Transluminal: The Art and Thought of Jim Burns Book

A data point: the SF genre's top art trophy, the US-dominated Hugo Award for Best Artist, was founded in 1953 and in all these years has been won only twice by a non-North American--both times by Welsh- born Jim Burns, in 1987 and 1995. His first solo collection of SF artwork was Lightship (1985). Transluminal is his second, with high-quality reproductions of more than 85 paintings accompanied by Burns's wry comments and reminiscences. He's notorious for slick, airbrushed photo-realism, for exotically curved women, aliens and machinery, and for meticulously reading the stories he illustrates. Not all SF artists do this! Authors appreciate such care: there are tributes from several who are glad to have had Burns covers, including Greg Bear, David Brin, Colin Greenland, Peter Hamilton, Paul McAuley and Ian McDonald. Bear reckons the spectacular painting for his own Eon is "one of the most remarkable illustrations in SF"--it certainly adds a lot to the novel. Many of these lavishly coloured images may be familiar to SF bibliophiles, but they're greatly enhanced by appearing at larger-than- paperback size without overlaid text. The notes on how each painting was devised, and how hapless family members posed for what became beauties and grotesques, are also enjoyable. An impressive gallery of top-flight SF and fantasy artwork. --David LangfordRead More