Nearly
a decade before I was born The United States Of America and The
Soviet Union competed both in the Nuclear and Space Races.
Who would develop the most powerful nuclear weapon and be the first to conquer space?
Needless to say this created a lot of tension, anxiety and fear especially from the 1940s to the eventual fall of The Soviet Union in 1991.
But, that didn’t stop enterprising and money hungry publishers from capitalizing on both races.
The 1940s and 1950s was a boom time for science fiction magazine and book publishers. It seemed as fast as they could turn out publications the public gobbled them up.
Many of the stories were literally thrown together over a weekend and like most ‘pulp’ fiction they resolved in the most convenient way.
Over the top heroes and villains, aliens, spacecraft, apocalyptic tales, powerful weapons and rayguns, scantily clad, space women in distress and other sci-fi cliches abound.
As spectacular as the tales were they still needed something to get consumers to buy them off the shelves.
Along comes the cover art and the cheesier the better. Artists cranked out cover paintings in droves and the more colorful, shocking and disturbing the better.
In Rayguns And Rocketships, written by Rian Hughes and published by Korero Press, vintage science fiction book cover art is on full display.
The upgraded edition contains 16 additional pages. Each and ever page of the beautiful, dust-covered and thick hardcover book contains both full-page cover color reproductions and a gallery of covers.
It also provides information on when publishers released the books along each cover artist’s name-if available.
A highly-detailed history of the art and stories is also included.
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