Book Cover Illustrations

I’m not sure who came up with the idea of alternate histories in science fiction; I think the first writer I noticed using it was Robert Heinlein (perhaps in part to make his stories all conform to the “history” he employed to link them together — arguably a good sales gimmick if nothing else).

Steampunk is one of the latest of these alternate history forms, dating back to the 1990s or perhaps even the 1980s. It’s a sort of H.G. Wells meets the matinee movie of the 1950s sort of thing, where gentlemen still play by the rules, ladies are capable of dispatching a monster without messing up a hair on a pretty head, and the cold scientific mind can unlock any puzzle, create any gadget, or save the world from the worst of mustached villains.

This is my contribution to the Steampunk mix, created for a book that is being assembled to showcase science fiction illustrators (I’m not certain this picture will make the cut, so to protect the publisher’s reputation, I’ll not mention any names).

As you can see, the iconic “professor” confronts the mechanical man that somehow can be automated with clockwork and an almost magical source of power, enabling the mechanism to cope with almost anything the good guys might employ in an attempt to destroy it. However, as with all good matinee fair, the good professor has invented a new explosive that he has packed into the bullet he will soon fire into the monster’s mechanical heart.
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Duncan Long is a freelance magazine and book cover illustrator for HarperCollins, PS Publishing, Pocket Books, Solomon Press, American Media, Fort Ross, Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, and many other publishers. See more of Duncan’s book cover illustrations at: DuncanLong.com