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Short Fiction“The Second Kind of Loneliness” was the first story of mine ever to get a cover, and spoiled me early. The Frank Kelly Freas cover for Analog, showing my protagonist brooding over the multicolored whorl of a nullspace vortex, was nothing short of spectacular, and true to the story as well. I desperately wanted to buy the original, and Kelly offered it to me for $200. But I had only been paid $250 for the story, so I finally decided the painting was more than I could afford. One of the worse decisions I ever made. Today the “Second Kind of Loneliness” cover is widely regarded as classic Freas, worth ten thousand dollars at the least. (I did buy one of Freas’s color studies for the cover, as well as the splendid black & white illustration for the splash page). I was incredibly fortunate in my Analog covers during the 70s, if truth be told. My stories were illustrated by virtually all of the leading SF artists of the period. Besides Freas, there was Jack Gaughan, Paul Lehr, Vincent diFate, and the wonderfully gifted John Schoenherr, whose marvelous cover painting for “And Seven Times Never Kill Man” is another of my favorites. |
