Somewhere a Voice

From the back cover:

Meet a Martian poet who saves the human race...
Learn how Jensen planned to give himself a few lifetimes of foolproof crime...
Watch the humanizing of Bill Mallet in a horrifying trek across Valmia, sixth planet of ZM17...
Hear Satan's side of the story...
And a whole lot more.

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The Sleep Eaters

From the back cover:

One night a man named John went to bed as usual. But as he lay on the edge of sleep, he received a telepathic message from a world leader, and a vision into the future.

He couldn't believe that his mind was a radio receiver from an invisible space enemy so he committed himself to a mental hospital. Later he tried to tell the world about the coming space invasion.

But who would believe an escapee from an asylum?

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The World Inside

©1970 / Design James Starrett

Via One Thousand Daily Book Graphics - 50 Watts

La Terre a peur

Une fabuleuse aventure de science-fiction de Perry Rhodan...



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Hijacking the Eye

From the man behind The Art of Penguin Science Fiction, James Pardey, comes another excellent website, The Art of Fontana Modern Masters (it's been around a while... I've only just come across it).



Fontana Modern Masters documents the evolution of the Modern Masters series through the designs produced by art director John Constable, who used the geometric abstraction of Oliver Bevan; Mike Dempsey, who incorporated block designs by James Lowe; Patrick Mortimer, who oversaw the art direction of the series from 1980-83; and the work of artist Jamie Shovlin – who reimagined the Modern Masters series as a set of watercolours.

The Martian Way

Haven't posted any covers for a while... so here we go:



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The Third Reich Trilogy

Great set of covers by Stefanie Posavec - the designer behind the MyFry iPhone app - for the box set of Richard J. Evans' trilogy of history books that charted the downfall of the Third Reich (published by Penguin):



"Designing a series of books that looked beautiful but were still sensitive to the topic was a challenge. The books reference the style of German book design from the time period and in their patterns present stylised themes found within each book in the trilogy. As the story moved towards war, the designs became more hard-edged. Yes, an unusual topic to work with but I'm still pleased with the outcome." – Stefanie Posavec




Available on Amazon: The Third Reich trilogy hardbound box set

Mr. Peanut

Cool cover...



Mr. Peanut
Author: Adam Ross
Publisher: Knopf
Designer: Peter Mendelsund
[Mr Mendelsund was the designer responsible for these fantastic Kafka covers]

Via The Book Cover Archive

Fade Away

Installation of 53 sun-bleached library books by Marianne Viero and Laurenz Brunner, 'Out of Order' is researches patterns from the Gerrit Rietveld library collection.

Montague Projects

©1960 / Design: Oliver Lundquist
Via (the always awesome) Montague Projects Blog - Daily Book Graphics #702

Kafka

OMG... how good are these Kafka covers by Peter Mendelsund?!



Freakin' awesome! Going to hunt them down for the collection (mind you it looks like they will be published in the US in mid-2011 by Schocken Books). There's a lot been written about these exceptional covers already, with the pick of the bunch being this post on The Casual Optimist - Peter Mendelsund and the Art of Metamorphosis

Via JACKET MECHANICAL and Frank Chimero

Tree of Codes

Check out this awesome book by Jonathan Safran Foer:



Images via Visual Editions

Starting with writer Bruno Schulz’s book The Street of Crocodiles (Foer's favourite book), Foer cut away portions of the text to create an entirely new story, Tree of Codes, making a book with a different die-cut on every page (what a production nightmare!).

On Amazon: Tree of Codes

Goodbye 2010

Happy New Year!

Cat's Cradle

Currently reading and enjoying this:



Cover by the awesome David Pelham -
"David Pelham‘s arrival at Penguin belatedly followed Alan Aldridge’s enforced departure. With experience as art director for a number of magazines he brought a much needed consistency and dignity to Penguin’s diverse fiction titles and, after the departure of Germano Facetti in 1972, to other parts of the list."

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59 Vintage Book Covers

Some of these books are so ridiculous like the sexual fantasy ones, but the cover is still pure 1960s gold! Some of these look like the so-bad-that-they're-good type, and some I actually really want to read!

59 Vintage Book Covers »

Crash

Picked up this t'other day under Waterloo bridge...



A starkly powerful novel where the technology of the automobile explodes into a repellent yet totally fascinating climax of violent sexuality...

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Atari Arcade Manual Cover Art

Source: Atari Arcade Manual Cover Art for Selected Vector Games Released Between 1979 and 1983

The Art of Science Fiction

Inspired by the fascinating Art of Penguin Science Fiction website, I put together a montage of covers from my collection - I don't have enough to make a Penguin Science Fiction version... yet!

Computers

computers are basically machines for doing arithmetic. But because of their speed of operation and their capacity for storing complex information for use at precisely the right moment, they represent an immense and sudden step forward ; already computers exert a powerful influence upon the shape of modern life. Will they cause massive unemployment among 'white collar workers' or alternatively open up a tremendous new era of prosperity and technological progress?

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Berserker

No one knew where Berserkers came from. Everyone knew what they had come for.
They were mechanical killers; their brain a computer programmed to destroy all forms of life.

And Berserkers were illogical. The random disintegration of atoms could select any one of infinite means of destruction.

Already planet after planet had been pounded into steam and dust.

Only one kind of being could beat the Berserker.

A race whose whole history had been spent developing more powerful weapons.

A race conditioned to throw away their lives for the title 'hero'.

The race was called man.

[From the back cover BTW]

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