Bruce Pennington
To say that I am absolutely overjoyed to be able to present to you the magnificent cover art of Bruce Pennington for this, the second installment of The Flying Saucer Poetry Review, would most certainly be an understatement! Bruce is truly a legend in the world of science fiction and fantasy art. When attempting to describe his accomplishments in this field, even bold hyperbole wouldn’t do it justice. More importantly, he’s genuinely a class act with a big heart whose spirit of generosity and enthusiasm in helping small, independent publishers to achieve their creative vision is just unparalleled. Thank you kindly, Bruce!
Bruce is one of the most influential and prolific book and magazine cover artists in the history of the science fiction and fantasy genres. He is a four-time nominee and two-time winner of the British Science Fiction Award (BSFA) for Best Artist.
Bruce has created the cover art for more than two-hundred books and countless magazines, working with the biggest names in the industry. From Herbert’s Dune series, the bestselling science fiction books in history, to those by Heinlein, Asimov, Simak, Aldiss, Smith, Silverberg, van Vogt and so very many more.
A defining characteristic of Bruce’s art is that it is created with paint and paintbrush. It is art that is classical in its foundation, in its skillful representation of the subject matter, a grand conception of the science fictional. The continuum of past, present, and future, speculative and otherwise, meet precisely at the intersection of his brush and canvas.
Wet paint marks the spot.
While I am also a fan of digital art, graphic design, CGI, and AI art, Bruce’s art far surpasses such in my mind as it requires no special technology for its production or as its medium beyond that which was readily available to any of the masters throughout history, his being a classical expression of the artistic imagination.
While Botticelli painted the Florentine subject matter of his day, Bruce uses those same classical skills and materials to paint the subject matter born of a future era, science fiction.
Only an idea separates the two.
Children of Tomorrow is on a very shortlist of my favorite paintings (please see my introduction on page six for more on this exceptional work of art and my backstory with it). This painting captures the beauty of the human imagination and of the fantastical like few I’ve ever seen. It is the extraordinary marriage of the classical with science fiction. Flowers in the foreground, the sky, the clouds, the sea, but wait, what is that?!
Fast forward to the idea: science fiction. In all of its glory.
A great and mesmerizing UFO is the magnetic focal point, pulling us into a realm of high imagination, an epicenter of wonder and intrigue, with children running in its direction, it draws us in, and we too run with them, everything is attracted to it, as though pulled by a powerful tractor beam. Utterly brilliant and visually stunning.
A true classic of science fiction.
They say that a picture is worth a thousand words, you must read for yourself then, the many volumes that await you in Bruce’s remarkable art! Explore worlds of the imagination. Explore worlds of science fiction. Explore the worlds of Bruce Pennington. Treat yourself to a fantastical expedition of discovery through science fiction! You will return enriched and rejuvenated.
For comprehensive reviews, interviews and wonderful historical explorations of his work, life, and career, see Bruce’s website and the archival galleries of Bruce’s transcendental imaginarium of sublimely color-saturated extravaganzas of the fantastical science fiction realms that he has brought into existence. For further information visit here, the Internet Speculative Fiction Database (ISFDB), The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (SFE), and Wikipedia.
The Editor
