Frank Kelly Freas - The Art Of Science Fiction
(1977 - The Donning Company)

I've owned this book for a long time and I like it a lot. So, I was surprised when it did not really achieve a place near the top of The List. Yes, it has 43 colorful full-bleed pages, another 21 large reproductions, and still another 11 multi-image pages, but that left another 47 pages *not* given over to Freas' art. Oh well. Anyway, let me tell you that most of those other pages are the artist's own ruminations about the works presented here and his journey in creating them (though, a lot of that is presented in a cursive writing that I guess many would rather have lived without). Even most of the art that was allowed to grow over the middle seam did so without becoming disjointed messes. Most paintings are captioned with data from the story it illustrates, namely, title, author and publication year (and sometimes the original's private owner). Spaceships and aliens (cute or otherwise) abound, but you'll also find robots, pirates, demons, fairy tale creatures, some nudes and a lot of humor. The sequels, AS HE SEES IT and A SEPARATE STAR, have a slightly greater focus on the art pages and got ranked a little higher on The List, but you will definitely want this one too, as there are only four repeats from those books, and this one will fondly get my own small additional recommendation, as these are the works that are more iconic of him and represent the new excitement he brought to SF illustration.