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                                  Cover art © Colin Hay




    This is the March 1978 Zebra edition of The Gryb. Although the painting is uncredited and I don't recognize the style, Hervé Hauck has informed me that the artist is Colin Hay, who is known for depicting massive spaceships coming into the illustration, and has done quite a bit of work for the publisher Fleuve Noir in France. I also recently heard from Simon Jones who sent me a scan of the (British) Coronet edition of Leo P. Kelley's novel The Man From Maybe which features the same artwork. It's always interesting to see the same painting appear on different books.

    I'm not entirely sure why I like this cover so much. It is by any critical standard dull, yet it holds a strange fascination for me. Perhaps it's the unusual design of the structures, and the emphasis on the sheer openness of the surrounding space. Looking at this painting gives me a slight tingle of agoraphobia, communicating at least a small impression of being in space — an appropriate achievement for the cover of a science fiction book.