Creating Covers For the Man-Kzin Wars - Stephen Hickman

Below here you will find the original cover art for Destiny's Forge. I've been doing the covers for the Man-Kzin Wars series for some time now, and I have to say that it's been and still is a real treat for me --- imagine getting paid (in effect) to read absolutely first-class SF! Of all the book series I've illustrated, this has to be my all-time favorite, because the stories are written by the best authors in the field, and the talent and inventiveness keep the quality of these stories extremely high. Always new, always fresh --- the synergistic factor means the mythos of Know Space gets richer with each story.

Another factor is that the Kzinti characters are about as appealing as mortal enemies in SF can get. They LOOK cool --- check out the Kzin on the Destiny's Forge cover, the Kzin character even looks interesting from the back. From the point of view of a cover illustrator, this is important, to say the least. Oh, and check out the creature leaping out of the water --- the contrast between the two of these creatures makes this a very interesting picture for me. I drew the concept sketch for Destiny's Forge on the train on my way into New York City one morning, as we travelled down through the scenic Hudson River Valley. It's odd how some paintings just seem to fall into place, and this cover started that sunny morning and seemed right even from the beginning.

Know Space has all sorts of interesting types of creatures inhabiting it, like Jotoks and Protectors. I always look forward to the next Man-Kzin book, but there is a serious aspect to this as well --- when I'm doing a cover for anything as well-written as these stories are, I always feel the added weight of responsibility to justice to the materiel.

So there you are --- I think the sales figures for the Man-Kzin series speak for themselves. I don't by any means always agree that popularity equals good writing, but it certainly does in this instance.

On to Victory!

Stephen Hickman