n2288.jpg

Luhhv this one- I'd buy this one if I found it (and had the money):

http://schools.webster.k12.mo.us/images/ace/3666/ace_653240523_1194388707.jpg

Always thought this one was pretty cool:

http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o126/toyah_photo/solaris_lem2.jpg

Arthur,

Check it out, hurry though. The auction ends in 19 hours from this post. Currently, no bids $0.99 with $3.88 shipping: a Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle

i like the paperback cover of the forever peace with the small white dove flying out of the center.

Patrica Anthony had some great book covers. (What ever happened to her anyway?) Two of my favorites:

The Happy Policeman


Cradle of Splendor

How do you display images on the thread?

By the way, here's the Nagata cover I linked. I was afraid to add the images directly for fear of bogging people's connection down and also not knowing the rules here for direct links.....guess it's ok!


as for how to do:
OK...breaking it up so it doesn't get interpreted...

First you start it with one of these:

9>Check it out, hurry though. The auction ends in 19 hours from this post. Currently, no bids $0.99 with $3.88 shipping: a Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle

I have the PB, thanks GwenH, it's the original artwork I was talking about. That's why I said if I had the money.I don't though -not now, anyway. ;)

11> I like that cover for Cradle of Splendor as well - that cover made me impulse purchase that book...

Oh, didn't think about how displaying the images might slow things for others.

On the other hand, if you want to display images, type this:

(img src="http://urlgoeshere.org")

(Replace the parenthesis with )

#14 - Gwen,

It's funny you keep mentioning that cover for Limit of Vision. The other day I was searching in Google for Isaac Asimov cover art (I forget why now) and I came across the website for Stephen Youll.

He has the art for that book on his website, without the writing and all. If you go to Galleries: Science Fiction it's the first picture.

#17 js,

Thanks! And I had fun looking through the galleries. My favorites tend to be the scenic pictures where the people aren't so prominent. But my favorite of his is definitely the Limit of Vision cover - just so organic and alien, and invitingly colorful all rolled into one. :-)
Gwen

I like the "bas relief" raised cover SF hardback books from the 50's & 60's. preferably first editions. I don't own any now but I am always tempted to try to buy them off the shelf when I see them in a library collection. If I am not mistaken there were some classic SF novels printed in that manner.

thanks for the Patricia Anthony scans..i love her stuff and just reread Cradle of Splendor a couple of weeks ago.

So far I've only read God's Fires but liked it enough that I bought all of her other stuff (except Flanders for some reason).

I don't like the Nagata cover that Gwen posted. It seems quite generic with rather an unfortunate colour.

I do like the cover for Happy Policeman jseger posted far better than the paperback edition I have

I have always loved this old cover of Chapterhouse:Dune

http://www.arrakis.co.uk/chap7.html

I love seeing the covers that people have put up, they all look great.

I really like some of the SF Masterworks covers. They actually match the storyline - the artist has actually read the book, rather than looked at the title and come up with something that barely relates to the story.



This is what a Dune cover should look like, compared to all of the abominations I seen before this. In fact, I might post some of the worst Dune covers up on the other thread.



Captures the look and feel of Gully Foyle perfectly.



A lone man looking out to the rest of the universe. Captures the story perfectly.



Far-future Earth.

Here's one I like. Admittedly, I like many of Jim Burns' covers.

#25 - Rojse,

Whatever else the movie may have gotten wrong, the David Lynch Dune Sandworms were pretty damn cool, weren't they?

I have the paperback edition of Dune from way back when the movie was released. I like the 'two moon' cover it has.

I like that SF Masterworks cover for Dune, but I confess a partiality to the original PB cover:

http://www.treehugger.com/old-dune-book-jh01.jpg

I think one of the more recent covers of Stranger in a Strange Land is great, though I like many of the others as well.


I really enjoy Michael Whelan's work, the first book of Otherland (City of Golden Shadow) is a good example. (The last three books have gorgeous covers too, especially the hardcover versions 'cause they're all metallic shiny.)


Probably my current favorite artist is John Jude Palencar who's work is found on fantasy (Paolini, de Lint, etc.) as well as science fiction novels. Adulthood Rites is very nice.


And finally ('cause I really don't need to be putting up so many), I'd like to include Radical Evolution which is more science than science fiction, but I love the cover and it's related.


I prefer when covers actually match the contents (all of these do), although there are some really great covers out there that have nothing at all to do with the book they're on.

edited for stupid html

Kay Kenyon's series The Entire & The Rose has the most beautiful covers. They are drawn directly from the books' content.

My favorite:

Books 1 & 2:

When #29 PhoenixTerran commented on books with covers that represent the story inside, I was reminded of a book cover I just uploaded to my library - think "the women of gothic novels times six!" Great art, maybe not, but I like it for the chuckle it gave it me!

Those covers for the Kenyon books do not make me want to buy them or read them.

For me they seem to be a very American cover-design - I cannot imagine Gollancz or Orbit UK using those covers. To me they are indicating that the books are more fantasy than SF and that a World Too Near would be too tilted more to the romantic for more tastes

Now I will get around to buying and reading Bright Of The Sky because I know that the cover gives me a false impression of the story from reviews

Is there another way to sell books than sex?

#33 - Is there another way to sell books than sex?

There may be, but why bother;)

#33

No.

Sex sells books, beer, cars and soup. Think of all those hot Moms on the Campbell's Soup ads.

Why else would they put Mrs. Butterworth's syrup in such a shapely bottle?

#27

Agreed - whatever the faults of the movie, the sandworms were not one of them.

#28
A dune cover should have a sandworm, Fremen battling Sardaukar, or something that captures excitement in a single image. It's not a bad cover, but it sort of fails to convey the excitement of the book unless you have read the book.

The movie edition of Dune was one of the covers I was thinking of putting up on the bad covers thread. What sort of excitement can I have for two moons rising over a desert?

I always liked the random spaceships you used to get on UK paperbacks - especially those published by Panther. They were usually by Chris Foss or Tony Roberts or Tim White. NEL, OTOH, seemed to like Bruce Pennington - and he did some good cover art for Dune and various Gene Wolfe novels...

Chris Foss:


(I remember designing a spaceship - deckplans and all - inspired by this when I was about 12 years old.)

Tony Roberts:


Tim White:


Sorry they're a bit blurry - I took the jpegs from LT and seemed to have picked bad ones.

And here's an excellent resource - Astrona.

Dunno if he counts as a SF author (actually, I'm not sure what the Hell you'd call him) but Jonathan Carroll's covers are consistently gorgeous.

Love those SF Masterworks jackets!

Ooh I like Tim White (the book you show there isn't his best work IMO). In fact I have a print of the painting used for the first paperback of The Dark Side Of The Sun. Here is an image of it (along with some other nice art) - and it also says that it was also used for a computer game as well.

No Peter Elson mention Ian? He did the covers for the A. Bertram Chandler books for Sphere but he also did some NEL and Panther/Granada covers. When he did spaceships his style was very like that of Foss. Here is a gallery of some of his covers.

I have several of those books with Elson covers (the Harry Harrison ones, chiefly), but I didn't know his name. Ta.

I'm going to have to expand my cover art book collection. I only have Lightship and Imago by Jim Burns, Journeyman by Chris Moore, The Pentateuch of the Cosmogony by Patrick Woodroffe, Solar Wind by Peter A Jones, 21st Century Foss and Diary of a Spaceperson by Chris Foss, and Magnetic Storm and Flights of Icarus by Roger Dean... Want more. Now.

{Removed content because I got it all terribly wrong. Doh.}

#2

I had two versions of the 2010 movie posters hanging up in my bedroom (when I was a geeky teen). Both were beautiful and inspiring.
I still have them, they're just neatly stored in a poster retirement home at the moment.

#25 and #27

I absolutely love the "two moon" cover of the movie paperback edition of Dune.

Maybe it shouldn't be a Dune cover, but after all these years, I still find the cover captivating.

Wasn't that a song?

Two moons you saw me riding alone
On a great giant worm, using him as my throne.

Switch to decaf, Gene...

Loved the cover on The Sagittarius Command by r.m.meluch. Shame the book was such a disappointment after the first two in the series, but the cover was a small consolation.

Don't know if anyone posted this yet but the way I post covers (and other pictures) into these fields is this:

1. paste in this line of code, removing the spaces between the arrow brackets and the other characters (I had to put the spaces in there so the code would be visible to you).

2. in another window or tab go find the cover you want to post on LT or elsewhere on the web. Right click on it and choose 'copy image location'.

3. paste what you just copied in the line of code replacing the words IMAGE LOCATION.

4. adjust the size of the image if you like by changing the height, which is currently set at 200px. You can paste other lines of the same code continuously after this one (no spaces between the end of one line and beginning of the other) and the covers will appear with a small margin between (see my profile page for an example). The margin is set for 10px in this line of code.

Sometimes it takes a little practice. I'm sure some of you code monkeys have a more streamlined way to do this but this works for me:-)

VERY good, Avaland, I still have trouble with the concept of "point and click"...

> #38: ian, you forgot to mention that the Foss covers for the UK pb of "Foundation" actually were a triptych.

Foss' work for Panther in the 1970s was iconic and to some extent triggered a market boom in paperback sf, in that the spaceships weren't recognisably rockets and so it made sf look different and exciting - even good ol' 'Doc' Smith... I gather that Foss is in semi-retirement in Guernsey, according to his agent.

The best 'Dune' cover I ever saw was the Gollancz UK hb 1st edition, which was all-black with stylised dunes in white. Given that Gollancz at the time was using its iconic yellow covers, this was quite something. And no, I don't have a copy, alas.

The most inappropriate cover I ever saw was the NEL UK paperback of Lloyd Biggle Jnr's "All the colours of darkness". The King lies on his funeral bier. His palace guard stand over him, mourning with true tears of sorrow in their eyes. Overhead, the fleet of flying saucers recedes into the distance. The novel, as you all remember, is about the invention of matter transmitters, their impact on contemporary society, and the effect this in turn has on Earth's status amongst the space-faring civilizations it is about (unknowingly) to come into contact with. Not a King (live or dead), palace guard or flying saucer to be seen in the book. Anywhere.

I find the discussions of cover art interesting especially when you consider that with the current overload of books on the shelves in bookstores, you seldom see the cover of the book. Nowadays I usually only buy books from writers I recognize and don't go out on a limb for new writers. I sometimes wonder how many interesting books I have not purchased because I couldn't see the cover.

The other day I bought a little sf paperback solely because of its cover. (And, okay, because there's wife-sharing in there.)

West of the Sun

OK, THIS is The Greatest SF Cover Of All Time:



(This amuses my wife so much that she appropriated my spare copy to put on permanent display, saying "You can't get rid of this, that's the greatest cover EVER.")

Gor-jus.

No wonder Phil referred to them as "peeling eyeball" covers.

I think he meant it derisively but, based on the above, I can't imagine why. Phil always pined for mainstream acceptance and likely uttered the comment at a low moment.

Bob, you swine, I have numerous editions of Dick but not that one. Covet it while you can--if I ever find out where you live...

Er, yes... that's a first edition PKD, from 1957.

(Even more annoying: I got my copy back in the '80s at a library sale - for a quarter. I later picked up the spare copy at a garage sale....)

Wow...

umm Sauron anyone?

Pictures often say more than words ever can:



"Adolf Hitler's Hugo Award-winning SF Classic!" I had to buy it, and will read it tonight.

Now, that's not one I've seen before!

Ah yes - Hitler emigrates to the US after the failure of the Munich Putsch and becomes an sf writer. I'll be interested to hear what rojse makes of it...

I found this at a thrift store today and couldn't pass it up. The cover art is soooo bad/good!



I would have loved to be the artist asked to illustrate "...people riding on a flying pig with insect legs, in space."

Always liked that Hogan cover...

I keep meaning to read it but another book keeps jumping to the top.