The Fantastic Art of Boris Vallejo (Del Rey, May 1978). Cover by Boris Vallejo

I make no secret of the fact that when it comes to books, I’m first and foremost a fan of the prose and the stories. The cover art is important but secondary to me. But there’s no denying the power of good cover art to catch one’s eye, to fire the imagination, and to cement one’s memories of the stories. Genres such as Sword & Planet and Sword & Sorcery have been graced with some truly great covers over the years, from Krenkel, Frazetta, and Vallejo, to Jones, Kelly, Kirby, Bell, Royo, and many others.

When I walk past my shelves, the covers of favorite books leap out at me and evoke all kinds of pleasant memories and associations with what’s inside. Over the years, I’ve bought various art books and calendars from my favorite book cover artists. Last night I started paging through my copy of The Fantastic Art of Boris Vallejo, and I thought I’d share a few images and the connections they have for me to memorable reading.

Here for example, I’ve included the cover of the book as well as photos of two interior paintings. Both of these appeared as covers on the Gor novels of John Norman, from Del Rey. We have Tarnsman of Gor — the first in the series — and Nomads of Gor, which is Book 4.

Tarnsman introduced us to Tarl Cabot, an earthman who gets transported to the counter-earth, Gor, which orbits the sun directly opposite of Earth. The story here was a pretty standard S&P tale but written in a unique style. Some people find John Norman’s style to be a bit pedantic, but in the shorter and earlier volumes of the series it has a charm all its own.

I read Book 2 of the series first and it took me quite a few years in those days (1970s) to finally get Book 1. I well remember my excitement.

Nomads of Gor was Book Four in the series and is my favorite. Tarl Cabot meets alternate Mongols. Although slavery was mentioned in both of these books, it played little to no role in the stories, which focused on adventure, combat, and exotic but historically familiar characters and settings.

Read Part II of this post, in which I discuss Boris covers for Conan, and novels by Edgar Rice Burroughs and Poul Anderson, here.

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Charles Gramlich administers The Swords & Planet League group on Facebook, where this post first appeared. See all of his recent posts for Black Gate here.