Address: Centauri

[1958]

Hal Salive Science Fiction and Fantasy Collection, University of Otago Library Special Collections. Every effort has been made to trace copyright ownership and to obtain permission for reproduction. If you believe you are the copyright owner of an item on this site, and we have not requested your permission, please contact us at special.collections@otago.ac.nz

New York: Galaxy Publishing

F. L. Wallace’s (1915-2004) Address: Centauri is an expanded version of his short story, Accidental Flight, published in 1952. A mechanical engineer by trade, Wallace had a ‘reputation for style, wit and emotional depth’. The cover art for Address: Centauri was provided by Wallace A. Wood (1927-81), a comic book writer and artist. He began drawing at an early age and was one of the original cartoonists for MAD magazine. He painted six covers in the 1950s for Galaxy Science Fiction Novels – this is one of them. Vincent di Fate, in Infinite Worlds, describes Wood as having ‘produced [some of] the most outlandish, hideous aliens and the most intricately detailed spaceship control panels ever imagined by a human being’.