This is the book cover for The Nine Billion Names of God by Arthur C. Clarke. This is a collection of several short stories by Clarke, who’s perhaps best known for 2001: A Space Odyssey. He worked on the Kubrick film and also wrote the book the film was based on.
The title story was originally published in 1953 in Star Science Fiction Stories No. 1. In 1970, the Science Fiction Writers of America selected this story as one of the best stories published before the Nebula Awards.
Other stories in the collection include “Before Eden,” which Clarke sold to Kubrick during the development of 2001: A Space Odyssey and “Superiority,” which was once required reading for industrial design courses at MIT.
Unfortunately, no artist is credited for this particular cover. However, this collection has been published with several other covers, which feature work by artists such as Robin Sherwood and Boris Vallejo.
