Sci fi eras

While I love the unrepentant gratuitousness of pulp era science fiction art, like the covers for Planet Stories like some of the examples at that link, probably my favorite period of science fiction art is the period after that which predates the visual impact of Star Wars and cyberpunk and Mad Max and some of the other things that changed the way we view science fiction. Not that I don't appreciate the visual gestalt of those things, and not that this style of what would now probably be called retro-futurism of a sort didn't linger, especially in many book covers and movie posters, well into the 80s, but its heyday was more the 60s and 70s. Of course, it graced the covers of almost every science fiction novel published during this time, as well as many of the science fiction magazines like Analog and whatever else was still in print at the time (I seem to remember there being two big magazines when I was a kid, but I didn't read them.)

In any case, the art style reflects the culture and what was going on in the culture at the time, which is maybe why I love it so much. Not that the 60s and 70s were great times in many ways, and the 80s is what I consider my real "crucible" when it comes to my pop culture tastes, but in this particular dimension, at least, we were doing it right, and we've since lost that to a great degree. 

One of my favorite representations of this type art artwork was this book, which I checked out at least half a dozen times if not twice that from my local public library when I was a kid (I eventually bought myself my own copy. In nice shape too, at a used bookstore.) While originally published as The Challenge of the Stars in 1972, I believe, it was revised in 1978 as The New Challenge of the Stars, with the obviously Star Wars influenced cover art, and that's the version that I have and know. I didn't realize this, but it was also revised again in 2004 as Futures: 50 Years in Space - The Challenge of the Stars, and I've just ordered a copy from Interlibrary Loan so I can have a look at it. I might want to buy that one too; I think some of the art thumbnails I have below come from that version.

While the text was pretty cool, in a late 70s hopeful sciencey kind of way, what I really loved that every time you'd turn the page there's be a page of text and black and white images on the left, and a full color image of David Hardy's on the right. Every. Single. Page. This is a huge part of why this book was one of my favorites. Hardy is a good artist with a long pedigree in astronomy-related non-fiction art (although he also did plenty of science fiction, and even some album covers.) He had also done, I believe, a book about the solar system, which has been updated several times—unfortunately with new art. Not that the new art was bad, because it certainly wasn't, but because the old art then went out of circulation, which wasn't desirable. And I greatly preferred the older style to his experimentation with digital art. He's a better painter than he is a... digital artist, or whatever you want to call someone who uses that medium. 

Anyway, here's a few lo res images. These mostly either come from the 1978 or the 2004 revision, but they are low res scans, not hi res, good looking pictures. But you can still see why I love this stuff so much. 

What would the night sky look like from a planet circling a star just outside of the Milky Way's main disk, or perhaps in one of the MW's satellites? This, as well as the next three attempt to answer that.

That's probably my favorite of his subjects, although early "bubble" colonies with busy-bee astronauts and rovers on the Moon or Mars is a close second. 

Speaking of which, the next two are images of what a terraformed Mars might look like from Phobos or Deimos. You can see some of the bubble colonies in those as well.