Books for Prep: Future Past: Worlds That Never Were

From the 1930s through the 1950s, Virgil Finlay was the most popular artist in science fiction — and for obvious reasons. His meticulous, labor-intensive, dot-based technique, coupled with an unfettered imagination, created fantastic otherworlds populated by sensual sirens and frightful creatures depicted with a nearly photographic reality. This first-ever career retrospective features hundreds of Finlay's black-and-white drawings illustrating scenes from works by his friend H. P. Lovecraft, as well as Robert E. Howard and other sci-fi legends. Here too are his rarely seen images from The American Weekly, deemed so disturbing that publisher William Randolph Hearst fired him. The book includes art of Finlay's that appeared in such noted pulp magazines as Weird Tales and Amazing Stories, as well as previously unpublished paintings that show his expert use of color. Sci-fi icons Robert Bloch and Harlan Ellison offer tributes, while Finlay's wife, Bev, contributes a moving memoir describing life with the man who made new worlds immediate and real.