Over the years Boris has produced series of artwork for related subjects, (see for example his Chess King paintings) commonly comic covers and book series. It is noticeable that Boris is consistent in his depiction of the various characters and artifacts over each series – this is only to be expected when the timescale is only a few months but in some cases we are talking about years between each painting. In some series, for example Tarzan, Conan and Red Sonja it is clear that they are related since the same character is portrayed in each but in other cases (eg Star Trek and Battletech) the stories are more loosely bound but usually their connection is apparent from the format/style of the paintings.
I know this page is incomplete – I will be adding more items in the ensuing weeks.
The Atlan Saga (Jane Gaskell)
The first book in this saga, The Serpent, was originally published in 1963. In 1975 it was split into the first two books of the series with Boris' artwork first appearing on the 1978 editions – he continued producing the covers for the rest of the books as and when they were published. The King's Daughter is included here because it is a prequel to the set.
The King's Daughter |
#1 The Serpent |
#2 The Dragon |
#3 Atlan |
#4 The City |
#5 Some Summer Lands |
BattleTech (Various authors)
BattleTech started out as a science fiction war gaming franchise in 1984 which, in 1986, branched out into a series of over 100 novels by various authors (many of whom wrote several books.) The titles are listed in chronological order and it is noticeable that, apart from the first two, the rest of Boris' covers were for consecutive books in the series. I would also add that Jim Long (Main Event) and James D Long (D.R.T.) are the same person.
| Mercenary's Star (William H Keith Jr)  |
The Price of Glory (William H Keith Jr)  |
Ideal War (Christopher Kubasik)  |
| Main Event (Jim Long)  |
Blood of Heroes (Andrew Keith)  |
Far Country (Peter L Rice)  |
| Assumption of Risk (Michael A Stackpole)  |
D.R.T. (James D Long)  |
Bred for War (Michael A Stackpole)  |
| Close Quarters (Victor Milan)  |
Berserker (Fred Saberhagen et al)
The first Berserker book was published in 1967. The books are listed in chronological order but the first two were originally published without Boris covers. The remaining ones would have had Boris artwork at the time of first publication. Although the series was originated by Saberhagen, the anthology Berserker Base featured stories from six other authors. About half of the books have had Boris covers at some time.
Berserker |
Berserker's Planet |
Berserker Man |
Berserker Blue Death |
Berserker Base |
Berserker Kill |
Bloodsong (Asa Drake / C Dean Andersson)
Asa Drake is a nom de plume of C Dean Andersson. The books were originally published under Drake's name but were subsequently republished with new titles under the author's real name. The new titles are shown in parentheses below the original. The same artwork was used for both versions of each book.
| Warrior Witch of Hel (Warrior Witch of Hel)  |
Death Riders of Hel (Warrior Rebel of Hel)  |
Werebeasts of Hel (Warrior Beast of Hel)  |
Conan (Savage Sword of Conan)
Boris was responsible for the cover of the inaugural issue of Savage Sword of Conan for June 1974 which was his first ever Conan painting. He went on to paint seven of the magazine's first fifteen covers, the last one being for the June 76 edition – this makes them some of Boris' earliest covers and are probably responsible for the many Boris vs Frazetta comparisons that people keep making.
#01 (Battle of the Walking Dead) |
#04 (Iron Shadows in the Moon) |
#07 (Citadel at the Center of Time) |
#09 (The Barbarian and the Sorcerers) |
#10 (Conan the Conqueror) |
#12 (The Haunters of Castle Crimson) |
#15 (The Devil in Iron) |
Conan (Various)
Following the success of his magazine paintings, it is no big surprise that Boris also painted a number of covers for some of the many Conan books written by other authors. I couldn't find consistent lists of the books' authors, no doubt because some were based on ideas by Robert E Howard and others, so I have taken the expedient approach of just stating the authors named on the front covers.
| Conan of the Isles (L Sprague de Camp/Lin Carter)  |
Conan the Freebooter (Robert E Howard/L Sprague de Camp)  |
Conan the Wanderer (Robert E Howard/L Sprague de Camp/Lin Carter)  |
| Conan of Aquilonia (L Sprague de Camp/Lin Carter)  |
Conan the Triumphant (Robert Jordan)  |
Conan the Magnificent (Robert Jordan)  |
| Conan the Victorious (Robert Jordan)  |
Conan the Fearless (Steve Perry)  |
Conan the Raider (Leonard Carpenter)  |
Doc Savage (Kenneth Robeson)
Doc Savage first appeared in the eponymously named Doc Savage Magazine in 1933 and featured in 213 stories until the magazine's demise in 1949. From 1964 to 1990 Bantam Books republished the stories in a series of 190 books using the house name of Kenneth Robeson as author. Boris painted the covers for books #83 to #88.
#83 The Red Terrors |
#84 The Mountain Monster |
#85 The Boss of Terror |
#86 The Angry Ghost |
#87 The Spotted Men |
#88 The Roar Devil |
The Dragon Knight (Gordon R Dickson)
You will see that there are two covers for book one of this series. The first was used for the original 1976 edition published by Ballantine Books whilst the second was commissioned specifically for the SFBC edition. Of the nine books in the series Boris produced four paintings for three of them.
#1 The Dragon and the George |
#1 The Dragon and the George |
#2 The Dragon Knight |
#7 The Dragon and the Gnarly King |
Flash Gordon (David Hagberg)
Hagberg wrote a total of six Flash Gordon novels which were published as a set. Sadly, only the first four had Boris covers. The cover for a set of graphic novels is in a comic-book style so is not included here since it is clearly not related to this series.
#1 Massacre in the 22nd Century |
#2 War of the Citadels |
#3 Crisis on Citadel II |
#4 Forces from the Federation |
The Fovean Chronicles (Robert W Brady Jr)
The first book in this series was self-published by the author in 2007. The assumption is that the cover for book one was specially painted for the purpose but since it is dated 2001 it makes one wonder whether this is indeed the case. Alternatively, it could indicate that the author had problems getting the book published. Boris painted covers for the first three books only – the other two books, plus three in a subseries, used other artists.
#1 Indomitus Est |
#2 Indomitus Vivat |
#3 Indomitus Oriens |
Full Cirkle II (Simon Bisley)
This was a three-part graphic novel written and illustrated by Simon Bisley. Each part was available in A or B versions with either Simon Bisley or Boris & Julie covers respectively. The original artworks were produced as monochrome drawings which were subsequently colourised by another artist. I show the original drawings here but may add the published versions at a later date.
#1B (Sword of Fate)(BJ) |
#2B (Victory Dance)(BJ) |
#3B (Magic_Cloak)(BJ) |
Gor (John Norman)
John Norman is the nom de plume of John Lange, writer of the highly successful Gor novels. At the moment there are at least 35 books in the series, the first being published in 1966. Boris' paintings are undated but were produced for the mid-1976 reprints of the first seven books (only ten books had been published at that time.)
#01 Tarnsman of Gor |
#02 Outlaw of Gor |
#3 Priest-Kings of Gor |
#04 Nomads of Gor |
#05 Assassin of Gor |
#06 Raiders of Gor |
#07 Captive of Gor |
Latischa of the Lost World (Penthouse Comix)
Latischa of the Lost World was an adult comic strip in Penthouse Comix. Over the years Boris had painted several covers for the magazine but, for this series, covers were produced for three consecutive issues, Not only that but the covers formed a triptych which could nominally be joined as a single panoramic view (fairly clear for the first two images but not so obvious for the third – this could be a consequence of the image(s) being cropped.)
April 1997 |
May 1997 |
June 1997 |
Grand Tour (Ben Bova)
Bova was a very prolific writer and Boris has painted quite a few covers for his books. There are 27 books in his Grand Tour series but Boris only produced covers for two of them.
Privateers |
Empire Builders |
Orion (Ben Bova)
Of the six books in this series, Boris painted a total of five covers for the first four books only – the hardback and paperback versions of Orion in the Dying Time had different covers.
#1 Orion |
#2 The Vengeance of Orion |
#3 Orion in the Dying Time (hb) |
#3 Orion in the Dying Time (pb) |
#4 Orion and the Conqueror |
Red Sonja (David C Smith & Richard L Tierney)
Red Sonya was a creation of Robert E Howard from his Conan universe. Red Sonja (with a j is a 1973 re imagining of the character for Marvel Comics. Six books based around this updated character were published from December 1981 until May 1993.
#1 The Ring of Ikribu |
#2 Demon Night |
#3 When Hell Laughs |
#4 Endithor's Daughter |
#5 Against the Prince of Hell |
#6 Star of Doom |
Slaves of the Empire (Dael Forest)
This series was originally published in the UK from February 1975 to January 1976. The Boris covers were produced for the US versions published in 1978 and 1979. Although the stories are supposedly erotic in nature the reviews I've read say they are quite dull, and short, with the covers being the best feature.
The author's name is apparently a pseudonym but I'm unable to tie this down to his/her original name. A couple of sources suggest either Kenneth Bulmer or Stephen Frances but I can only find one source for each contention. Bulmer seems to be the most likely one since he was a very prolific writer and used numerous pseudonyms for books of many genres.
#01 Barba the Slaver |
#02 Haesel the Slave |
#03 Brotan the Breeder |
#04 Gracus the Centurion |
#05 Corissa the Vestal Virgin |
Star Trek (various)
Here I've only included Boris' paintings for the mainstream Star Trek novels - he has produced paintings for other related books which I have omitted because they are not part of this series. The numerical order is that of the US releases of the books: international editions quite often used their own numerical sequences. The last two books were produced after they'd stopped numbering the titles. Looking at the numbering sequence, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that Boris may also have painted covers for books #17 and #26 (like many of the others, the books contain no artist details nor are any signatures visible.)
| #07 The Wrath of Khan (Vonda N. McIntyre)  |
#08 Black Fire (Sonni Cooper)  |
#09 Triangle (Sondra Marshak & Myrna Culbreath)  |
| #10 Web of the Romulans (M. S. Murdock)  |
#11 Yesterday's Son (A. C. Crispin)  |
#12 Mutiny on the Enterprise (Robert E. Vardeman)  |
| #13 The Wounded Sky (Diane Duane)  |
#15 Corona (Greg Bear)  |
#16 The Final Reflection (John M. Ford)  |
| #18 My Enemy, My Ally (Diane Duane)  |
#19 The Tears of the Singers (Melinda Snodgrass)  |
#20 The Vulcan Academy Murders (Jean Lorrah)  |
| #21 Uhura's Song (Janet Kagan)  |
#22 Shadow Lord (Laurence Yep)  |
#23 Ishmael (Barbara Hambly)  |
| #24 Killing Time (Della van Hise)  |
#25 Dwellers in the Crucible (Margaret Wander Bonanno)  |
#27 Mindshadow (J. M. Dillard)  |
| #28 Crisis on Centaurus (Brad Ferguson)  |
#29 Dreadnought! (Diane Carey)  |
#30 Demons (J. M. Dillard)  |
| #31 Battlestations! (Diane Carey)  |
#39 Time for Yesterday (A. C. Crispin)  |
|
| Enterprise: The First Adventure (Vonda N. McIntyre)  |
Strangers from the Sky (Margaret Wander Bonanno)  |
|
Tarzan (Edgar Rice Burroughs)
Boris was originally commissioned to paint covers for all 24 of the Tarzan books but due to pressure of work this was later reduced to twelve. The first six were produced for 1976 editions. The remaining eight, together with another unrelated artwork, were famously completed in the space of one month (March 1977) after it was decided that all the cover paintings would feature in the 1978 Tarzan Calendar – the extra two paintings were for the calendar's centrepiece and front cover.
#07 Tarzan the Untamed |
#08 Tarzan the Terrible |
#09 Tarzan and the Golden Lion |
#10 Tarzan and the Ant Men |
#11 Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle |
#12 Tarzan and the Lost Empire |
#19 Tarzan's Quest |
#20 Tarzan and the Forbidden City |
#21 Tarzan the Magnificent |
#22 Tarzan and the Foreign Legion |
#23 Tarzan and the Madman |
#24 Tarzan and the Castaways |
Tarzan and La at the City of Opar |
Tarzan Calendar cover |
Tek Wars (William Shatner)
Although the original ideas behind these stories are the invention of William Shatner the books are actually ghost-written by Ron Goulart. Boris painted covers for the first six volumes of the series and, for the first five at least, seems to have designed them for a wraparound format but they were not used in this way. The original front covers were separated into three parts, the first and third parts showed Shatner's name and the book's title respectively, both in very large print, whilst the whole artwork was used as a separator between them. Later editions varied in format, some using the painting as a wraparound cover, others just using a portion, commonly the righthand side, as a full-page cover.
#1 TekWar |
#2 TekLords |
#3 TekLab |
#4 Tek Vengeance |
#5 Tek Secret |
#6 Tek Power |
The War Against the Chtorr (David Gerrold)
Originally conceived as a trilogy Gerrold later decided that it should be extended to seven books. So far, four books have been published and two more were, in 2017, nearing completion. All published and projected titles begin with the indefinite article A.
#1 A Matter for Men |
#2 A Day for Damnation |
World of Tiers (Philip José Farmer)
Farmer was another prolific author and produced this series over the period 1965 to 1993. The first five covers were painted to coincide with the 1977 publication of book #5 in the series. The final book, also utilising a Boris cover, was published in 1993 – you will see some uncertainty about the volume # because the sixth book Red Orc's Rage does not apparently form part of the main sequence of stories. I have also included Two Hawks from Earth because, even though it is not part of the series, the male character shown seems to be the same figure from the actual series paintings. The final two paintings shown were commissioned for a two volume anthology, published by SFBC in 1979, of the (then) existing five books in the series. A later two volume anthology utilised the The Maker of Universes painting as the artwork for both books.
#1 The Maker of Universes |
#2 The Gates of Creation |
#3 A Private Cosmos |
#4 The Lavalite World |
#5 Behind the Walls of Terra |
#6& More than Fire |
Two Hawks from Earth |
SFBC The World of Tiers anthology vol.1 |
SFBC The World of Tiers anthology vol.2 |