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FeaturedComments Your have made me dream during my childhood, I can remember the covers of some RPG books and games with your paintings
 Thank you for these beautiful moments   I like your cover for Gilpin's Space, haven't read the book but I saw it at a Project Rho page discussing submarines in space. [link] XD Some novels have started with the idea that a breakthrough space drive (like antigravity) could be mounted in existing pressurized vehicles, i.e. submarines, to convert Earth's sub fleets to ready made spaceships. Later purpose built spacecraft might retain some sub-like features like conning towers due to tradition- and some SF ships have 'em anyway, like Khan's DY-100 series ship Botany Bay from Star Trek. It is something of a funny idea, you can build FTL drives and yet you can afford no better hull than an old sub? Unless someone cobbles together a FTL drive with used coffee tins and old rubber bands, I doubt anyone would really think to put this into practice, ha ha. Admittedly, a FTL drive that could be cobbled together with circa-21st century scraps would be really cool.
This idea apparently started back in the 1950s, when editor John W. Campbell ran a series of articles on Norman Dean's reactionless "Dean Drive" in Analog, claiming that the drive could be mounted in American subs and flown to Mars, which naturally never happened because the Dean Drive did not do what it was claimed to it could do. [link] And submarines would probably make rather poor spacecraft to begin with- they rely on seawater for cooling and oxygen, gravity for the reactor to work (and I don't think you want to have a reactor that'll conk out if the ship stops accelerating at 1/g or if the artificial gravity dies), and are generally not designed for use in a vacuum. Even if you decided to use a sub hull anyway with your wonderful antigravity drive, you can't claim a sub is space-worthy as it is- you'd need to completely renovate the interior. Still, it is a fun idea. And sub-like spaceships are kind of cool. Every since reading James Blish's Cities in Flight series I've liked the idea of a bizarre space drive that makes space travel accessible for all manner of eccentric people in unlikely craft. Turning subs into spaceships is pretty much along this line. But Blish skipped straight over that sort of thing by having entire cities convert themselves into space-hopping acrologies with the spindizzy drive, which is a whole new level of cool.  Thanks for sharing the information!
Since it's been many years since these books were illustrated, many of the concepts of space drive systems and such, have been forgotten by me. And, the waning interest in space and science fiction, giving way to superheros and comics, has even had it's effect on me. There was just so much more enthusiasm in the 80's, when I was with the L-5 society, and I had more interaction with SF authors, such as G. Harry Stine. I don't even attend SF cons anymore. But it's good to know there is interest in "Gilpin's Space" outside of the Amazon lists and reviews. I was very pleased to see the updated special effects in the old Star Trek series, regarding the DY-100. I especially enjoyed "The Doomsday Machine". When I first saw it in the 70's reruns, I thought it was an excellent story, but for the special effects. The 40 years wait was worth it. I'm glad I found your gallery! While your Sailor Moon commissions and fan art are all outstanding work, there were three pieces, namely your sci-fi book covers, that really did it for me. Savage Empire, Cross the Stars, Home From the Shore...each one brought back memories, not just of great stories, but of times when I was absolutely immersed in them, simply through the sheer joy of reading. For what it's worth, I have paperback copies of Home From the Shore and Cross the Stars on my bookshelf right now - both featuring your outstanding cover art!
Thank you, sir, for you outstanding art and enduring memories! Thanks for the comment! I'm glad to have given you some happy memories!
Ever since I aquired my Canon transparency scanner, I've been weekly scanning old 4" x 5" and 8" x 10" transparencies of many of these old covers. Until 2011, most of the images were locked away in my files. More art is to come now-though I'm getting close to the end. Gordon R. Dickson is probably my favorite author, of the stories I illustrated. I met David Drake about 7 years ago, and did about 7 or 8 covers for him (as well as GD) Although I'm still doing Sailor Moon commissioned art (finished one yesterday) I'm slowly coming back to Sci-Fi novels, especially with Pequod Press, who are bringing back the work of H. Beam Piper-Kalvan Kingmaker series-and the work of Jerry Pournelles' Warworld series. I've just finished "Warworld: The Lidless Eye" plus "Warworld: Revolt of the Cyborgs" which will be posted here next week. Next, is "The Cosmic Computer" a reprint from H. Beam Piper. |
