What’s in a cover? Sometimes everything. The first science fiction book I ever bought was the old Granada paperback edition of Isaac Asimov’s Foundation, and the thing that made the teenage me pick it up was the fabulous Chris Foss spaceship on the cover.
But there was more to it than that, enough to make this a truly formative moment. Because next to this book I found two others that were clearly part of the same series – Foundation & Empire and Second Foundation. They too had fabulous spaceships on the front.
Then, having read the blurb on the back (seductive copy that promised epic tales of galactic empires and something called psychohistory), I realised something incredible: the three covers fitted together like jigsaw pieces to form a single image! The exotic combination of Granada and Foss had actually created not just a trilogy but a triptych. And I’d discovered it! I was tickled pink. And hooked, for life.
I’ve discovered all manner of wonders in bookshops over the years, but I can’t recall ever being so utterly enchanted as I was that day. Asimov’s Foundation launched me on an SF odyssey that lasted through my teens and only began to wane when I wandered into a little Maine town called Castle Rock. The spaceships got the better of me again when the Clear Air Turbulence went on its outrageous spree through the heart of the Culture megaship in Iain Banks’s Consider Phlebas. Reading that sequence, I felt the same daft WTF grin on my face that my ten year-old self had worn when I discovered Asimov.
Still, the first time’s always the best.
Graham Edwards 
So interesting. That those were the exact thoughts I had as a kid seeing the Foss covers. My brother is an artist and he used Foss as inspiration for some of his sci fi drawings… He was the one who introduced me to Isaac Asimov as a kid and also who introduced me to Iain M Banks’ Consider Phlebas. I’ve restarted reading some of the stories I read as a kid and it’s been a blast.
Asimov Empire series.
Philip Jose Farmer, Riverworld, Dark is the Sun
S.R. Donaldson, The Chronicals of Thomas Covenant,
Patrick Tilley’s Amtrak Wars.
Brian Aldiss Heliconia series.
Anne Rice Vampire chronicles.
I am getting nostalgic in my old age.