{"id":339,"date":"2008-03-03T20:02:00","date_gmt":"2008-03-03T20:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnpicacio.com\/onthefront\/2008\/03\/03\/heres-to-you-richard-powers\/"},"modified":"2014-12-14T18:48:32","modified_gmt":"2014-12-14T18:48:32","slug":"heres-to-you-richard-powers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/johnpicacio.com\/onthefront\/2008\/03\/03\/heres-to-you-richard-powers\/","title":{"rendered":"Here’s to you, Richard Powers"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p> $\"\"$ <\/a>\u2026and to all of your fellow 2008 Inductees into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame \u2014 Ian & Betty Ballantine, Rod Serling, and William Gibson. If you think that\u2019s Richard Powers the novelist, you\u2019ve got the wrong Powers. I\u2019m talking about Richard Powers<\/a>, the seminal sf artist about whom John Clute said: \u201cWhen we think of 1950s science fiction, we may see Kelly Freas, but, when we dream, we dream Richard Powers.\u201d Powers\u2019 art is bar none, amongst the most powerful and influential work in sf history. His work expanded the possibilities of sf art beyond the limits of pulp.\n

And yet despite his mighty influence on the trajectory of sf cover art for the 50\u2019s, 60\u2019s and beyond, Powers was never formally recognized by any of sf\u2019s major accolades, including the Hugo Award<\/a> for Best Professional Artist. I\u2019m not an expert on Powers, and his career long preceded mine, but I suspect he probably didn\u2019t care much about awards. So perhaps it didn\u2019t matter to him that the field for which he gave so much, never formally recognized his body of work. <\/p>\n

Fast forward to 2007 \u2014 I was asked to be one of the judges for the Science Fiction Hall of Fame<\/a>\u2018s 2008 class of inductees. I was not only honored to be in the company of my fellow judges, but delighted to make the case for Richard Powers. He wasn\u2019t inducted by me. He was inducted by our whole team, as were the other inductees, which were sometimes fiercely, but thoughtfully debated. It was a team effort \u2014 Charles Stross, Ellen Datlow, Nancy Kress, Michael Cassutt, Ellen Asher, Robin Wayne Bailey, and me; that was this year\u2019s judging crew. Congrats to all of this year\u2019s inductees and their families; I was proud and humbled to be part of this process. Richard Powers \u2014 wherever you are \u2014 as of June 21, 2008<\/a>, you\u2019ll forevermore be a Science Fiction Hall of Famer, the formal recognition your work deserved all these years, and will now deservedly have.<\/p>\n

(pictured above: Richard Powers\u2019 cover illustration for Edmund Hamilton\u2019s THE STAR OF LIFE)<\/p>\n<\/body>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"