FUTURE MAN: BRAVE NEW WORLD OR GENETIC NIGHTMARE?

Granada hardback, 1984. Cover painting by Peter Gudynas.

In the final phase man will become master of his own evolution as well as that of all other living things. 

Thanks to Jerry Boucher who made me aware of this book and the similarity of a certain Peter Gudynas painting similar to the cover of Frederik Pohl's Man Plus, which I posted a few weeks ago.

This book (with obligatory Asimov foreword) is sort of disappointingly not concerned with science fiction per se, rather the application of speculative fiction, theories as well as modern science and medicine in real life (circa 1984). Topics include evolution, the biological revolution, mastering the environment, diseases, ageing, engineering people, mind control and scenarios for the future of mankind. The majority of illustrations are photographs of a medical or scientific nature, but there's a few paintings by Gudynas, Peter Goodfellow, Terry Oakes and others have artwork credits in the acknowledgements section but I do not recognize which images are theirs.

Life underwater.

Man modified for life underwater.

Man modified to live in space by Peter Gudynas.

Man modified for war.