GALAXY MAGAZINE OCTOBER 1962

Cover painting by Virgil Finlay.

Interior illustration by Virgil Finlay for The Ballad Of Lost C'mell.

WORLDS OF IF SCIENCE FICTION AUGUST 1965

Cover by Jack Gaughan from Keith Laumer's Trick Or Treaty.

FUTURE SCIENCE FICTION JUNE 1959

Cover by Virgil Finlay for Obey That Impulse!

Interior illustration by Emsh for Love And The Stars - Today!

Interior illustration by Emsh for Signs Of The Times by Brent Howell.

Illustration by Emsh that accompanied an ad for gummed bookplates.

IF WORLDS OF SCIENCE FICTION JANUARY 1953

Cover: Suggesting The Ultimate Re-Sowing Of The Human Race - 4000AD
by Anton Kurka.

John Schoenherr R.I.P.

Illustration from an unknown issue of Analog. Note the washing machine agitator in the background.

Extraordinary artist, sf art legend and my favourite illustrator in the whole wide world John Schoenherr passed away on Thursday the 8th of April. John received the Hugo award for best professional artist in 1965 and is best known for creating the definitive visualisations of Frank Herbert's Dune world. He was a regular contributor to Analog for nearly thirty years and outside of science fiction, he was known as one of the finest animal artists, illustrated many children's books, and authored one himself (The Barn).

RIP, John.

Interior illustration from Analog (August, 1980)
for Gordon R. Dickson's The Cloak And The Staff.

THE DUELLING MACHINE

Puffin paperback, 1977. Cover illustration by Peter Goodfellow.

"The Duelling Machine was invented to keep peace in the outer galaxies. But in the hands of ambitious and violent men it is misused, and not even its inventor seems able to put things right. Will war envelop the universe? Or will Lieutenant Hector Hector of the Star Watch police succeed in wrestling control from the sinister and ruthless Odal?"

BUG JACK BARRON

Panther SF paperback, 1979 reprint. Cover illustration by
Peter Gudynas.

"ONE OF THE MOST CONTROVERSIAL SCIENCE FICTION NOVELS EVER WRITTEN... 

The place: America. The time: not so very far in the future. Marijuana's legal and advertised on TV; politics are more screwed-up than ever; there's a black separatist state of Mississippi. Against this backdrop, Jack Barron, anarchic mass-media man and heroic womanizer, uncovers a conspiracy of evil cloaking a horrific secret. His choice is agonising. Should he throw in his lot with the conspiracy and gain the greatest prize anyone could hope for? Or should he use his power to blow the story open - and the world apart...? 

Vivid, brutal, erotic and chillingly plausible, Bug Jack Barron has been hailed as a masterpiece and condemned as 'depraved'. The reader must make up his own mind."

A CANTICLE FOR LEIBOWITZ

Corgi paperback, 1979 reissue. Cover painting by Peter Jones.

"After the Fallout, when the Atomic Rain had stopped, the plagues and madness began. And after that came the simplification when the people - those who were left - turned against the rulers, the teachers, the scientists who had turned the world into a barren desert. All knowledge was destroyed, all the learned were killed - only Leibowitz managed to save some of the books... 

And the monks of the order of Leibowitz inherited the sacred relics - spent their lives copying, engraving, interpreting the holy fragments, slowly fashioning a new Renaissance in a barbarous and fallen world..."

A SPECTRE IS HAUNTING TEXAS

Mayflower paperback, 1971. Cover artist uncredited.

"EL ESQUELETO! 

Christopher Crockett La Cruz (or "Scully") is an actor, an extrovert and a ladies' man. To most of the inhabitants of post-World War III he looks outlandish, even sinister. To their women he looks attractive. Earth looks equally odd to Scully. Hormone treatment has turned Texans into giants and their Mex slaves into unhappy dwarfs. 

To the Mexes, Scully is a sign, a Talisman, a Leader. To Scully the Mexes are a cause. The time is ripe for revolution..."

Dan O'Bannon R.I.P.

Dan O'Bannon and H. R. Giger during the production of Alien, 1979.

Creative genius Dan O'Bannon died yesterday at the age of 63. Dan is probably best known for co-writing the original script for the 1979 film Alien with Ronald Shusett, though he also worked on special effects for Star Wars, Dark Star, Alejandro Jodorowski's abandoned Dune project, wrote the best segment for Heavy Metal (B-17), and served as co-writer for the screenplay of two Philip K. Dick adaptations; Total Recall (again with Shusett) and Screamers (with Miguel Tejada-Flores).

RIP, Dan.

Dan O'Bannon and Ronald Shusett.

Dan O'Bannon's original sketch for the Alien creature.

THE MARTIAN INCA

Panther SF paperback, 1978. Cover illustration by Peter Gudynas.

"BRAIN-BLAST ON MARS 

When a Russian spacecraft carrying soil samples from Mars crashes on a remote Bolivian village, the Indians who salvage it fall into a mysterious comatose condition. Only two recover, and on re-awakening, they are conscious of a strange new awareness of themselves and the world outside. Julio, indeed, believes himself to be the Inca - the divine imperial ruler - reborn. 

Meanwhile, up in space a manned American vessel is on its way to Mars. After the 240 million mile voyage, tension on the ship is high and when at last Mars is reached, the deadly soil adds an extra dimension to an already explosive situation... 

What constituent of the Martian soil is causing its literally mind-blowing effects? The answer may be the missing clue to a vital discovery about Man's evolutionary potential..."

ANALOG FEBRUARY 1964

Cover painting by John Schoenherr.

Interior illustration from Frank Herbert's Dune World by John Schoenherr.

"She sensed a first diminishing of the dark. It began with shadows. Dimensions separated, became new thorns of awareness."

Interior illustration from Frank Herbert's Dune World by John Schoenherr.

 "There was a table. Leto saw the table quite clearly. And a gross fat man on the other side of the table, the remains of a meal in front of him. Leto felt himself sitting in a chair across from the fat man, felt the chains, the straps that held him into the chair."

Interior illustration from Frank Herbert's Dune World by John Schoenherr. 

"She had never before seen the man who entered and stood beside the Baron, but the face was vaguely familiar - narrow and with hawk features."

ANALOG JANUARY 1964

Analog's first photographic cover: polarized light through a microslice of meteorite
by Ralph A. Hall, M.D.

Interior illustration from Frank Herbert's Dune World by John Schoenherr.

 "The Duke Leto Atreides leaned against a parapet of the landing control tower outside Arrakeen."

Interior illustration from Frank Herbert's Dune World by John Schoenherr.

 "A Solido Tri-D projection appeared on the table surface about a third of the way down from the Duke. Some of the men farther down the table stood up to get a better look at it. Scaled against the tiny projected human figures around it, the machine was about one hundred and twenty meters long and about forty meters wide."

Interior illustration from Frank Herbert's Dune World by John Schoenherr. 

 "You have not earned the right to unsheath that blade," the Fremen said."

Interior illustration from Frank Herbert's Dune World by John Schoenherr.

"As he had approached the solitary figure standing near the Ornithopter, Leto had studied him: tall, thin - dressed for the desert in loose robe, Stillsuit and desert boots."

ANALOG DECEMBER 1963

Cover painting by John Schoenherr, illustrating Frank Herbert's Dune World.

Interior illustration by John Schoenherr, for Dune World by Frank Herbert.

 "Herbert's last great novel was a tale of men under pressure of war and deep water. This is a story of men under pressure of politics and the dehydration of a waterless world..."

Interior illustration by John Schoenherr, for Dune World by Frank Herbert.

 "In the week before their departure to Arrakis, when all the final scurrying about had reached a near unbearable frenzy, an old crone of a woman came to visit the mother of the boy, Paul."

Interior illustration by John Schoenherr, for Dune World by Frank Herbert.

 "Stamp of strangeness," the old woman breathed, and again she shot a glance at Jessica, returned her attention to Paul. "tell me truly now, Paul, do you often dream a thing and have the dream happen exactly as you dreamed it?"

Interior illustration by John Schoenherr, for Dune World by Frank Herbert. 

 "Before I go, however, I've a gift for you, something I came across in packing."

Interior illustration by John Schoenherr, for Dune World by Frank Herbert. 

 "The key word was Maker. Maker? Maker. Still, Mapes held the knife as though ready to use it."

Interior illustration by John Schoenherr, for Dune World by Frank Herbert.

 "From the carved headboard slipped a tiny Hunter-Seeker no more than five centimeters long."

PARELLEL LINES

Dragon's Dream paperback, 1981. © Dragon's Dream, Peter Elson, Chris Moore.

Derelict II by Peter Elson

Painting for Stanley G. Weinbaum's short story collection A Martian Odyssey
by Peter Elson.

Cover for Philip K. Dick's novel The Unteleported Man by Chris Moore.

 

Cover for Paul French's novel The Big Sun Of Mercury by Chris Moore.