The Many Covers of Alan Dean Foster Works

ICERIGGER was my first dose of Alan Dean Foster excellence.  I immediately bought and collected all of his books, except the Star Trek Logs, which had only the slightest bit of interest from me.  The trilogy of Icerigger has humans stranded for a time on a frozen planet, that is globally warming.  It is a first contact experience as well as a warning that even things long frozen in space can melt when heated.

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MIDWORLD

In the rainforest there are many layers of life, and levels of existence.  The top of world is called the canopy, and it is visible from the air.  You cannot see the floor from there.  Birds and bats and other avian creatures live there.  And from there down to the floor of the green rich forest there are levels of existence.  Each level is dominated by various life forms adapted to their environment.

The amount of life is immense because nature allows for changes and specializations of species in such a rich environment.  The humans who live in such a place are specialized too, using ancient methods of hunting and survival that have kept their existence small, but sustainable for millennia. 

This planet earth has seen arguments over the destruction of rainforests, over the reduction of areas that used to be wild.  We have untold dangers of losing wild habitats that will deeply affect the future of our planet's health.  Untold DNA and plantlife that has been undiscovered might be lost with the death of such areas, along with the enormous amount of clean oxygen the trees and regions produce.

Alan Dean Foster's mind created a planet where the planet itself and life forms are all literally connected.

"Born was a child of the rain forest that covered Midworld, part of the primitive society that the peaceful jungle planet had sustained for hundreds of years. He was wise in the ways of his world, and he knew well the precarious natural balance that governed all things.

Then one day the aliens came. Giants.  They knew nothing of the Upper or Lower Hell -- and they cared less. Born had risked his life to save them, to guide them through the myriad tangled boughs, past unseen, unsuspected dangers lurking in the underbrush. But worse than their ignorance of how to survive, the aliens had plans for Midworld, plans that could utterly destroy the globe-spanning forest that his people called home.

As the days passed, Born realized his mistake. And as he had once hunted only to live, he knew now that he would be forced to live only to kill..."

Here are the various covers across the years of the book Midworld that is creation of Alan Dean Foster, and by a number of great cover artists.  The German translation is literally "The Thinking Trees".

CACHALOT

The book Cachalot by Alan Dean Foster is one of my favorites.  Mostly because it begins with a world where whales have been given a planet of their own, to live upon and control, as a means to apologize by humans for the destruction we've caused.   I love whales, maritime mammals emotionally move me, and the plight of the whale and the story of conservation is very moving to me.  At one time I thought I'd become a person who would fight for the ocean mammals through art, but I am not that talented.  Mr. Foster is though.  And I loved the book.

These are all pics from public domain, particularly a US government website. I was going to use them as facebook cover pics, and then thought, why not use them along with the covers of CACHALOT found below to show the awesome.

I've been a fan and reader of Alan Dean Foster since I began reading science fiction or fantasy.  So it is not a surprise for me that he has books in my all time favorite list.  His work belongs there.