Today at lunch I ran over to Illustration House to see their Harold Von Schmidt exhibit. (This is why I live in New York!) What some of you may not realize is that science fiction and fantasy is actually only half of what we publish at Tor, more properly Tom Doherty Associates. Our other imprint is Forge Books. Forge is where we publish our westerns, thrillers, historicals, non-fiction, basically anything that isn’t science fiction. It is rare that we can use illustration on those non-sf books — current trends dictate that we use a montage of stock photographs. A good designer can make a good looking cover that way...but, after viewing a collection of Von Schmidt's work and seeing how vibrant and alive he could make our history feel, I regret that there isn’t more room for this kind of work in today’s marketplace.
