Steve Crisp & Vance

Steve Crisp is a British painter and illustrator known for his detailed paintings of the English countryside with colorful and nostalgic scenes of life, which he mainly uses for the large puzzles that have made him so successful. A graduate of the prestigious St. Martin’s School of Art in London, he has extended his art to advertising, animals, portraits and photography.

He also became an illustrator of novels appreciated worldwide, he realized nearly 600 covers among which 200 for Science Fiction or Fantasy, notably for J.Vance, R. Bradbury and S. King. We also owe him posters for the movies Aliens, Princess’ Bride or Mad Max.

His influences for the fantasy would have been Maxfiel Parrish (daybreak 1922) and Roger Dean (Yes albums) (*1).

He has designed the covers of Jack Vance’s works for the British publishers Grafton Books, New English library and Hodder & Stoughton:

Trullion : Alastor 2262 Grafton Books 1987
The Blue World – Grafton Books 1987
The Augmented Agent – New English Library 1988
The Dark Side of the Moon – New English Library 1989
The Languages of Pao – New English Library 1989
Araminta Station – Hodder & Stoughton / New English Library 1988-89-93
Ecce & Old Earth – Hodder & Stoughton / New English Library: 1992
Throy – Hodder & Stoughton / New English Library: 1993

TRULLION/ ALASTOR 2262

This title was first published in England in 1979 by Mayflower Granada with a cover by Peter Goodfellow. Republished in 87 by Grafton books with this cover by S. Crisp where we see a Star Trek type ship in the strange landscape of the Trullion swamps flying over Glinness’ boat approaching the island of Ambal. « The spaceship is partly similar to Star Trek but I would say that’s what makes it weird! » says Steve Crisp. Grafton Books has not published the other two novels in the « Alastor Cluster » series

THE BLUE WORLD

This novel from a 1964 short story The Kragen was published in England by Grafton in 1987. The cover is particularly well done and directly inspired by the story, the islands are huge sheets of aquatic plants more or less linked by clusters of vegetation and the message towers are very well rendered with their signal signs. In 2007, a US reissue of the original story The Kragen was given a cover by Tomislav Tikulin directly inspired by the one by Steve Crisp.

THE AUGMENTED AGENT :

An anthology of 8 short stories by Vance (from 1951 to 1967) published by New English Library in 1989. Steve Crisp designed a stylish cover with the main theme of augmented man and Africa with ochre, green and orange tones.

DARK SIDE OF THE MOON

Another compilation, 14 short stories and an introduction by Jack Vance 5 (no equivalent in France) still published by New English Library in 1989. Crisp has taken up the style of the previous one with more general SF themes: planet, spaceships in the same tones.

THE LANGUAGES OF PAO

British reissue in 1989 of one of Vance’s first great novels written in 1958. In the same style as the two previous ones from New English library, the theme is directly inspired by the story: we can recognize Lord Palafox flying away from the Breakness Institute with the planet Pao in the background.

ARAMINTA STATION

First volume of the Cadwall Chronicles series published by New English library. Steve Crisp has painted a panoramic that has been split in 3 for this edition. We can guess a bucolic planet and an observation station dominating the landscape.

ECCE AND OLD EARTH

Earth, which makes the Cadwall planet even more fascinating. Steve Crisp has painted an idyllic panorama of this still wild world but for how long?

THROY

Final volume of the series where the plot unravels as quickly as violently. The panel painted by Steve Crisp shows a wild and rather threatening nature.