WHERE THE EVIL DWELLS

Cover illustration for Clifford D. Simak

Sep 25, 2024

A swordsman with dirty blonde hair and beard is caught mid-turn on a rocky perch overlooking a mass of monstrous creatures. He wears a tunic over chainmail. The shoulders are checkered red and black. The back is emblazoned with a winged creature that is partially obscured as he turns. The man stands out against a hazy foreground and a background dominated by a yellow palette. Rising above the mob of creatures, a dragon opens its maw in a roar and spreads its wings. The crooked trunk of a leafless tree rises along the right edge across the top of the painting. — WHERE THE EVIL DWELLS (1982), Mixed Media - 29 ½" x 18 ½"

Early in my career, Ace Books commissioned me to illustrate new covers for classics by grandmaster Clifford D. Simak: City, Time and Again, and The Trouble with Tycho.

Born in 1904, Simak was still writing at this point, and I would later work on original covers for new books published by Del Rey, including this fantasy set in an alternate Europe where the Roman Empire never fell.