Book review of Worlds Beyond Time by Adam Rowe

Throughout the Seventies, science fiction paperbacks had been graced with attention-grabbing cowl artwork that always possessed shockingly advanced element. Even within the twenty first century, these ornate compositions and vivid colour palettes nonetheless percolate into main franchises similar to James Cameron’s Avatar sequence or the 2016 online game No Man’s Sky. Adam Rowe chronicles the event of this immediately recognizable fashion in Worlds Beyond Time: Sci-Fi Art of the Seventies. This thorough assortment traces a connection between ’70s cowl artwork and influences that embrace Twenties iconography by Frank R. Paul (“underwater explorers, human-eating plants, future ice-age apocalypses, dinosaurs fighting laser rays”), surrealism, psychedelia and even the competing style of fantasy.

Rowe writes, “In my unvarnished opinion, ’70s sci-fi is the peak of artistic achievement, though I’ve heard good things about the Renaissance.” It’s a daring assertion, however one that’s tough to refute as one traverses the colourful pages of Worlds Beyond Time, which does an outstanding job of cataloging the nuances of artists and their distinctive types, from Angus McKie’s hazy cities and house stations, to the elegant dreamscapes of Bruce Pennington. In addition to spotlighting an exemplary artwork fashion, Worlds Beyond Time demonstrates the gorgeous vastness of science fiction as a literary style.