Out of this World: the art of Josh Kirby
The American author Robert Silverberg published Lord Valentine’s Castle in 1980, the first in his extensive Majipoor series. Charting Valentine’s journey through the exotic, magical world of Majipoor to uncover the secrets of his forgotten past, the saga continued in the Majipoor Chronicles and Valentine Pontifex (both 1983). Silverberg’s Majipoor is a planet brimming with colour, life, different cultures and mystery.
One outcome of Kirby’s Voyage of the Ayeguy portfolio (1980) was a commission from Pan Books to illustrate the covers of the Valentine trilogy for the British market. Kirby’s unique vision was perfectly suited for Silverberg’s creation and he inhabited Majipoor with great pleasure, creating luscious, flamboyant paintings as distinctive in their own way as the Ayeguy cycle.
Panoramic vistas, extraordinary architecture, levitating vessels, teeming alien hoards and dragons combine as Kirby conjures up a place of awe, splendour and sometimes danger.