—is that I have less time to blog. TYG’s schedule has freed up which means mine frees up. Plus we’re working on doing more couple stuff, something we got out of the habit of when quarantining during 2020 and 2021. So having less time for blogging is good. But it comes with consequences: the deep, thoughtful post I’d planned to write, one that would undoubtedly have changed how everyone reading it saw the world, must be postponed in favor of something simpler.
Specifically a post showcasing Richard Powers’ paperback cover art. Powers was popular from the 1950s on, partly because while his covers looked science fictional most of them didn’t go for conventional imagery. For example, here’s Keith Laumer’s time-travel novel, Dinosaur Beach. The cover screams “not a mainstream work,” but it doesn’t have conventional time-travel visuals either.
The same applies to the rest of these books. You may have heard of some of the authors.
You can find more examples here. While I’m still enjoying socializing, I should be back with more substantial posts next week. And who knows, maybe staring at Powers’ art will change the way you see the world.
#SFWApro
I always love finding an edition of a book I want with Powers’ art on the cover. A few of my favorites, which I happen to have, include the early ’60s edition of Phyllis Gotlieb’s Sunburst (Powers also did the cover to a 1970s reissue, but I like the earlier art better), Katherine McLean’s Missing Man and, especially, Miriam Allen deFord’s Xenogenesis – if I could find a large print of that one, I’d frame it and hang it on the wall.
Thanks for the link, by the way – that’s a fantastic gallery.
I know. I still hope to get the “Art of Richard Powers” book sometime, but the gallery is a good substitute. I will check to see if it’s got any of those covers you mentioned (I admit to not knowing any of those books).
I know it’s not, but I can’t help but identify the figure in the left background of the DINOSAUR BEACH novel cover as the Phantom Stranger.
It does look like him, you’re right.
Ignoramus that I am I had never heard of Richard Powers but that artwork is fantastic. It reminds me of Franco-Belgian science fiction comic books. Beautiful but slightly weird or trippy. If it was album art it would be 70s progrock.
A very good comparison.
While I’m old enough to have seen Powers’ art for years (I have that edition of Dinosaur Beach), it took regularly checking the Books From the Crypt’s cover-art page (http://www.booksfromthecrypt.com/dailypap.htm) to make me realize how much of his art I’ve seen.