Artist: Richard M. Powers – Page 5 – Literary Art and Illustration

Tales From the White Hart, by Arthur C. Clarke – October, 1961 (1957) [Richard M. Powers]

For Ballantine Book’s 1961 paperback edition of Arthur C. Clarke’s Tales From the White Hart, Richard Powers took an approach that was both consistent with and a departure from his usual style: He depicted a group of subtly outlined creatures in an anthropoid-mechanical style (some floating in the background), yet instead of using contrasting, bold, primary colors, the composition was completed entirely in black and white.

If not as striking as much of his work, the composition is cleverly consistent with the very title of the book!

Contents

Preface (essay by Arthur C. Clarke, 1957)

Silence Please (variant of “Silence, Please!”), from Science-Fantasy, Winter, 1950

Big Game Hunt, from Adventure, October, 1956

Patent Pending from Adventure, November, 1954

Armaments Race, from Adventure, April, 1954

Critical Mass, from Space Science Fiction Magazine, August, 1957

The Ultimate Melody, from if – Words of Science Fiction, February, 1957

The Pacifist, from Fantastic Universe, October, 1956

The Next Tenants, from Satellite Science Fiction, February, 1957

Moving Spirit

The Man Who Ploughed the Sea from Satellite Science Fiction, June, 1957

The Reluctant Orchid, from Satellite Science Fiction, December, 1956

Cold War, from Satellite Science Fiction, April, 1956

What Goes Up (variant of “What Goes Up…”), from The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, January, 1956

Sleeping Beauty, from Infinity Science Fiction, April, 1957

The Defenestration of Ermintrude Inch

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Close-up of Powers’ cover, showing – perhaps?! – the enigmatic denizens of the White Hart…

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A rather serviceable back cover. Well, it does the job of telling about the book, while promoting some of Clarke’s other works.

Other things to pleasantly distract you…

Tales From the White Hart, at Internet Speculative Fiction Database

Big Game Hunt (short story by Arthur C. Clarke), at Wikipedia

Patent Pending (short story by Arthur C. Clarke), at Wikipedia

Armaments Race (short story by Arthur C. Clarke), at Wikipedia

The Saturday Evening Post Reader of Fantasy & Science Fiction – January, 1964 (October, 1963) – No Editor Credited [Richard M. Powers]

Among the twenty stories in Popular Library’s 1964 edition of The Saturday Evening Post Reader of Fantasy & Science Fiction, the most significant may be Stephen Vincent Benay’s 1937 “The Place of the Gods”, and Robert Heinlein’s 1947 “The Green Hills of Earth”.

I well remember Benay’s story, for it was deemed significant enough to have been included among works of American short fiction assigned as reading in my high school, some years ago. As to its topicality in 2019, some eighty-two years after its original publication – with all that transpired in the world during those eight decades; with all that may yet transpire in the world – I have no idea.

In any event, the story’s theme of a civilizational collapse quietly and gently yielding to the implied rebirth of culture and technology, comports well with and has anticipated the plot of many a work of science-fiction, let alone contemporary pseudo-science (such as the ancient-astronaut / paleo-contact hypothesis, which actually harks back to the works of H.P. Lovecraft, and, the millenarian apocalyptic religious cult – ostensibly in secular garb! – based on the myth of “anthropogenic climate change“), in historical and contemporary cinema and literature.

Though I’ve been generally well-acquainted with Heinlein’s early works (not much at all his later writing!), “The Green Hills of Earth” escaped my attention until I actually read the story, in the pages of this particular book. Entertaining (albeit with the dated implication of a habitable planet Venus, and, discussion of the use of a tape recorder – ? – ! – to preserve the songs of dying protagonist “Noisy” Rhysling), the story was adapted for NBC’s Dimension X radio series, where it was broadcast as episode 10 (of 50 total episodes) on June 10, 1950.

You can listen to The Green Hills of Earth at NewThinkable, or, Vulkan Channel.

Contents

Doctor Hanray’s Second Chance, by Conrad Richter (June 10, 1950)

Fallout Island, by Robert Murphy (March 24, 1962)

The Green Hills of Earth, by Robert A. Heinlein (February 8, 1947)

Doomsday Deferred, by William F. Jenkins (“Murray Leinster”) (September 24, 1949)

Test-Tube Terror, by Robert Standish (September 13, 1958)

Island of Fear, by William Sambrot (June 18, 1958)

Sinister Journey, by Conrad Richter (September 26, 1953)

The Place of the Gods (alternate title “By the Waters of Babylon”), by Stephen Vincent Benet (July 31, 1937)

The Phantom Setter, by Robert Murphy (June 17, 1961)

The Big Wheel, by Fred McMorrow (July 29, 1961)

The Death Dust, by Frank Harvey (August 8, 1959)

The Lost Continent, by Geoffrey Household (September 3, 1960)

The Trap, by Kem Bennett (January 7, 1956)

Space Secret, by Wiliam Sambrot (February 21, 1959)

The Unsafe Deposit Box, by Gerald Kersh (April 14,1962)

The Second Trip to Mars, by Ward Moore (August 28, 1954)

The Voice in the Earphones, by William Schramm (March 29, 1947)

Moon Crazy, by William Roy Shelton (June 25, 1949)

The Little Terror, by William F. Jenkins (“Murray Leinster”) (August 22, 1953)

Novelette

The Answer, by Philip Wylie (May 7, 1955)

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Especially notable is the book’s cover art by Richard Powers, which, though uncredited in the text, bears Powers’ name in the lower left corner. The composition bears two major hallmark’s of Powers’ work: The near-afterthought-like presence of a human figure visible only in silhouette, and, a variety of curved, ovoid, elongated objects rising vertically, or floating in the background. Like many of Powers’ compositions that appeared on the covers of science-fiction anthologies, rather than pertaining to or having elements of a specific story, his art instead sets a mood and feeling.

And, in this it succeeds superbly.

A Decade of Fantasy and Science Fiction, edited by Robert P. Mills – 1962 [Richard M. Powers]

Here’s a nice Richard Powers cover from 1962, with elements typical of his art: Multicolored, curved, geometric, mobile-like shapes; a weird, irregularly-shaped, dented, floating, metallic king of thingy; a figure garbed in a space-suit. (Well, it looks like a space-suit!)

Like many of the images of “people” in Powers’ art, the space explorer’s outfit looks detailed and ornate, but on closer inspection, this arises from a series of rings or ridges covering the garment, giving it the suggestion rather than the reality of detail.

But, it still looks cool.

The “lower” of the two images, appearing on the book’s back cover, is simply a reproduction of the art on the front cover, sans text.

As for the stories within the book? Though I have read them all (some years ago!), none particularly currently stand out in memory. Yet, in a larger sense, I was always impressed by the works of Zenna Henderson (“The People” series), Ward Moore (author of one of the best time travel stories I’ve ever read; fully worthy of a mini-series on Netflix or Amazon Prime (hint, hint, Mr. Bezos!): “Bring the Jubilee”), and, Manly Wade Wellman.

Contents

Walk Like A Mountain, by Manly Wade Wellman, June, 1955

Men of Iron, by Guy Endore, Fall, 1949

Rabbits to The Moon, by Raymond E. Banks, July, 1959

The Certificate, by Avram Davidson, March, 1959

The Sealman, by John Mansfield, July, 1955

The Sky People, by Poul Anderson, March, 1959

The Causes, by Idris Seabright, June, 1952

The Hypnoglyph, by John Anthony, July, 1953

A Tale of The Thirteenth Floor, by Ogden Nash, July, 1955

Spud and Cochise, by Oliver La Forge, December, 1957

Unto The Fourth Generation, by Isaac Asimov, April, 1959

Jordan, by Zenna Henderson, March, 1959

Will You Wait?, by Alfred Bester, March, 1959

Proof Positive, by Graham Greene, August, 1952

Shock Treatment, by J. Francis McComas, April, 1956 (From 9 Tales of Space and Time, May, 1954)

Gandolphus, by Anthony Boucher, June, 1952

The Last Shall Be First, by Robert P. Mills, August, 1958

A Trick Or Two, by John Novotny, July, 1957

Lot’s Daughter, by Ward Moore, October, 1954

Saturnian Celia, by Horace Walpole, April, 1957 (May, 1774. First known to have been published in The Letters of Horace Walpole, 1903)

Fear Is A Business, by Theodore Sturgeon, April, 1956

Meeting of Relations, by John Collier, January, 1959 (From The Yale Review, December, 1941)

First Lesson, by Mildred Clingerman, December, 1956

To Fell A Tree, by Robert F. Young, July, 1959

Reference

A Decade of Fantasy and Science Fiction, at Internet Speculative Fiction Database

Star Shine, by Fredric Brown – 1954 [Richard M. Powers]

While a number of my prior posts illustrate the work of Richard Powers,* his cover art for the 1954 Bantam Books edition of Fredric Brown’s Star Shine uniquely exemplifies his skill and versatility, to an extent not necessarily evident in his other compositions.

Specifically, Powers’ painting is composed of four elements.

First, the skyline of a futuristic city, composed of asymmetrical buildings, all finished in orange and pink, appears in the lower background. A World War One era biplane (well, it looks like a biplane!) incongruously floats above.

Second, a violet band covered with frivolous, indefinable curves – probably not representing anything at all! – of yellow, black, blue, and orange, occupies the center of the cover. Patterns like this are present in many of Powers’ compositions.

Third, a stylized lady – an upside-down-lady, at that!, holding a rose in her mouth – occupies the upper cover. (You can see her in greater detail by scrolling down a little.)

Fourth – and in the context of Powers’ work, most interestingly – the central element of the cover is the face of a very contemplative man. Neither stylized nor abstract (albeit greenish-blue!), this figure shows Powers’ skill in natural representation, which is not apparent in most of his science fiction illustrations.

Contents

Pattern, from Angels and Spaceships (1954 anthology)

Placet Is a Crazy Place, from Astounding Science Fiction, May, 1946

Answer, from Angels and Spaceships

Etaion Shrdlu, from Unknown Worlds, February, 1942

Preposterous, from Angels and Spaceships

Armageddon, from Unknown Fantasy Fiction, August, 1941

Politeness, from Angels and Spaceships

The Waveries, from Astounding Science Fiction, January, 1945

Reconciliation, from Angels and Spaceships

The Hat Trick, from Unknown Worlds, February, 1943

Search, from Angels and Spaceships

Letter To a Phoenix, from Astounding Science Fiction, August, 1949

Daisies, from Angels and Spaceships

The Angelic Angleworm, from Unknown Worlds, February, 1943

Sentence, from Angels and Spaceships

The Yehudi Principle, from Astounding Science Fiction, May, 1944

Solipsist, from Angels and Spaceships

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The Mural

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The Upside-Down-Lady

* With more to follow in future posts…

Or All The Seas With Oysters, by Avram Davidson – 1962 [Richard M. Powers]

Another intriguing cover by Richard Powers.

Rather than creating an image with a single, central image, most of the cover is given over to blank space, upon which the title and author’s name are superimposed. Only at the “bottom” of the cover (this is a nautically inspired title, after all!) appears a painting of various forms of sea-life, including a kind of mermaid, and a large-headed jellyfish.

And, floating above, a stylized, transparent submarine.

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Not a yellow, but a green submarine.

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The rear covers bears a photograph of Avram Davidson, by Emsh (Edward Emshwiller).

Contents

Or All the Seas With Oysters, Galaxy Science Fiction, May, 1958

Now Let Us Sleep, Venture Science Fiction, September, 1957

The Grantha Sighting, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, April, 1958

Help! I am Dr. Morris Goldpepper, Galaxy Science Fiction, July, 1957

The Sixth Season, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, June, 1960

Negra Sum, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, November, 1957

My Boy Friend’s Name is Jello, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, July, 1954

The Golem, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, March, 1955

Summerland, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, July, 1957

King’s Evil, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, October, 1956

Great Is Diana, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, August, 1958

I Do Not Hear You, Sir, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, February, 1958

Author, Author, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, July, 1959

Dagon, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, October, 1959

The Montavarde Camera, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, May, 1959

The Woman Who Thought She Could Read, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, January, 1959

Tiger by The Tail and Other Science Fiction Stories, by Alan E. Nourse – 1964 [Richard M. Powers]

Richard Powers’ cover of the McFadden Press 1964 edition of Alan Nourse’s Tiger By the Tail typifies Powers’ unique, immediately identifiable, and highly creative approach to science fiction illustration.

Though eminently capable of creative technically realistic (albeit imaginary!) depictions of space vehicles, as well as the human form and facial expressions, Powers instead presents viewers with a mixture of symbolic visual elements, fragments of landscapes, and stylized color patterns, only one element of which is actually related to the book’s title: Orange and black tiger stripes at the lower left, held by tiger-striped, vaguely humanoid and not-really-even-human figure on the right.

For this edition of Tiger By the Tail, that’s all you’ll see of the “tiger”! (If you read the original story, you’ll understand the symbolism of Powers’ art…)

The other really science-fictiony elements on the cover are the silhouette of a figure at the lower right, and, a weirdly oval, semi-transparent spacecraft rising from a crater, in the center.

Whether or not these elements “fit” the anthology’s stories is not really relevant.

They set and fit a literary mood, and generate a sense of curiosity…

Contents

Tiger By The Tail, from Galaxy Science Fiction, November, 1951

Nightmare Brother, from Astounding Science Fiction, February, 1953

PRoblem, from Galaxy Science Fiction, October, 1956

The Coffin Cure, from Galaxy Science Fiction, April, 1957

Brightside Crossing, from Galaxy Science Fiction, January, 1956

The Native Soil, from Fantastic Universe, July, 1957

Love Thy Vimp, from The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, April, 1952

Letter of The Law, from If, January, 1954

Family Resemblance, from Astounding Science Fiction, April, 1953

Rogue Moon, by Algis Budrys – November, 1960 [Richard M. Powers]

“How do you want me to talk about it?”
Hawks answered rapidly.
A vein bulged down the center of his forehead.
“Do you want me to talk about what we’re here to do,
or do you want me to say something else?
Are you going to argue morality with me?
Are you going to say that,
duplicate man or no duplicate man,
a man dies on the Moon and makes me no less a murderer?
Do you want to take me to court and from there to a gas chamber?
Do you want to look in the law books
and see what penalties apply to the repeated crime of systematically driving men insane?
Will that help us here?
Will it smooth the way?

“Go to the Moon, Barker.
Die.
And if you do, in fact, find that you love Death as feverishly as you’ve courted her,
then, just perhaps,
you’ll be the first man to come back in condition to claim revenge on me!”
He clutched the edge of the opened chest plate and slammed it shut.
He held himself up with the flats of his palms on it
and leaned down and his face was directly over Barker’s faceplate opening.
“But before you do,
you’ll tell me how I can usefully do it to you again.”

– Algis Budrys –

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Cover detail: Richard Powers did a remarkable job of capturing the essence of the novel’s plot within a single painting.

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Here’s the another venue of Rogue Moon: The December, 1960, issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. Mel Hunter’s whimsical robot, here seen amusing himself (itself?) with wind-up dolls of people-in-pajamas, appeared on a number of TMFSF covers.

Star Science Fiction Stories No. 1, Edited by Frederik Pohl – 1953 (1961) [Richard M. Powers] [Revised post]

I first posted these cover images in June of 2017. After “re-visiting” this post, I wanted to display more of the detail in Powers’ art. So, the two close-ups, below…

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A space explorer. Though Powers incorporates a measure of attention to the astronaut’s suit (note the very fine detail in the antenna, and the orange gripping claw extending from the figure’s left hand), he places more emphasis on shapes, curves, and contrasting colors. The greenish yellow-hue of the suit is particularly effective against the reddish-purple sky.

Contents

Country Doctor, by William Morrison

Dominoes, by Cyril M. Kornbluth

Idealist, by Lester del Rey

The Night He Cried, by Fritz Leiber

Contraption, by Clifford D. Simak

The Chronoclasm, by John Wyndham

The Deserter, by William Tenn

The Man With English, by Horace L. Gold

So Proudly We Hail, by Judith Merril

A Scent of Sarsaparilla, by Ray Bradbury

“Nobody Here But”, by Isaac Asimov

The Last Weapon, by Robert Sheckley

A Wild Surmise, by Henry Kuttner and Catherine L. Moore

The Journey, by Murray Leinster

The Nine Billion Names of God, by Arthur C. Clarke

A closer look at the back cover. A spider-like spacecraft (again, Powers’ emphasis on curved, semi-organic shapes) rests on a crater-pocked surface in shades of red, carmine, and brown, while a group of explorers climb a nearby hillside. Perhaps they’re joining their friend, on the front cover?

Notice that the sky is finished in tones of purple, through, pink, through orange, unlike the image appearing above. That’s because this image is actually from the 1953 (first edition) of Volume 1 of Star Science Fiction, while on the rear cover of the 1961 reprint (both of the cover images in this post) the sky is white.

Star Science Fiction Stories No. 4, Edited by Frederik Pohl – 1958 [Richard M. Powers] [Revised Post]

Though Powers’ cover primarily appears in muted shades of gray and brown, a close-up – below – reveals a level of complexity and mystery not readily apparent upon a cursory glance: Two enigmatic figures signal one another across a barren landscape, while a bird-like tower stands in the distance, and a ragged sphere – a planet? – a moon? – rises above the horizon, on the left.

Above all, the scene imparts an absence of visual and thematic certainty, typical of Powers’ work.

Contents

A Cross of Centuries, by Henry Kuttner

The Advent on Channel Twelve, by Cyril M. Kornbluth

Space-Time for Springers, by Fritz Leiber

Man Working, by Richard Wilson

Helping Hand, by Lester del Rey

The Long Echo, by Miriam Allen deFord

Tomorrow’s Gift, by Edmund Cooper

Idiot Stick, by Damon Knight

The Immortals, by James Gunn

Beyond Fantasy Fiction – July, 1953 [Richard M. Powers] [Revised Post]

(This post has been updated to include closer views of Richard Powers’ cover art. Scroll to bottom to see more…)

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The first issue of Horace Gold’s Beyond Fantasy Fiction featured cover art created by the extraordinarily imaginative Richard Powers. Typical of much of Powers’ oeuvre, the finished painting features a variety of seemingly organic elements in combination with curved, streamlined, ostensibly mechanical shapes Akin to many of Powers’ works, any recognizably “human” form is deliberately minimized.

For another example of Powers’ work, see this post…

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At lower left, a woman with streaming hair flees (?) “stage left”.

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In the center, an upraised human hand, set against a brilliant yellow sky and partially obscured by clouds, is visible through an archway. There’s something vaguely Salvador Dali-esque about this scene…

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…while this panel epitomizes a common element in Powers’ work: A randomly-curved, asymmetrical, seemingly organic “shape”, is covered by a metallic carapace. A bluish-green sphere – a planet?; a symbol of Mars? – levitates nearby, while a “rope” draped upon both objects – the way in, or the way out? – leads through a raftered ceiling to an orange sky.