Pulp/Sf/Fantasy Paperback Covers

[Voros]

 

[Voros]

 

[Voros]

 

[Tulpa Girl]

 

[Voros]

 

[Voros]

This looks like they took a mild sexploitation cover and sf-ied it.

 

[Sharrow]

They probably did. The art budgets were not large for those books and magazines, and nor was the time spent acquiring it.

 

[Voros]

 

[Voros]

 

[Giganotosaurus]

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I don't know why but this cracks me up. Maybe it's the maids expression, or that the unconscious girl appears to have one boob, or that it has an unexpected interpretation of "Little Green Men".

 

[Lofgeornost]

I recently learned that Suzy McKee Charnas died early this year (January 2), so here are some covers of her Holdfast series:

Gene Szafran for the Ballantine paperback of the first book of the series (1974), Jerry Cosgrove for the Berkley hardback of the second (1979), and Doug Beekman for the paperback edition (also Berkley, 1979):



Rick Berry's cover for the hardcover of the third book (Tor, 1994), Bobbie Russon's for an omnibus of the first two books (Women's Press, 1995), and Dominic D'Andrea's cover of the final book in hardcover (Tor, 1999):

 

[Voros]

I went on a 70s feminist sf binge years ago and Charnas is definitely one of the best.

 

[Giganotosaurus]

I recently learned that Suzy McKee Charnas died early this year (January 2), so here are some covers of her Holdfast series:

Gene Szafran for the Ballantine paperback of the first book of the series (1974), Jerry Cosgrove for the Berkley hardback of the second (1979), and Doug Beekman for the paperback edition (also Berkley, 1979):

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Rick Berry's cover for the hardcover of the third book (Tor, 1994), Bobbie Russon's for an omnibus of the first two books (Women's Press, 1995), and Dominic D'Andrea's cover of the final book in hardcover (Tor, 1999):

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I'm kinda curious as to what the series is about. Looks post-apocalyptic. I can't seem to find anything as to a summary online.

 

[Voros]

I'm kinda curious as to what the series is about. Looks post-apocalyptic. I can't seem to find anything as to a summary online.

The sf encylopedia has an entry that covers it pretty well:

SFE: Charnas, Suzy McKee

Welcome to the fourth edition of The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction.

sf-encyclopedia.com

I've read Walk to the End of the World and The Vampire Tapestry. I did read some of the most 'radical' feminist sf of the seperatist-kind through an ironic lens but Charnas impressed me with the clarity and visceral bluntness of her prose.

 

[Giganotosaurus]

The sf encylopedia has an entry that covers it pretty well:

SFE: Charnas, Suzy McKee

Welcome to the fourth edition of The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction.

sf-encyclopedia.com

I've read Walk to the End of the World and The Vampire Tapestry. I did read some of the most 'radical' feminist sf of the seperatist-kind through an ironic lens but Charnas impressed me with the clarity and visceral bluntness of her prose.

I read through it, interesting.
I did find this little bit under more of what she wrote somewhat humorous:
"A short Werewolf story, "Boobs".
Apparently it won a Hugo.

 

[remial]

I read through it, interesting.
I did find this little bit under more of what she wrote somewhat humorous:
"A short Werewolf story, "Boobs".
Apparently it won a Hugo.

I like it

edit: (oh wait, there is more to the story than just the one word... nevermind...)

 

[Lofgeornost]

Since I mentioned Paul Williams' Pelbar Cycle in another thread, I thought I'd post the covers of the first editions. They were all Del Rey/Ballantine paperbacks:

The Breaking of Northwall, cover by Darrell Sweet and The Ends of the Circle, by Ralph Brillhart (both 1981):



Ruth Sanderson's cover for The Dome in the Forest (1981) and Darrell Sweet's for The Fall of the Shell (1982):



All the other covers were by Darrell Sweet--these are for An Ambush of Shadows (1983) and The Song of the Axe (1985):



The final entry, The Sword of Forbearance (1985), again with a Sweet cover:

 

[Voros]

Never knew this artist's name but always loved his psychedelic 70s paperback covers.

 

[Voros]

 

[Lofgeornost]

I like Szafran's covers--there are some more of them upthread, in posts 173 & 174.

I recently learned that John Jakes died in late March of this year, so here are some covers for various Brak the Barbarian books.

The Frazetta cover for the Avon paperback (1968) and Bob Fowke's for the Tandem version (1976):



Frazetta's cover for the second book, also Avon (1969) and Fowke's for the Tandem version (1976):



Charles Moll's cover for the third book, a later reprinting by Pocket Books (1977), and Fowke's for the Tandem edition (1976):



Fowke's version of Brak is less muscular, and more dressed, than his American versions.

 

[Voros]

I need to read more Jakes, some of his sf sounds good too. I've only read The Last Magicians which is a well-written singleton with an appropriately mythic tone told with pulp concision.

Also like the cover.

 

[Lofgeornost]

I need to read more Jakes, some of his sf sounds good too. I've only read The Last Magicians which is a well-written singleton with an appropriately mythic tone told with pulp concision.

Also like the cover.

View attachment 58979

I think I read Brak the Barbarian many, many years ago, but have no memory of it. The Last Magicians looks interesting, though.

 

[Lofgeornost]

Since I recently finished Tanith Lee's Death's Master, the second of her Flat Earth novels, I thought it was time for some covers of it.

David Schleinkofer's cover for the DAW paperback (1979), Tim White's for the Hamlyn (1982), and Ken Kelly's for the DAW reprint (1982):



The Michael Whelan cover for the DAW edition of 1984, John Kaiine and Tanith Lee's cover for TaKeLa (2015), Bastien Deharme's for DAW (2016):



The dustjacket for the omnibus I've actually been reading, by Dawn Wilson for the Science Fiction Book Club (1987):

 

[Lofgeornost]

Some covers of L. Sprague De Camp's The Tritonian Ring, which I just read:

The original publication in Two Complete Science Adventure Books (1951) by Allen Anderson, the uncredited cover for the Twayne edition (1953):



Frazetta's for the 1968 Paperback Library edition and an uncredited 1971 re-issue. Both show the encounter with the female Satyr:



The Del Rey/Ballantine cover by Vincent Di Fate (1977) and the Sphere cover by Melvyn Grant (1978):



The one I remember from my youth is the 1977 Del Rey.

 

[Voros]

I have the 71' version and really like its hippie cover.

 

[Sharrow]

Some covers of L. Sprague De Camp's The Tritonian Ring, which I just read:



The Del Rey/Ballantine cover by Vincent Di Fate (1977) and the Sphere cover by Melvyn Grant (1978):

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The one I remember from my youth is the 1977 Del Rey.

The one I remember was the Sphere one, but then just about everything we got in NZ at the time was Sphere or NEL (and NEL might've been gone by then). The Sphere editions were noteworthy for having that terrible glue that would turn into yellow powder after a few years making the book fall apart.

 

[Lofgeornost]

I have the 71' version and really like its hippie cover.

I wonder if it is by David McCall Johnston? He did some fantasy/sf covers during that decade, including for Moorcock's Corum series and Walton's Mabinogion. I was going to post them but found I'd already done so upthread.

The one I remember was the Sphere one, but then just about everything we got in NZ at the time was Sphere or NEL (and NEL might've been gone by then). The Sphere editions were noteworthy for having that terrible glue that would turn into yellow powder after a few years making the book fall apart.

The Sphere cover is notable because it features one of De Camp's more interesting creations from the book--the Izzuneg. These are 'zombies' made from decapitated individuals, re-animated by sylphs. The king of Belem, Awoqqas, discovered the means to create them and wants to convert all the common people of his realm into such servants. (That final element doesn't make a lot of sense, given that Awoqqas has to create each izzuneg personally, and one-by-one; you'd think that doing this for an entire population would be far too time-consuming).

Given their single eye in their chests, I wonder if De Camp got the idea from Herodotus' remarks on what are usually called Blemmyes, which could explain why their kingdom is Belem.

 

[Agemegos]

Given their single eye in their chests, I wonder if De Camp got the idea from Herodotus' remarks on what are usually called Blemmyes, which could explain why their kingdom is Belem.

De Camp was a keen student of Herodotus, as is very obvious to anyone who has read his historical novels set in the ancient Levant, especially The Dragon of the Ishtar Gate. That story (which is a lot of fun) was somewhat spoiled for me when de Camp mentioned the date in the first chapter. Having read Herodotus, I quickly realised what the twist at the end was going to be.

 

[Lofgeornost]

De Camp was a keen student of Herodotus, as is very obvious to anyone who has read his historical novels set in the ancient Levant, especially The Dragon of the Ishtar Gate. That story (which is a lot of fun) was somewhat spoiled for me when de Camp mentioned the date in the first chapter. Having read Herodotus, I quickly realised what the twist at the end was going to be.

I read that some years ago (actually, in 2014) and remember enjoying it. It's longer since I've re-read Herodotus, alas.

Last night I read more of the Pusadian series, including "The Hungry Hercynian," where De Camp is taking a name at least from Caesar rather than Herodotus. I can't post a cover, since the story did not get one, but it did have an interior illustration by Lawrence Stevens:

 

[Tulpa Girl]

 

[Lofgeornost]

Kenneth Bulmer was a genre writing machine. Under the pseudonym Alan Burt Akers he wrote the almost-never-ending Scorpio series of planetary romances featuring Dray Prescott, but he also authored several other SF series, a bunch of standalone SF novels, and war and naval fiction--over 50 novels in all.

I've never read any of his stuff, as far as I can remember, but I stumbled on some covers of his 'Keys to the Dimensions' books and thought I'd post a few. They mostly appeared as Ace Doubles between 1965 and 1972. Here are Kelly Freas' cover for Wizards of Senchuria (1969) and Jack Gaughan's for The Ships of Durostorum (1970):



The last book in the series was a stand-alone novel, published by DAW in 1983, with a cover by Ken W. Kelly:

 

[Kobayashi]

Dumarest covers by Enki Bilal

 

[Lofgeornost]

How about some covers from Fantastic-Stories of Imagination from 1963? The covers all illustrate the first-named story.

January by Vernon Kramer and February by Lloyd Birmingham:



April by Frank Bruno, and May by Vernon Kramer:



August, again by Vernon Kramer, and October by Ed Emshwiller:

 

[Giganotosaurus]

How about some covers from Fantastic-Stories of Imagination from 1963? The covers all illustrate the first-named story.

January by Vernon Kramer and February by Lloyd Birmingham:

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April by Frank Bruno, and May by Vernon Kramer:

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August, again by Vernon Kramer, and October by Ed Emshwiller:

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I like that Dr. Adams Garden of Evil has a plant with boobs.

 

[Voros]

 

[Lofgeornost]

Some covers of Disch's On Wings of Song:

Ed Emshwillers' for the first part of the serial in Fantasy & Science Fiction, Feb. 1979, and Malcolm Ashman's for Gollancz (1979):



Michael Mariano's for St. Martin's (1979) and Lou Feck's for Bantam (1980):



Chris Moore's for Magnum (1981) and Manuel de los Galanes and Roberto Uriel for Bibliopolis (2003):

 

[Lofgeornost]

Some covers of Anderson's A Midsummer Tempest:

The Doubleday hardcover (1974), by Tim Lewis and the Darrell Sweet paperback for Ballantine (1975):



Bob Fowke's for the Orbit pb (1975) and Luis Bermejo's for Tor (1984):



I'm not sure who the artists are for these last two; Tor's second paperback (1985) and the Open Road e-book (2014):

 

[Lofgeornost]

Some covers, or similar, for Joseph O'Neill's Land Under England.

The frontispiece for the first American edition (1935); I'm not sure who the artist is. The Joe Petagno cover for the New English Library reprint (1978):



Marjorie Impell's cover for the Overlook Press hardback (1981), and an uncredited cover for their Tusk paperback (1985). I don't know anything about Impell's career; a Google search for her only through up a couple of nature lithographs from about the same date.



Rodney Matthews' cover for Penguin Classic Science Fiction (1987) and Wallace Smith's for Gollancz (2018):



These are an interesting study in the gap between a book and its covers. The one that is closest to capturing an actual scene from the novel is the 1935 frontispiece. The Overlook/Tusk covers from the 1980s are also pretty true to the book--Impell had clearly paid some attention to O'Neill's description of the underground flora and fauna. The others, which are more catchy visually, are actually pretty far from anything described in the novel.

 

[Voros]

 

[Tulpa Girl]

Polish cover to Anderson's Brain Wave.