){kind=link}
The fantastic book cover art for Dawnman Planet by Mack Reynolds features a sinister figure looking over what appears to be a landscape covered in cryptic symbols. A rocket speeds toward the landscape, perhaps foreshadowing a sinister fate.
This art is by Jack Gaughan (1930-1985). Gaughan did numerous covers for both Ace Books and DAW Books, and he also did most of the illustrations for the Galaxy Science Fiction magazine. Perhaps even more impressive than that, he illustrated the cover and hand-lettered title pages for the unauthorized first paperback edition of The Lord of the Rings.
Gaughan won the Hugo Award for Best Professional Artist in 1967, 1968, and 1969, and he was posthumously inducted into the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame in 2015.
He even has an award named after him. The Jack Gaughan Award, which honors budding artists, is handed out yearly by the New England Science Fiction Association (or NESFA).
As for Dawnman Planet, the novel was originally serialized, appearing in Analog magazine in the mid-1960s. The version we’re showing here, however, was a part of Ace’s “Double” series, which featured two novels in a single book, bound in the dos-à-dos binding style. Basically, it’s two novels bound back-to-back.
On the other side of this particular book is Inherit the Earth by Claude Nunes.