Starliners: Commercial Space travel in 2200 AD

Type: Fiction with Various Artists

Author: Stewart Cowley

Publisher: Hamlyn

Format: Hardback 200mm x 170mm)

Cover Price £3.95

Publication Date: 1980

Page count: 92

This is a solid hardback book with a glossy dust jacket. The book is printed on regular matt paper and is about ⅔ colour with the rest being a fictitious historical account of commercial space travel in 2200 AD. Despite the matt paper, the art is well reproduced using full-page (or double-page spread) full-bleed printing. This is #4 in a series of six books in this sequence (plus two later additions). I have two others in the series (Spacecraft 2000-2100 & Great Space Battles) so other reviews will follow. The text is well written and entertaining even if it is not always a perfect match for the pictures it is allegedly describing.

The above picture by Trevor Webb demonstrates the typical full-page layout that shows off the art to good effect. The decent format is enough that even detailed pieces can be appreciated properly. In the late 1970s and early 1980s there was a boom in the use of SF & Fantasy artwork that had previously been used as book covers. Agencies like "Young Artists" sold the re-use rights for this art cheaply as it was considered a bonus on top of the original sale. Hamlyn, Octopus, Intercontinental and others all produced books that set this artwork to a fictional background. Note that there is significant duplication in the artwork used by these three publishers. These Terran Trade Authority Handbooks by Hamlyn are arguably the best of the bunch. They certainly introduced a generation of fans to F&SF art and became icons (and fairly collectable in the process).