Childhood Sci-Fi book title?

gulliverfoyle · 21/10/11 - 18:50

Ive been looking for a book that I loved as a child aprox 1980-1?

Ive tried various old book shops looking for this book but I dont have author or Title so I'm struggling so thought i'd try to see if anyone might give me a clue

Ok here what i remember

it was a Large format book 24"x12" with glossy pages

it had a black cover with a space ship on the front a bit like the USS Cygnus out of "The Black hole" film

the book was in the format of a travel guide/encyclopaedia

it had various chapters about 6 or 7 planets that had been colonised by humans and had maps and pictures of the various worlds and the alien cretures
I think one of the planets was called Brobdingnag?

any input would be useful

thanks in advance

rwould · 21/10/11 - 19:24

Not sure if I am confusing it with another as the cover I can remember had quite a bit of red on it, but the one I'm thinking of was Chris Foss artwork from memory. I can't recall the title, and if I remember correctly my copy is in my parents loft....

burton07 · 21/10/11 - 19:25

My son had one of these. It had pictures of planets and alien machinery. The artwork was really good.

pickwick · 21/10/11 - 19:44

Brobdingnag is from Gulliver's Travels. Not that that helps much!

gulliverfoyle · 21/10/11 - 20:12

thanks for the help

using the chris foss reference

I think it may be this

http://www.khantazi.org/Rec/TTABooks/TTABooks.html#Spacecraft

but theres no look at the inside pages

but could be this

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Galactic-Tours-Thomas-World-Vacations/dp/0862760054

i may be amalgamating 2 books in my mind?

pickwick · 21/10/11 - 20:16

gulliverfoyle wrote: »

thanks for the help

using the chris foss reference

I think it may be this

http://www.khantazi.org/Rec/TTABooks/TTABooks.html#Spacecraft

but theres no look at the inside pages

but could be this

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Galactic-Tours-Thomas-World-Vacations/dp/0862760054

i may be amalgamating 2 books in my mind?

Ha, that second one looks amazing!!

fortytwo · 21/10/11 - 22:22

pickwick wrote: »

Brobdingnag is from Gulliver's Travels. Not that that helps much!

Am I missing something, in view of the op's username?

pickwick · 21/10/11 - 23:45

fortytwo wrote: »

Am I missing something, in view of the op's username?

Nah, Gulliver Foyle's from another SF book, The Stars My Destination.

stoatie · 21/10/11 - 23:52

Sounds like a couple of books I remember- Spacecraft 2000-2100 AD, and Space Wreck. Both were kind of fictional reference works, and both were from about that time. I'm pretty sure there were more of them than those two as well- I wouldn't be surprised if the one you're talking about was one of them. Hamlyn Books, maybe? (I remember weird details).

pickwick wrote: »

Nah, Gulliver Foyle's from another SF book, The Stars My Destination.

And a f*cking great book it is too.

Residents Fan · 23/10/11 - 20:28

gulliverfoyle wrote: »

thanks for the help

using the chris foss reference

I think it may be this

http://www.khantazi.org/Rec/TTABooks/TTABooks.html#Spacecraft

but theres no look at the inside pages

but could be this

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Galactic-Tours-Thomas-World-Vacations/dp/0862760054

i may be amalgamating 2 books in my mind?

I don't think any Chris Foss illustrations were used in the
TTA books, so it's probably the "Galactic Tours" book.

The TTA books were great. I remember the local library
had one and I must have taken it out of the library at
least three times.

Orri · 23/10/11 - 22:07

I think Brodningnag was used as the name of a planet by Larry Niven in some of his novels set in "Known Space"

Biffo the Bear · 23/10/11 - 22:58

I used to have a similar one to that.

One of the aliens looked like a baboon but with crystal/metallic teeth if memory serves me correctly.

phylo_roadking · 26/10/11 - 01:05

I think Brodningnag was used as the name of a planet by Larry Niven in some of his novels set in "Known Space"

Nope - the nearest in Niven's canon is the word Bandersnatch, the big food animals like giant maggots.

spiney2 · 28/10/11 - 19:59

These "space tour" books - with amazing pictures - were all inspired by the Von Braun articles.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_Will_Conquer_Space_Soon!

click link bottom of wiki page for amazing pictures.

Orri · 28/10/11 - 21:01

phylo_roadking wrote: »

Nope - the nearest in Niven's canon is the word Bandersnatch, the big food animals like giant maggots.

Even nearer is the name of Beowulf Shaeffers ancestor.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beowulf_Shaeffer

Very little is known of Shaeffer’s early life. It is known he was raised in a large home on We Made It (as related in "Flatlander"), and is presumably from a wealthy family. He is presumably descended from a number of chronologically earlier Shaeffers in the Known Space universe: Charles Martin "Lit" Shaeffer (First Speaker of the Belt Political Section in World of Ptavvs and At the Bottom of a Hole), Marion Shaeffer (a Belter policewoman in The Patchwork Girl) and Brobdig Shaeffer (a Crashlander hyperspace engineer in The Heroic Myth of Lieutenant Nora Argamentine).

Hey there!

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Childhood Sci-Fi book title?

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