David Hardy: Galactic Tours - Thomas Cook Out Of This World Holidays
                                             (1981 Proteus Publishing)  

     'Thomas Cook' was a very long-lasting transport & tourism concern, which for most of its existence was preeminent in that field.  Indeed, smaller remnants of the original business still remain internationally, carrying some form of the name.  This book presents the conceit of that company having lasted into the centuries to come and envisions how the future wonders found out in space might figure into their pre-arranged tours and be advertised.  Science-Fiction luminary Bob Shaw wrote the 'copy' and David Hardy created the 'visuals'.  So, the art-pieces appear mainly as openers to the chapters about the attractions.  In addition to a large handful of single-page paintings, know that there are 19 more large ones that spread over the book's central gutter, most of them into full double-page-spreads.  All but three of them remain "acceptable" in that presentation, though we ourselves don't find that to usually be the best choice.  Almost as if they anticipated that criticism, 19 of the text-pages each show a smaller cohesive shot of one, but alas, all but one of those are now *too* small to be considered any more useful than double-pagers.   The book HARDYWARE proves to be a better gathering of Hardy's work, but they share only four of the 'well-presented' exhibits found here.  So, at 96 pages, this book all seems like a thinner, colorful & fun package-deal, but usually feels a bit pricey for the experience - it might be worth stalking Ebay for a while to score the most economical one.

Related Books

  Hardyware - The Art Of David A. Hardy

other solo illustrated projects

  Graeme Base:  Anamalia

  James Gurney:  Dinotopia

  Adolf Schaller:  Extraterrestrials - A Field Guide For Earthlings