The Chesley Awards for Science Fiction and Fantasy Art: A Retrospective

by John Grant, Pamela D. Scoville, John Grant

Presenting the best of science fiction and fantasy art from the past 17 years, a true collector's item beautifully produced on high-quality paper. Established by the Association of Science Fiction and Fantasy Artists, and named for the renowned painter, Chesley Bonestell, the annual Chesley Awards are bestowed by the practitioners themselves, and so carry a high level of prestige. Here are works magical and mysterious, terrifying and haunting, dreamlike and imaginative beyond belief. Among the remarkable people highlighted: Bob Eggleton, Jean Pierre Targette, Rick Berry, Kinuko Y. Craft, and dozens of other magnificent illustrators.
"This visually stunning work belongs in every collection of sf and fantasy art."--"Library Journal"
"It aims to stun and] rarely fails."--"Booklist "

Genres: Art, Nonfiction, Science Fiction Fantasy

192 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 2003

About the author

John Grant is author of over eighty books, of which about twenty-five are fiction, including novels like The World, The Hundredfold Problem, The Far-Enough Window and most recently The Dragons of Manhattan and Leaving Fortusa. His “book-length fiction” Dragonhenge, illustrated by Bob Eggleton, was shortlisted for a Hugo Award in 2003; its successor was The Stardragons. His first story collection, Take No Prisoners, appeared in 2004. He is editor of the anthology New Writings in the Fantastic, which was shortlisted for a British Fantasy Award. His novellas The City in These Pages and The Lonely Hunter have appeared from PS Publishing.

His latest fiction book is Tell No Lies , his second story collection; it's published by Alchemy Press. His most recent nonfiction is A Comprehensive Encyclopedia of Film Noir . Earlier, he coedited with John Clute The Encyclopedia of Fantasy and wrote in their entirety all three editions of The Encyclopedia of Walt Disney’s Animated Characters; both encyclopedias are standard reference works in their field. Among other recent nonfictions have been Discarded Science, Corrupted Science (a USA Today Book of the Year), Bogus Science and Denying Science.

As John Grant he has to date received two Hugo Awards, the World Fantasy Award, the Locus Award, and a number of other international literary awards. He has written books under other names, even including his real one: as Paul Barnett, he has written a few books (like the space operas Strider’s Galaxy and Strider’s Universe) and for a number of years ran the world-famous fantasy-artbook imprint Paper Tiger, for this work earning a Chesley Award and a nomination for the World Fantasy Award.

Reviews

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have heard of the Chesley awards for some time but have never got around to reading this book - Well a recently trip to a antiquarian and collectors book shop offered me the opportunity to correct that and I was not disappointed.

The Chesley awards are seen as the science fiction and fantasy artists pinnacle of achievement and this book charts both the history and winners as well as offering profiles of some of the celebrated artists.

I think what appealed to me so much about this book was that not only do I recognise so many of the artists and their work but in fact I have much of them already in other collections and artists exposes.

The book is a beautiful collection of work and you can see why such high praise is heaped on them - this is a book I will be referring back to time and time again as even though I recognise so much there are still a good number of surprises which I want to explore more- and that for me is the sign of a great book - something I can keep on learning from

[Lew · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great "coffee table" table book for any fan of Science Fiction & Fantasy Art.