Spacewrecks

The late 70’s & early 80’s saw a growth spurt for the sci-fi world. Due largely to Star Wars, the movie industry was flooded with all kinds of “Space Epic” scripts, and Hollywood being what it is, they did what they always do: Follow the smell of money. I have to admit, there were some great shows and flicks that came out around that time; “Battle beyond the Stars” “Tron” “The Black Hole” “Escape from New York” “Battlestar Galactica” (Which is currently enjoying probably the biggest comeback since…I dunno…Nutella?) “The Thing” “Bladerunner” “Wrath of Khan” (I’ll omit the first Star Trek movie for obvious reasons. If you need me to spell it out for you, you’re too far gone a Trekkie to listen to reason.) Of course many other (and probably way better) scripts were sent in as well, but as usual, the theme in Hollywood is always “Why do something with integrity? Blow it up, show some boobies and throw in a laserblast or two, it’ll be fine. Formula man, formula!!” So we can also thank them for fecal wastes of my time (Flash Gordon, anyone? Although…The theme song was ASS-KICKIN’!)

This was also the era that illustrated sci-fi books became more popular, and a good story warranted a good picture. This directly contributed to much of my elementary school delinquency, due to a preference to sci-fi art as opposed to math. I mean, it’s MATH. Bleacchh.

I fondly remember drawing attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion, when I should have been doing my homework. I made C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain…

…Whoops, sorry, wrong script.

Around this time a series of sci-fi books were illustrated with the sole purpose of being a kind of sketchbook for cover art ideas. The first couple were okay, nothing to write home about really, but you know how things look when you’re an 11 year old space nut with the Death Star on the brain: If it flys through space, IT’S FUCKING COOL.

So I collected them all.

The books were made by a fictional group called “The Terran Trade Authority” and solely the work of Stewart Cowley, who published some great mid-list sci-fi back in the day. He also did a must-have (at the time) and impossible-to-find now book called “Aliens in space: an illustrated guide to the inhabited galaxy” Which I spent weeks pouring over & letting my imagination run so far away with me my relatives put my face on a milk carton. The books formed a connected space-opera milieu, describing the future history of mankind's expansion into the galaxy, presented in the guise of official handbooks by the trade organization from which the setting takes its name. Compared to other science fiction settings, the TTA is optimistic about man's place in the universe, with elements of violence and authoritarianism that prevent it from becoming unrealistically utopian. There is a cool element of style with various mysterious alien relics and incidents that are left unexplained by the author, you have to draw your own conclusions.

Spacecraft 2000-2100 AD

This book covers the events immediately prior to and after an era of galactic war and descriptions are presented in the “technical repair manual” manner of reporting. The book is presented like an aircraft recognition guide, made up entirely of spacecraft descriptions, relating their role and performance in the war if applicable, and occasionally their history afterwards. There is also a section on unknown aliens. There is an illustration in this one that is so obviously the spaceship Serenity from the tv show “Firefly” that they should send some proceeds to it. It was the first book of it’s kind, and was the first publishing triumph of the author.

Great Space Battles

This one is pretty good, and worth a read. It’s divided in two parts:

1: Something called “The Laguna War”. A story about an interstellar war between Earth and a planet called Laguna in 2219. It's a great story that has the atmosphere of a war in the depths of space against a mysterious opponent. It finishes with a tantalizing 'the end... or is it?' You have no idea how many sleepless nights this damn sentence caused me.

2: A set of very short stories mostly about exploration of dangerous planets and minor battles. Really it’s almost an appendix to the first section but stil a good read. Contrary to Spacecraft 2000-2100 AD, the book contains stories instead of individual spaceship descriptions, which causes some problems as multiple illustrations were not always coherent within a single story. If you read the first one, this one left you maybe a little confused.

Starliners: Commercial Travel in 2200 AD

This fourth book is a return to the principle of the first book i.e. an illustrated list of spaceship descriptions instead of a collection of stories. However, being set in a time of peace, it speaks only of commercial companies exploiting flights towards exotic planets. I hate to say it, but I think the author just threw it in there to complete a series, or something like that. Or maybe he needed some quick cash. At any rate, if I had to make a judgment, this is the WORST book of all of them, and not really worth having except to complete a collection. The stories are just so-so, and the so-called “Starliners” are about as interesting as a potato rotting in the ground. They are almost completely straight-lined and dull, no apparent thought to what a space liner of the future might really look like. Even as a kid, I was way disappointed in this one, and if it’s any clue to how big a nerd I am, I even liked “Space: 1999”. So you have to go pretty far to earn my disapproval in the sci-fi world.

I put the fourth book third because I wanted to save the best for last.

SpaceWreck: Ghost Ships and Derelicts of Space

As was the case in the second part of Great Space Battles, the book is a collection of many unrelated very short stories about dangerous planets and space disasters. Most of the stories don’t even explain HOW the illustrated spacewreck occurred, and this was something that I just couldn’t stop thinking about as a kid. The accompanying stories aren’t bad, again, Stewart Cowley is no Robert Heinlein. But the illustrations are FAR superior to anything else he ever did before or since. You can’t help but look at them and wonder…How? What happened? How did they crash? Were there any survivors? How did this get here?
I missed this book, and recently while I was searching for a different sci-fi novel on Amazon I came across it again.

…For $150.00, new.

SAY WHAT?!?! I bought the ENTIRE COLLECTION in 1983 for under $30.00. Man, whoever said “you can’t go home again” knew exactly what they were talking about. Now I wish I had actually hung on to them. For that matter, all my Star Wars action figures as well. They weren’t dolls. Girls play with dolls. Guys play with action figures.

A little more research & I found a copy going for $75.00 new. Well, I guess I could swing that, it IS a collector’s item after all, and the price is under the “wife radar”. Those of you who are married know what this is, but for the mercifully free (or “Bachelors”, as they are called) it’s the hard limit of your petty cash spending that you don’t have to consult with your wife before you go for it. Any married man who says he has no such system is full of shit, period. Any man who defies it risks…Well, a lot of “lonely walks” as Lothar of the Hill People would put it.

I’m looking forward to getting it, and it will be here in a few days. I’ll post more on it, with some highly illegal scans from the book when I do.