The U.E.S.P.A. Series of books...

[Albertese]

I love the wacky retro ship!

I dunno what the "Junkyard Planet" is a reference to, but it makes me think of the Planet of Junk from Transformers: The Movie (1986). Where Eric Idle voiced the leader of the Junkions, And Galvatron (Leonard Nimoy) nearly killed Ultra Magnus (Robert Stack) and managed to steal the Matrix of Leadership to go off and try to free himself from the control of Unicron (Orsen Wells).

That's such a great movie. I watch it at least once a year.

--Alex

 

[Mysterion]

^^^^
"Junkyard Planet" is an actual story by H. Beam Piper that was published in the time period.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Not part of the UESPA Series proper, something a little more "pulp" like. Enjoy!

Love it!

 

[The Lensman]

Thanks for the kind words Albertese and King Daniel! A pulp era Enterprise is something I've wanted to do for a long while and I'm not sure what really spurred me into getting down to brass tacks and getting it done. Probably just needed a fresh project to work on while letting UESPA sit on the burner for a bit. Anyways, here's another pulp cover. Enjoy!

 

[Mytran]

I am loving these pulp style covers. Like other posters, I really want to read the stories now!

 

[E-DUB]

Curse me for not knowing this but it's been a long time since I've seen "Catspaw". Did the "floating witchy heads" come from the ep or another source? They sure look familiar.

 

[GNDN18]

Thanks for the kind words Albertese and King Daniel! A pulp era Enterprise is something I've wanted to do for a long while and I'm not sure what really spurred me into getting down to brass tacks and getting it done. Probably just needed a fresh project to work on while letting UESPA sit on the burner for a bit. Anyways, here's another pulp cover. Enjoy!

These covers are fantastic. The paperbacks captured the spirit of the Bantam series perfectly and these pulps are wonderfully pulpy. That robot...!

Just one thing, though: everyone knows starships can't fly in an atmosphere. And the nacelles are too big.

 

[publiusr]

If the Planet of the Titans movie were a novel from the 1970s, would the ship have a little of the Best of Trek aspect--or be shades of this? http://www.terrantradeauthority.com/other-books/space-wars-worlds-weapons/

 

[The Lensman]

Curse me for not knowing this but it's been a long time since I've seen "Catspaw". Did the "floating witchy heads" come from the ep or another source? They sure look familiar.

They came from "Catspaw", they just weren't floating in space.

These covers are fantastic. The paperbacks captured the spirit of the Bantam series perfectly and these pulps are wonderfully pulpy. That robot...!

Thanks! The last one came out better than I expected. The colors on the earlier magazines from the 20-40's could be quite bright and garish, so it was fun trying to do something along those lines. I do like the robot (it's the second of two I've made) and I may include them on another Trek (or even non-Trek) pulp cover.

Just one thing, though: everyone knows starships can't fly in an atmosphere. And the nacelles are too big.

Now you tell me!

If the Planet of the Titans movie were a novel from the 1970s, would the ship have a little of the Best of Trek aspect--or be shades of this? http://www.terrantradeauthority.com/other-books/space-wars-worlds-weapons/

I have no idea, but I do have a copy of "Space Wars"! Love that book. First saw it in 7th or 8th grade at the school library. Found a copy of it about three or four years ago and snatched it up.

 

[The Lensman]

Next!

My homage to Mitchell Hooks cover to Star Trek 5 of the real Bantam editions. This completes all my homages to my favorite covers from the real world Bantam editions. I did this one because I was having artist block and wanted to see how well I could pull off a close but different version of the cover.

The Way To Eden - Capt. Garth encounters a group of idealists looking for paradise...but their leader hides a mysterious secret.

The Gamesters Of Triskellion - Ron Tracy and two of his best officers are forced to fight for alien gamblers.

Balance Of Terror - Long ago enemies return from the depths of space testing a new devasting weapon on United Earth colonies

Who Mourns For Adonis - Matt Decker and the crew of the U.E.S.S. Constellation encounter a lonely god on a faraway world.

The Cloud Minders - Bob Wesley visits an ideal city floating in the clouds.



These descriptions are a bit briefer than before because I'm now trying to work out the crews for the various ships, as well as a basic timeline since there are three eras to the whole series. We are well into the second era right now.


The thing to keep in mind with these Bantam editions is that no ship or crew is set in stone until an individual cover is done. For example, I somehow missed that there was an Admiral Komack who appeared in an early episode, so that gives me an option to replace someone like Stocker who should come later (or at least not be in comand of a ship like I have him, so now I have a better replacement).

Also, I'm still not sure how I'm going to do the Romulans and Klingons. I've been entertaining some pretty different takes on them using elements from the show, so until I do, I'll keep any descriptions of them vague.

 

[Ptrope]

Can't believe I missed the cover with "Junkyard Planet" . That's one of my favorite Piper stories - as "The Cosmic Computer" with a Michael Whelan cover, it's been my most reread novel .

 

[Albertese]

Nice! Which captain is the focus of "Balance of Terror"?

Also, did you intentionally change "Adonais" to "Adonis" or was that a typo? (or a victim of a spell-checker...)

--Alex

 

[The Lensman]

Nice! Which captain is the focus of "Balance of Terror"?

DOH! Can't believe I missed that! The captain in that story is Pike. Looking over my current listing of stories, I realize that Pike's focus has changed and I didn't catch that. In the TMP adaptation, I think Kirk said that people described him as a modern day Odysseus, and that role was the one I intended for Pike. I may have to rejigger the stories again to reflect that as originally I think "Who Mourns..." was originally a Pike story.

Also, did you intentionally change "Adonais" to "Adonis" or was that a typo? (or a victim of a spell-checker...)

Uh...yeah...the latter one. Actually it was an unintended typo. I was spelling by memory and clearly that memory did not serve me well.

Nice! Which captain is the focus of "Balance of Terror"?

DOH! Can't believe I missed that! The captain in that story is Pike. Looking over my current listing of stories, I realize that Pike's focus has changed and I didn't catch that. In the TMP adaptation, I think Kirk said that people described him as a modern day Odysseus, and that role was the one I intended for Pike. I may have to rejigger the stories again to reflect that as originally I think "Who Mourns..." was originally a Pike story.

Also, did you intentionally change "Adonais" to "Adonis" or was that a typo? (or a victim of a spell-checker...)

Uh...yeah...the latter one. Actually it was an unintended typo. I was spelling by memory and clearly that memory did not serve me well.



The annoying thing about doing digital art is how stuff looks different on different computers. For example, the cover to 7 is faded looking on my screen, as I intended it to look. But on several other machines that I've viewed the image on, it's not faded and the colors are crisper. So my intended effect isn't there. Frustrating.



As a side note, my original thinking in regards to the stories was to keep things strictly classic Trek (with the exception of one episode). But there were two snags: the Starbase 11 series and a sort of side series to the SB11 stories. At the time I was trying to stay as faithful to the original format and POV as possible so the SB11 and side series stories were looking very sparce and I figured I'd have to borrow from one of the spin-off's in order to fill these out. My solution to the SB11 stories was catching my snap that there's a whole world for SB11 adventures to take place on (in addition to any other worlds in the system) and that solved that problem. However there's still the side series, that one is more problematic. That series used an existing episode from classic Trek, but I still needed stories similar in nature and there's only one or two like it in Classic Trek. So this series will be the ONLY exception to using non-Classic Trek episodes. Remarkably, the two episodes that I could recall off the top of my head fit in wonderfully as follow up's, either directly or thematically, to the original classic Trek episodes. However in order to effectively do that, the Romulans may have to stay pretty much as we've known them. At least that's my thinking for now.

 

[The Lensman]

Here's the cover to volume 8:

The Drumhead - Samuel Cogley is called to defend the Vulcanian Spock against accusations of treason by an overzealous Admiral Stiles. What starts as an investigation spirals out of control into a witch hunt. The first appearance of Sam Cogley.

Specter Of The Gun - Ensign Jimmy Kirk goes on his first landing party on the planet of the Melkotians, a mysterious race of xenophobes with vast powers. There the crew of the Constellation is forced to participate in a recreation of the famous gunfight at the OK Corral....only they're cast in the role of the Clanton gang. The first appearance of James Kirk.

Plato's Stepchildren - Ron Tracy and the crew of the Exeter are lured to a distant world based on Platonic principles in order to cure their leader Parmin. They are drawn into a conflict of wills against the telekinetic powers of the ruling elites.

The Enterprise Incident - Christopher Pike is sent on a dangerous espionage mission to steal the Romulan Cloaking device for U.E.S.P.A. in order to restore the balance of power.

Shore Leave - Bob Wesley and the crew of the Lexington visit a world where dreams and nightmares become terrifying reality.


Artist Note: This is a slightly modified version of my cover to "Redshirt!" which was an homage to Lou Feck's cover for "Star Trek 8". Initially "Redshirt!" was done just as a homage cover that wasn't part of the UESPA series, but I decided as I finished my other homages that I wanted to incorporate that cover into the series proper. It will actually be reworked as a solo cover for a story that is not in this volume. My "in-universe" explanation is that the boss at Bantam liked that solo cover so much, he used it on this collected edition.

"The Drumhead" is one of two non-Classic Trek stories that are part of the UESPA series. There are ONLY two and this is for the sole reason that since the beginning I liked the idea of a series of Sam Cogley books. Sadly there's a dearth of legal drama stories in the classic series. The Drumhead works well as a followup to the events in "Balance Of Terror". The other, as yet to be announced legal drama, likewise works as a followup to another classic Trek episode.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

My "in-universe" explanation is that the boss at Bantam liked that solo cover so much, he used it on this collected edition.

It's an excellent piece. Once again, you've done it.

Lou Feck's cover for Star Trek 8 is hands down my favorite of those that he did for Blish's Star Trek volumes. For that reason alone, I'm glad that you included an homage to it. I also like how you've translated what I think is its essence—by my interpretation, the suggestion of a lonely figure, evidently having just beamed down, boldly facing a strange, new world—into a form that is, for lack of a better way to put, less of an alternate reality to TOS canon. IMO, it's the last aspect that is one of the stunning things about your "Redshirt!" piece.

 

[E-DUB]

Admit it. You've thought of printing out one of these, gluing it around a beat up old paperback and pretending to read it somewhere where you'd be seen.

 

[Mytran]

I love that you've managed to work in "The Drumhead" in there. Shame I'll never get to read it!

 

[OpenMaw]

That is beautiful! The faces are haunting, and I am Loving that ship design.

 

[BillJ]

I have to admit that I get excited every time I see that there are more posts in this thread. Great job bringing the UESPA series to life The Lensman, even if it is just the covers.

 

[The Lensman]

I've updated the cover to Vol. 8 as there were a few issues with it, the most notable being that it said "Patrol" instead of "Probe" on the front cover.

I have a template that has all the front cover text on it, and apparently when I created it, it said "United Earth Space Patrol Agency" (a mistake I make more than I care to admit when typing fast). I thought I had corrected the various .psd files with that error.....apparently not.

It's an excellent piece. Once again, you've done it.

Lou Feck's cover for Star Trek 8 is hands down my favorite of those that he did for Blish's Star Trek volumes. For that reason alone, I'm glad that you included an homage to it. I also like how you've translated what I think is its essence—by my interpretation, the suggestion of a lonely figure, evidently having just beamed down, boldly facing a strange, new world—into a form that is, for lack of a better way to put, less of an alternate reality to TOS canon. IMO, it's the last aspect that is one of the stunning things about your "Redshirt!" piece.

Thank you for the kind words. Feck's cover for 8 is not only my favorite of the original Bantam editions, but it might be my favorite cover period. I think you've nailed exactly what makes it so compelling to me...."the suggestion of a lonely figure, evidently having just beamed down, boldly facing a strange, new world".

I think Feck captured the essence of Star Trek brilliantly and simply in that cover. Probably better than any other artist, imo. That you think I've captured even a fragment of the essence of that work is high praise indeed.

Admit it. You've thought of printing out one of these, gluing it around a beat up old paperback and pretending to read it somewhere where you'd be seen.

I have thought about everything you said but the last part. Years ago I made a fake book prop for a friend. Instead of gluing the cover around an old book, I cut down ivory paper and glued the cover to it. It was pretty cool in it's way.

By the by, I did start a cover for "Triskellion".....didn't work out as easily as I thought. Gonna take a lot more work and experimentation to get that one right.

I love that you've managed to work in "The Drumhead" in there. Shame I'll never get to read it!

I know right?! Once I decided to bring in a couple of non-Classic Trek stories for Cogley, this one suggested itself immediately. And I'd love to read it as Cogley was such a great character. Shame we never really saw him again.

That is beautiful! The faces are haunting, and I am Loving that ship design.

Thanks! That ship will probably grace a few more ACE covers.

I have to admit that I get excited every time I see that there are more posts in this thread. Great job bringing the UESPA series to life Lensman, even if it is just the covers.

Thank you Bill.

It is immensely gratifying knowing that people enjoy these covers and maybe look forward to what's next. Hearing that people want to read these stories is just a thrill and I almost feel guilty that I lack the talent to deliver on that front.