Beast-Jewel of Mars – Planet Stories Winter Cover, Leigh Brackett 1948
Likely the work of Allen Anderson, whose Planet Stories covers were renowned for their kinetic, flesh-toned heroic figures and lurid alien landscapes, this cover captures a muscular Terran swordsman clutching an inverted, nearly nude redheaded woman amid writhing Martian tentacles. The composition is pure Brackett planetary romance: all savage action, gleaming skin, and alien menace rendered in warm gouache tones against a sulfurous yellow Martian sky. It distills the sword-and-planet subgenre to its most visceral essentials.
This cover cranks the pulp dial past Flash Gordon and into pure Edgar Rice Burroughs fever territory — half-naked hero, imperiled redhead, and writhing tentacles all crammed into a single explosive composition. It is the Platonic ideal of sword-and-planet cover art.
“PLANET Stories WINTER 20c The BEAST-JEWEL of MARS Could Fand, beautiful and base, bewitch the tall swordsman from Terra? A NOVEL OF LOST WORLDS by LEIGH BRACKETT BRADBURY • MATTHEWS • WALTON”
