Blish Star Trek 4 Cover Art Error

[Commishsleer]

I'm used to the Star Trek early novel covers having nothing to do with the story. Say if Uhura was featured on the cover you would have expected Uhura to feature in the story but likely as not she was hardly in the story at all.
Good spotting the 1710 though.

 

[ZapBrannigan]

Oh, and the deflector dish seemed to have gotten something that made it really happy since it's a lot bigger now too.

The dish sticks out so far on the painting because the artist was using the AMT model kit as one of his resources. The first edition of the kit put the deflector on a mounting pole that was too long:
https://culttvman.com/main/a-history-of-the-amt-enteprise-model-by-jay-chladek-part-1/

 

[CorporalCaptain]

The dish sticks out so far on the painting because the artist was using the AMT model kit as one of his resources. The first edition of the kit put the deflector on a mounting pole that was too long:
https://culttvman.com/main/a-history-of-the-amt-enteprise-model-by-jay-chladek-part-1/

It would appear that this was the case.

 

[johnnybear]

Quite a lot of the Trek books by James Blish that I own have the Kirk, Spock, McCoy and Scotty picture on them!
3,4,5,6,7 & 10 while the rest are painted picture covers!
JB

 

[Kaelef]

12 is shockingly bad. And the way the nacelles are angled in 6 doesn't make much sense either. I think these artists were excellent at creating impressionistic images of humans and other organic, non-mechanical subjects, and they lent that same "looseness" to starships. 12 in particular shows an inability to get the perspective at all correct.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

This may be obscure, but might be amusing and I was wondering if someone has noticed this - surely someone must have? The cover art for the paperback edition of James Blish's Star Trek 4 has "NCC-1710" on the (presumably) Enterprise's warp nacelles! This book has been sitting on my bookshelf for more than 40 years and I just noticed this! Or maybe it is not the Enterprise at all?

Lou Feck was an amazingly talented artist no matter the subject matter--including Star Trek (if you've ever seen his ST work in person, it is even more jaw-dropping in how beautiful and otherworldly it is--like the tone of early 1st season TOS). On that note, I've always viewed his ST work as sort of a conceptual painting--clearly knowing the world he's working with, but stylized at the same time, so it did not to be 100% accurate.

I always accepted the cover artists were only vaguely familiar with the Enterprise’s shape and filled in their own detail. That said the cover of Star Trek 5 is clearly a painting of the AMT model kit including the dreaded drooping nacelles.

The 1701 painting for the Star Trek 5 novel was provided by the brush of Mitchell Hooks, and he too created a great, mysterious view of TOS. Regarding the idea that his 1701 was based on the AMT kit, let's look at the two subjects--

Similarities include the extended deflector dish and the inaccurate, black Particle Venting Assembly / Field shaping Coils (according to one diagram). In the 60s and 70s, it was not uncommon for artists to use real world TOS merchandise (publicity photos, model kits, etc.) as a source for their work, but most of the 1701's shape as seen in Hooks' painting is still closer to the studio miniatures than the AMT kit--at least the early version which served as the model for the AMT product photo.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

Quite a lot of the Trek books by James Blish that I own have the Kirk, Spock, McCoy and Scotty picture on them!
3,4,5,6,7 & 10 while the rest are painted picture covers!
JB

You must be referring to reissues from recent decades, as the original Bantam releases (1967 - 1977) all had painted covers except for Star Trek 2 (season 1 publicity photo of Kirk and Spock on the bridge) and Star Trek 3 (season 3 publicity photo of Kirk, Spock and Uhura on the bridge).

 

[ZapBrannigan]

The 1701 painting for the Star Trek 5 novel was provided by the brush of Mitchell Hooks, and he too created a great, mysterious view of TOS. Regarding the idea that his 1701 was based on the AMT kit, let's look at the two subjects--

Similarities include the extended deflector dish and the inaccurate, black Particle Venting Assembly / Field shaping Coils (according to one diagram). In the 60s and 70s, it was not uncommon for artists to use real world TOS merchandise (publicity photos, model kits, etc.) as a source for their work, but most of the 1701's shape as seen in Hooks' painting is still closer to the studio miniatures than the AMT kit--at least the early version which served as the model for the AMT product photo.

The underside of the Star Trek 5 saucer section screams AMT model kit. Screams. And I say that with affection, because I love the painting and the kit.

 

[E-DUB]

Amazing how many of those books I had at one time or another (not just the Trek ones either).

 

[dupersuper]

Clearly this is just a picture of another ship.

 

[Tango]

My copies are reprintings from the 1970s (USA/Canada editions). The covers are:

ST1: is white with black title. Cover is art that I understand NBC used in print promotion around the time of the premiere in 1966 (the one where flames are coming out of the back of the nacelles AND the hangar deck - hope Scotty took a look at that).

ST2: is white with blue title. Cover is Spock/Kirk photo.

ST3: is black with red title. Cover is Kirk/Spock/Uhura photo.

ST4 through ST12 are black (back cover only) with white title and the art work we've been talking about.

Then there is "Mudd's Angels", which is ST13 sorta kinda (the two Mudd episodes plus an original Mudd story).

I also have the Alan Dean Foster "Log" series. Logs 1 through 7 have TAS stills on the cover but 8 through 10 have fairly generic-looking 3D-type illustrations of the Enterprise.

 

[ZapBrannigan]

My copies are reprintings from the 1970s (USA/Canada editions). The covers are:

ST1: is white with black title. Cover is art that I understand NBC used in print promotion around the time of the premiere in 1966 (the one where flames are coming out of the back of the nacelles AND the hangar deck - hope Scotty took a look at that).

ST2: is white with blue title. Cover is Spock/Kirk photo.

ST3: is black with red title. Cover is Kirk/Spock/Uhura photo.

ST4 through ST12 are black (back cover only) with white title and the art work we've been talking about.

Then there is "Mudd's Angels", which is ST13 sorta kinda (the two Mudd episodes plus an original Mudd story).

I also have the Alan Dean Foster "Log" series. Logs 1 through 7 have TAS stills on the cover but 8 through 10 have fairly generic-looking 3D-type illustrations of the Enterprise.

Don't forget the early Blish novel Spock Must Die, if you want the complete collection. I still have everything but the Alan Dean Foster books, which I stupidly got rid of as a young man.

 

[Jedi Marso]

I noticed that years ago, when I was a tween. I remember because I took great delight in pulling my copy of Franz Joseph off the shelf and looking up which ship that was actually supposed to be.

 

[Tango]

I had a copy of "Spock Must Die" but my brother has it now.

 

[Warped9]

I love “Spock Must Die!” Always thought it could be a great movie. I still have a copy, but not the same very first copy I had with the mirrored photo of the two Spocks.

 

[Nerys Myk]

I think the cover art for Star Trek 8 is nothing short of outstanding. It's also by Lou Feck.

Here's a resource about his cover art: https://paperbackpalette.blogspot.com/2018/04/lou-feck-incredibly-versatile-paperback.html#:~:text=LOU FECK was an incredibly,and perhaps diversity of subject.

I'd say that Feck's Jaws 2 art (alluding to Roger Kastel's work for the original paperback, which was evidently in turn inspired by Paul Bacon's more abstract hardcover art), is Feck's his most famous work.

Those images bring back memories of stocking shelves in my bookselling days.

 

[Tango]

I love “Spock Must Die!” Always thought it could be a great movie. I still have a copy, but the same very first copy I had with the mirrored photo of the two Spocks.

My copy did as well. Cover was predominantly orangey-red in colour if I remember. I should ask my brother to give it back!

 

[Commishsleer]

I love “Spock Must Die!” Always thought it could be a great movie. I still have a copy, but not the same very first copy I had with the mirrored photo of the two Spocks.

I thought Spock Must Die was stupid. Again Blish got the characters wrong. Yes Spock split in half would immediately say to kill the other Spock and Kirk would go along with it. What!
I mean if another me appeared I'd go on holidays not plot my alter-ego's death. And Spock and Kirk are supposed to be better than me. Well at least it was better than Spock Messiah.

 

[publiusr]

Mitchell Hooks'

Hmmm...looks like the beginnings of an Arboretum on the secondary hull:
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Arboretum?file=Constitution_class_refit_engineeringhull.jpg

Is there writing on the port underside of the saucer? looks backward...

 

[feek61]

Never noticed the numbers off, even though I have owned these books since they were printed. I thought I was observant; I guess I am not!!

I personally favor the Star Trek 10 book with the Klingon ship getting blasted.