Collectors Press's Sci-Fi art collections
Worlds Of Tomorrow
Science Fiction of the 20th Century - An Illustrated History
(1999 / 2004 - Collectors Press)

The books here are ranked with the best presentation at the top and the least so down at the bottom.

Worlds Of Tomorrow (2004) (by Forrest J. Ackerman with Brad Linaweaver) Well, first, don't confuse this with Ackerman's similar book, WORLD OF SCIENCE FICTION. While our book here is deeply flawed, it is vastly superior to the other (which actually lives Below-The-Line on this site). WORLDS OF TOMORROW, sub-titled THE AMAZING UNIVERSE OF SCIENCE FICTION ART, is a 176-page volume with an impressive 161 pages dominated by the art. 43 of those art pages have a featured large-reproduction uncrowded by other images. While most of the art is the presentation of science-fiction pulp & paperback covers, unfortunately, about a third of the large reproductions are images that are actually extracts, cropped to a greater or lesser extent (some with even the background matted out), so as to focus-in on some central element. All the images, full-pagers or multiples, are gathered into four thematic chapters: A Place To Dwell, Trails Of Fuel And Fire, With The Touch Of A Button, and Not Of This World. Now then, the tragedy here is that, with these hundreds of fantastic images from the 1930s thru the 1950s, captioned with publisher, publication title & year and author's name (if a novel), notice that an artist's credit is nowhere to be found ! If this was just a Science-Fiction genre overview, I guess that could be excused, but the book purports to be about Science-Fiction art ! If you can move past that original sin, then this book is a colorful bundle of fun, with many examples from Britain which I've never seen collected anywhere else. Most of the large-reproductions can be identified with resources on the web, so the 'well-presented' artists found here are: Earle Bergey (2), Chesley Bonestell, Howard V. Brown (2), Gordon C. Davies (2), D.L.W., Ed Emshwiller (5) **, Virgil Finlay, Robert Fuqua, Mel Hunter, Leroi (2), Norman Light, Gabriel Mayorga, Leo Morey, Harry Parkhurst, Frank R. Paul (2), Stanley Pitt, Jerome Rozen, Alex Schomberg, Robert E. Schulz, Ray Theobald, Ron Turner (10), Ed Valigursky, and UNKNOWN (4).

** - Note that the 'well-presented' pieces here by Emshwiller cannot additionally be found so in his own collection on The List.

Science Fiction of the 20th Century - An Illustrated History (1999) (by Frank M. Robinson) At 10-by-13 inches, this colorful tome is a bit unwieldy and then having 256 pages makes it almost twice as heavy as would be ideal. 193 of those pages are dominated by the art, 58 of those featuring a single reproduction, while the rest each gather together multiple images. A majority of the rest of the book is the text pages detailing major swatches of the sci-fi genre (nearly 20 other pages are the two-page vague art-excerpt chapter openers). The chapters are: The Future Is Here . . . It's 1901!, Isn't It Amazing?, No-It's Wonderful!, Astounding - The Class Act, Stellar Companions And Dwarf Stars, The Major Moons Of Jupiter, . . . And The Minor, The Big And The British, Good Things In Small Packages, Bound To Be Read, Future Dreams, and The Death Of Science Fiction?. Most of the art are reproductions of the covers from many books, paperbacks, pulps and other magazines, though there is a bit from movie posters as well. Almost everything is captioned with the title of the publication or movie, along with when it came out and the artist's name and usually a factoid or anecdote. I'd observe that while true the book certainly doesn't seem crammed, many of the reproductions just seem smaller than they need to be, especially in light of how large the pages are. The artists getting featured 'well-presented' on a page are: John Alvin, Wayne Barlow, Earle Bergey (2), Rick Berry, Howard V. Brown (3), Reynold Brown*, Johnny Bruck, Alexander Cañedo (Alejandro), Joseph Chenowith, Vincent DiFate, Elliot Dold, Serge Drigin, Dean Ellis, Ed Emshwiller (2)**, Virgil Finlay, Frank Kelly Freas (2), Jack Gaughan**, Chip Kidd, Brian Lewis, Robert McCall, Harold McCauley, Leo Moray, Dennis Nolan, Frank R. Paul (5), Kim Poor, Walter Popp, Richard Powers**, Gerard Quinn, Tim Reamer, Keith Roberts, Frank M. Robinson, Hubert Rogers (4), Norman Saunders**, John Schoenherr (2), Alex Schomberg**, Don Sibley, Bert Tanner, William Timmins (2), Wesso, Michael Whelan (2)**, Bob Wilkins, Gahan Wilson, Mark Zug, and UNKNOWN. (Note that this book is one of the three pulled together to compose ART OF IMAGINATION from the same publisher.)

* - Note that Reynold Brown's 'well-presented' piece here can additionally be found so (actually better) in his own collection up further on The List.

** - Note that the 'well-presented' pieces here by Emshwiller, Gaughan, Whelan, Powers, Saunders & Schomberg's cannot additionally be found so in their own collections on The List.

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