Friday 21 December 2012

New look ... new content ...

My thanks to Will Bueche for revamping Seduced By Starlight's banner. It's given me the push I need to re-engage with this blog. Look out for new content in the new year, and not just scans of pre-PC cover art. I'll be featuring reviews and overviews of some of my favourite authors. And with Iain M Banks's 'The Hydrogen Sonata' to read over the Christmas break, I think I can say that we'll be kicking off Starlight '13 in fine style.

Wednesday 19 September 2012

Wednesday 22 August 2012

Friday 17 August 2012

Saturday 11 August 2012

Now that's what I call retro



Cover art for Adam Roberts' forthcoming collected short stories. It's out early next year. Roberts' fiction is mind-bendingly inventive, the title of the collection is inspired and the artwork beautifully nostalgic.

Wednesday 8 August 2012

Sex sells, part two


More far-flung filth and deep space degradation in the second in an occasional series of pulp sci-fi covers designed with one aesthetic and one aesthetic only in mind: the lowest common libidinous denominator of its intended male readership. Never mind 'Fifty Shades of Grey' - it's fifty light years of T&A here on Seduced By Starlight. (And, yes, you did read the tagline on 'Zero Gravity Swap' correctly!)












Saturday 4 August 2012

The WTF of SF, part one


The first in an occasional series: ten book covers guaranteed to make you wonder what the hell the art department were thinking.


"Hey guys, let's go over to A.E.'s place. Dude has some good shit."



"Here, kitty kitty ki-- ... oh shit!"



This one makes the list not only for its title (ninety trillion? that many?) but for a cover image that looks like something out of 'A Matter of Life and Death' only with a cross-dressing demon instead of David Niven.



Philosophical literature re-imagined as a 1970s prog rock concept album cover.



Yes, the title is a conflation of "mermaid" and "bicycle". Yes, the cover artist went there.



Where to start ... ?



'Tomorrow Times Seven'. So, that's like all of next week, yeah?



What is it with nudity, animal splicing and sci-fi cover artists?



You know that running joke in 'Paul' about sci-fi book covers and women with "three titties"? Methinks this publication might be in Simon Pegg and Nick Frost's book collection.



And the big monster that's looming above the spindly combatants is supposed to be scary? Bitch, please!

Thursday 2 August 2012

The World Set Free




On this day in 1939, Albert Einstein and Leo Szilard wrote to Franklin D. Roosevelt. The substance of their letter was the urgency of developing nuclear weaponry. The outcome was the Manhattan Project. Szilard's fascination with nuclear development spanned from Wells's novel 'The World Set Free', first published in 1914 and which predicted atomic energy.


Wednesday 1 August 2012

Two covers: The Body Snatchers by Jack Finney



Dell edition, 1955: cover by John McDermott
(I love the tagline: "Was this his woman - or an alien life form?", kind of like 'Mr & Mrs' by way of H.P. Lovecraft)



Dell edition, 1961: cover by Richard Powers