This page is part of Asymmetric Spaceships: A shrine to ships that violate symmetry on one - or better yet, multiple - axes.

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The 1970s and 1980s were a golden age of pulp sci-fi book covers, with vibrant, varied designs. I could dedicate a whole page to the genre, but for now let’s just focus on some of the asymmetric ones.

Blas Gallego#

More of a lusty sword-and-sorcery artist, Gallego seems to have two-ish sci-fi book covers, and the one that’s got asymmetric ships happens to be for a book I own!

The Last Deathship Off Antares (1988)

www.goodreads.com/book/show/2216762.The_Last_Deathship_Off_Antares

 

I can’t tell if the upper ship is asymmetric (though it looks like it), but the lower one most-definitely is!

Cover for The Last Deathship Off Antares (1988) - Blas Gallego

scifinet.net/blas-gallego-2/nggallery/page/2

 

Bob Layzell#

A Sea of Space (1980)

www.goodreads.com/book/show/938362.A_Sea_of_Space

 

Cover for A Sea of Space (1980) - Bob Layzell

 

 

Chris Foss#

The king (IMO) of pulp sci-fi book cover illustration, though not all his illustrations went on book covers and not all of them were sci-fi. The airbrush, the bright colors, the ship’s shapes… Foss had a style and genre all his own.

The Ultimate Guide to Science Fiction (1990)

www.goodreads.com/book/show/6766871-the-ultimate-guide-to-science-fiction

 

Futuristic Oil Tanker - Chris Foss

scifinet.net/chris-foss-2/nggallery/page/4

 

The background of this was near-duplicated by Glenn Brown in 1995:

Exercise One (for Ian Curtis) after Chris Foss - Glenn Brown

www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2014/contemporary-art-day-auction-l14021/lot.328.html

 

I guess the iceberg’s asymmetrical and in space… does that make it an asymmetric spaceship?