Rocket Powers!

It is hard to illustrate SF book covers without creating more than a few spaceships over the years, and Powers certainly did. Although his early illustrations were more traditional "pointy rockets", they soon transmogrified into a plethora of abstract shapes and uncanny flying forms. But even his early pointy rockets (with requisite tail fins) were distinctly his own -- strangely asymmetric and often minimally graphic. Later, his space vehicle designs became limbless abstract bodies ("corpus" ships), biomorphic starships, or simply modern surrealist sculptures with rocket engines attached!

 I had fun stitching together an assortment of Powers ships for comparison, although this is by no means all of the MANY strange spacecraft he created...

From Richard Powers Art Blog