Tomorrow and Beyond : Masterpieces of Science Fiction Art

This was among the first art collection books I ever laid eyes upon, and to this day it remains one of my all-time favourites. It's a massive collection of what is perhaps the most disturbing and memorable art you are ever likely to come across, bar none. Despite the title, there are a good number of abstract and symbolic works in here too with haunting, dream-like qualities. Definitely worth consideration and a fine addition to any modern art library.

This book has been with me a better part of my life. This 1978 book from Ian Summers is a collection of various sci-fi artwork by many different artists. Many of the pictures are bizarre, surrealistic, often disturbing, and of course otherworldly. You'll often notice a lot of influence from Salvador Dali, Hieronymous Bosch, fantasy, swords and sorcery, Tolkien, and whatever was on the various artists imagination. The book is divided in sections like "Aliens", "Fantasy", "Barbarians", "Spacecraft", "Other Worlds", etc. With each illustration is the name of the artist responsible. There is also an appendix in the back of the book which tells you the name of the artist, as well as the name of the artwork and year (if known), not to mention the page number you'll find the illustation in question. The back is the index of all the artists names (in alphabetical order), and what pages you'll find their artwork to the artist you're interested in or curious of. Some of the artists featured are the Hildebrandt Brothers (Greg and Tim), Nick Aristovulous, Richard Powers, Edward Soyka, John Berkey, Paul Alexander, Boris Vallejo, and so many more. Of the artists, I found Richard Powers to be the most disturbing. A lot of the artwork you see presented here had been featured as covers of books, magazines, albums, movie posters, and much more. Much of what you'll see here is from the 1970s, with only a handful from the 1960s and nothing before 1961 (as far as I know, as some of the arwork has not been dated). So if you're looking to see how sci-fi artwork has evolved in the 1980s and 1990s, you won't find it here, as Tomorrow and Beyond was published in 1978 so you're mostly getting a '70s perspective. If some of the artwork you see presented in Tomorrow and Beyond seems a bit familiar, well, some of it was used as various issues of OMNI Magazine well in to the 1980s. The illustrations you see here in Tomorrow and Beyond will fascinate you, disturbe you, or both. The book is out of print, but if you can track a copy, do so. If you like sci-fi art, then you simply need this book.