Yesterday I mentioned the artist Jim Burns in relation to the short story ‘Streets of Ashkelon.’ Here’s another painting by Jim, this one from the Bantam edition of A Stainless Steel Rat is Born, featuring a moody, James Dean-ish version of the young Rat. One of the reasons I love Jim Burns’ paintings is the fact that the people – including the aliens! – always somehow remind me of real people, as though I somehow recognise them. Genius.
Jim Burns did a whole series of Rat covers for Bantam. I’ll dig the other ones out too and scan them.
Art: Jim Burns
And now for something completely different… A German cover for The Stainless Steel Rat Goes to Hell with cover art, I believe, by Karel Thole.
No schoolboy jokes, please, about how that title reads to English-speakers… 😉
Art: Karel Thole
Harry Harrison News Blog 
26 February, 2009 at 12:39 am |
Uhm, now I wonder how that German title reads to English-speakers?
Yeah, that German cover is by Karel Thole. An interesting site-info may is that the words under the German title mean “Tenth book of the Steelrat-cycle”. In German it indeed is the tenth book, cos the 9th was a book with several short stories of Harry Harrison which incluced the short story “The golden years of the SSR” and thus was labelled as 9th SSR book. http://www.iol.ie/~carrollm/hh/s118.htm
While the real 10th book The SSR joins the circus never was published…yet. 😦
I’d love to see this cover in full size: http://www.iol.ie/~carrollm/hh/covers/n02-01d.jpg and all of the other similar old ones.
But this one is by far my most favorite one: http://www.iol.ie/~carrollm/hh/covers/n02-03b.jpg !!!
26 February, 2009 at 9:41 am |
By an amazining coincidence, that red Rat cover – by the wonderful Bryn Barnard – will be featured in tomorrow’s post. I contacted Bryn ealier in the week, and he confirmed that he was the artist of this series of covers.
The last one you mention, for the Faber edition of The Stainless Steel Rat Saves the World was, of course, the second of the covers drawn by Mr. Harry Harrison.
27 February, 2009 at 4:44 pm |
And thank you very much for that coincidence.
Oh wow, I didn’t knew that this one was drawn by Harry Harrison himself.
Just the picture posted in “Stainless Steel Art (2)”.
So my favorite sci-fi writer has even drawn my favorite sci-fi book cover of his books. 🙂
Speaking of all the art on the covers of Harry Harrison books how about the drawings inside of some? 😉
I only know the good looking illustrations of the German release of the Deathworld Trilogy drawn by John Stewart.
http://www.iol.ie/~carrollm/hh/n01-20-phist.htm
27 February, 2009 at 5:16 pm |
You want interior art too? Hmm… I’ll see what I can do. 🙂
US and UK editions don’t often have interior art. The West of Eden series have the wonderful Bill Sanderson artwork – seen at its best in the UK editions, as the American books reduced the size of the images too much. The US editions of the Stars and Stripes trilogy have artwork which don’t think appeared anywhere else – and by another of those coincidences, the third volume was illustrated by my sister!
I think there are a few other German editions with illustrations, including Make Room! Make Room! which has some nice illustrations based on Soylent Green, unless I’m confusing that with a French edition…
I am going to try and find the original illustrations from the first SSR short story this weekend, and the cover of the oldest edition of the first Rat novel.
28 February, 2009 at 12:36 am |
Well, I learned in Kindergarten to make your wishlist for Santa right in time. 😉
That was the main reason why I asked for the interior art, that it often is published only in some editions or that there are different ones in other countries.
Not sure about the German edition of Make Room! Make Room!. The one I have has no illustrations, but I don’t know the older editions.
Ooooh, classic SSR art!!! :))