Jᴀᴄᴜʀᴜᴛᴜ - Tʜᴇ Cᴀsᴛ Oᴜᴛ

Didn't know where to put this, but what is the big round thing on the mainstream current Chapterhouse cover supposed to be? The no-ship? A worm's ass?

the No-Ship

Apjak wrote:the No-Ship

No-Shit !




(please don't hate me, the leprechauns made me do it)

I thought it might be Spam too, but I searched his past posts, and just decided it was a n00b. I'm jus' trying to be a nice guy.

Ow no I was talking about my own post, even if the question does sound a bit weird ^^

I've always wondered what the round thing on the cover was too. Very unique design for the no-ship. It looks like a fat eye with sandworm skin, or a cycloptic blob with a concave eye with worm skin. I liked the design of the planet's surface, too. It looks like the no-ship is sitting in the middle of an existential/futuristic/nightamarish Mexican, or Texan, flat desert. I always found that image haunting, because it was just that blob lying in miles of flat desert and scattered stones under a red sooty sky. Before I even read all the Dune chronicles, covers like this one made me wonder what surreal direction Herbert had taken from th first book. Once I finally read Chapterhouse, the novel turned out to be not as nightmarishly existential as the cover, but the novel was definitely existential.

While writing in the 80s, Herbert took the Dune series towards a crazier direction than the reader of the first book would have expected. In the last three books, you got pages of incredibly dense and complicated philosophical dialogues, unceasing gholas of Duncan Idaho, the Bene Gesserit becoming the focal point and heroines (or anti-heroines) of the series, Arrakis undergoing intense environmental and religious changes over the centuries, new villains who are the supreme antithesis of the Bene Gesserit, explicit sex scenes between gholas and Matres/Gesserits, Arrakis being destroyed and replaced, a new breed of Face Dancer, and hints of a bigger threat we still don't know about. The abstract covers of the last three books don't hint at any of those crazy details, but they still suit the mood of Herbert's dark and uncertain future of Dune.
It still amazes me how Herbert developed the concepts for those books.

Back to the covers, I think it's fascinating that cover art for sci-fi novels in the 70s and 80s had that abstract, existential feel to them. The fact that the latter covers were designed by the same guy who did the earliest illustrations and cover art for Dune fascinates me even more, because of how much his art style has altered over time.

I thought the cover was innaccurate because the landing flat was near Chapterhouse Central and the orchards and farms. I believe it took Odrade three days to get to the desert from there whereas it was just a short trip from central to the no-ship.

Who did the artwork by the way?

lotek wrote:Who did the artwork by the way?

I think it was the same person who did the cover art and illustrations for the Dune series since the very beginning: John Schoenherr.

I've got that paperback at home, I'll look and see if it gives a credit.

It is indeed art by John Schoenherr.

Jodorowsky's Acolyte wrote:Back to the covers, I think it's fascinating that cover art for sci-fi novels in the 70s and 80s had that abstract, existential feel to them. The fact that the latter covers were designed by the same guy who did the earliest illustrations and cover art for Dune fascinates me even more, because of how much his art style has altered over time.

You should read this article by sf author Charles Stross about cover artwork; in short, you can be the most stuffy, dry existentialist science fiction author, and a publisher may still decide to adorn your book with a bright red spaceship and a scantily-clad woman holding a ray gun, just to make it draw attention to itself on a bookshelf.

So don't presume that the change in style is a reflection of a change in his personal taste, or evolving artistic insights; it's more likely that he simply painted what the publisher's marketing department wanted him to paint.

http://www.arrakis.co.uk/books.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

John Schoenherr.

thanks everyone

Freakzilla wrote:http://www.arrakis.co.uk/books.html

Love that page, the Bruce Pennington still win the prize for me.

Does anyone have the panorama pic of the New English Library series of all the Dune covers stitched together? I found it before online but can't anymore it seems.

Or is it the Berkeley Trade Paperbacks? I know one of those two series form a continuous image when put together.

It's the mid 80s NEL paperbacks you're thinking of, and if memory serves it was only the 1st 5 books that were designed that way, their cover for Chapterhouse: Dune is a mess, futars in a cage and a big building.


edit, Oh and the pic's about somewhere, chiggy posted years ago. I think he got from http://www.arrakis.co.uk/ or http://www.usul.net/, somewhere like that.

Googling the words, dune panorama found this on the 1st page of results.

sorry for the size.



edit: Image linky no worky. http://www.djabbic.co.uk/BookCovers/Ima ... norama.jpg

OK now the image loads fine, I'm fucking losing it here.

inhuien wrote:Googling the words, dune panorama found this on the 1st page of results.

Love those covers.

That's the latest set I got

Looking at them, I like this Brazilian cover for God-Emperor; it's cleverer than most other illustrations.

^^^ Why do you think that, it's a generic lynchian worm rearing up against a cliff face. Seems phoned in to me.

Omph, can you host this as the server/domain seems wonky.

http://www.djabbic.co.uk/PanoramaDetail ... alEntrys=4