This week’s Book Cover Throwback is from Robert Heinlein.
Besides being an amazing story, the cover to this book is just breathtakingly gorgeous. I honestly miss the days when book covers were works of art, rather than the same photoshopped, stock-photo girl who’s on the other ten books released this month.
That’s not to say that you can’t make art with stock photos, but there’s a higher art involved in painting the cover to a novel, especially one as good as Heinlein‘s Stranger in a Strange Land.
I have this one, and it’s a great cover. I always presumed that was Jill right before he kissed her. Smith’s ‘halo’ and calm pose, the gentle play of underwter light, just great. And I always liked that it ran edge to edge. As for the story inside: whatever Heinlein may have said of the work later, I always enjoyed it. And it remains the only book I’ve ever used for bibliomancy.
I would agree with that assessment. 😉 Love this cover. I miss good art covers like this–too many stock photo covers these days.