John Harris – Beyond the Horizon, Harris w/ Scalzi
Titan Books, 2013
160 pp, full color illustrations throughout
John Harris began his illustration career in the 1970s, yet his work never never made it into the TTA/GE series. Still, he produced numerous book cover commissions, including several pieces for NASA. With an artistic hand reminiscent of the 19th century Romantic tradition, Harris’s work is a study in color and feeling more than technological precision.
Bold color, bold astronomic scale, and agile brush strokes nudge Harris’s work closer to the realm of fine art than simply sci-fi illustration. Indeed, many of his pieces appear as a modern, extraterrestrial incarnation of the great JMW Turner’s landscapes and cloud fields. The feathery ambiguity of many of his pieces leave much to the viewer’s imagination and wonder.