Started as a short story in 1963, None But Man was first published in book form in 1969. This is DAW’s 1977 paperback edition of the science fiction novel by Gordon R. Dickson (1923–2001), with cover art by Don Maitz (b. 1953) and typography in stacked and justified caps from Syncopation, one of the neo-Art Deco sans serifs that cropped up by the early 1970s.

[More info on ISFDB]

First edition of of Rhapsody in Black, a sci-fi novel written by Brian M. Stableford (1948–2024), published in 1973 by DAW Books.

The typeface used for the title of the book and its author is Hess Neobold, originally designed in the 1930s by Sol Hess for Lanston Monotype. It’s paired with an interesting, light-condensed version of Eurostile for the tagline.

The cover art is by Frank Kelly Freas. The typographer is unknown.

[More info on ISFDB]

From ISFDB:

The Storm Lord is a novel of an unknown planet and of the conflict of empires and peoples on that world. It is the story of a priestess raped and slain, of a baby born of a king and hidden among strangers, and of how that child, grown to manhood, sought his true heritage. It is a novel of alien gods and lost goddesses, of warriors and wanderers, and of vengeance long delayed.

There are a few different editions of this, but the first edition is notable for its use of the slightly obscure Soul.

DAW Books’ first edition of Tanith Lee’s Volkhavaar, released in 1977 with cover art by Michael Whelan.

Presumably to go with the fantastical aspects of the book, the unknown typographer opted to go with all caps Pretorian for the author’s name and title of the book. “Slaves to witchcraft” appears to be Helvetica, although the a and s look a little squeezes.

[More info on ISFDB]

Gate of Ivrel with a blurb by Andre Norton [More info on ISFDB]

The Morgaine Stories are a series of fantasy novels by C.J. Cherryh. They tell the saga of Morgaine, a time-traveling heroine, and Nhi Vanye i Chya, her loyal warrior companion. According to Wikipedia, Cherryh “used only her initials [for Carolyn Janice ], to disguise that she was female at a time when the majority of science fiction authors were male.”

The first three books were published by DAW Books in 1976 (Gate of Ivrel), 1978 (Well of Shiuan) and 1979 (Fires of Azeroth). These cover designs probably date from around 1988, when the fourth novel, Exile’s Gate, came out. They feature the cover art by Michael Whelan that already was used for the first editions.

The reason they’re shown here is because the series represents a prominent use of the relatively obscure Sphinx éclaire. This capital typeface is an inline version of Sphinx, originally issued by French foundry Deberny & Peignot in 1925. Sphinx éclaire here is used in bichromatic settings with EndcapS, and supported by ITC Benguiat.

Well of Shiuan [More info on ISFDB]

Fires of Azeroth [More info on ISFDB]

Exile’s Gate [More info on ISFDB]

First paperback edition of Tanith Lee’s The Silver Metal Lover from 1982, originally published in hardback the year before. Together with Metallic Love from 2005, it forms the S.I.L.V.E.R. series. Lee intended to continue it with a third novel, The Tin Man, but didn’t get to publish it before her death in 2015.

What better way to translate the title to a mass market paperback cover than with embossed metallic letters? The effect is hard to capture in flat scans or photos, that’s why I’m including two different images. The fonts in use are two weights from Roslyn Gothic, in all caps.

The cover art is by Don Maitz.

[More info on ISFDB]

The front cover of Daw Books' publication of The Orchid Cage, an English translation of a 1961 book called Der Orchideenkäfig by Austrian scientist and writer Herbert W. Franke.

The title typeface is Eagle Bold, originally produced in 1934 by Morris Benton as an all-caps spinoff of the earlier Novel Gothic. Cover art by Vincent Di Fate.

[More info on ISFDB]

Green Phoenix: The Last Stand of the Prehumans is a novel by Thomas Burnett Swann. According to Wikipedia, it is based on the novella “Love Is A Dragonfly” published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction from March 1972. It was published by DAW Books with cover art by George Barr.

Author’s name and title set in Corporate Image, which was released the year before. Subtitle looks to be set in an all-caps Eurostile.

[More info on ISFDB]

The organic and at the same time squarish Jugendstil forms of Charleston are used to convey an extraterrestrial mood, echoing the creature in the cover art by Frank Kelly Freas. Originally published in German in 1961 as Das Gedankennetz, this is the first English paperback edition, issued by DAW Books in the translation by Christine Priest under the title The Mind Net (UQ1136). Austrian scientist and science fiction writer Herbert W. Franke passed away earlier this year at the age of 95.

From the back cover:

In The Mind Net we encounter a vast space fleet exploring the cosmos. They find some organic remnants in the lifeless soil of an ancient world. But when the space explorers test these mysterious objects they suddenly find their ship trapped in an alien mental web and face a menace never allowed for on their computers.

[More info on ISFDB]

All-caps Rodin with a gold-embossed title, for the first standalone edition of Jo Clayton’s A Bait of Dreams, published by DAW in 1985. A novelette of the same title appeared earlier in Isaac Asimov's Marvels of Science Fiction (1979). The cover art is by Ken W. Kelly. From the back cover:

They called the gems Ranga Eyes. There were beautiful crystals, cool and smooth. They opened doorways to magical realms, leading to escape, happiness, peace. But they exacted a terrible price for they were an incredible narcotic. After only a single use, they dragged you in, sucked you dry, leaving you to a lingering death. Where did they come from? And what really were they? For Gleia, Shounach and Deel it had become a matter of desperate urgency, for each had lost someone to the Eyes, someone they could not forget. For them the source of these damnable jewels must be found and destroyed. Otherwise the Ranga Eyes would destroy them and all their world. An exciting new fantasy novel by the bestselling author of The Diadem and Duel of Sorcery series.

[More info on ISFDB]

Source: www.flickr.com Uploaded to Flickr by Drümmkopf. License: CC BY.

From Wikipedia:

The Unsleeping Eye is a 1973 science fiction novel by British writer D.G. Compton. It was published in the United Kingdom as The Continuous Katherine Mortenhoe in 1974 and was filmed by Bertrand Tavernier in 1980 as Death Watch, starring Harvey Keitel, Romy Schneider and Max von Sydow. Subsequent editions of the novel were published as Death Watch.

The paperback cover of the first U.S. edition (DAW Books, 1974) features one of the lesser known geometric sans serifs from the 1970s. Soul was designed by Jerry Matejka and issued by VGC in 1972. It’s distinguished from similar contemporary designs like Harry, ITC Ronda or Germanic Sans by its distinct asymmetrical approach, which here adds to the unsettling mood. Soul is used in all caps from two of its weights, and is paired with ITC Avant Garde Gothic for the blurb. The art is by Karel Thole.

[More info at ISFDB]

If you had a high IQ, a yen to do the science-thing in your own way, then Iskola was your place. Iskola was an island on the colony planet Martas, and it was owned & controlled by the man who had led the colonists. To qualify for Iskola, besides talent, you needed something else – you had to mind your own business about the other experimenters and the rest of the world. Which sounded wonderful for certain kinds of mental wizards and do-it-yourself idealists. And was also quite perfect for another sharp-eyed type. The kind that perfected villainy to a complex science. That is where Interstellar Agents Rex Sixx and Roger Lowry came into the picture. Because something very, very evil was coming to a boil in Utopia.

Genius Unlimited is the first novel in the Interstellar Security series by John T. Phillifent (1916–1976). It was published as DAW Book #16 in 1972, with cover art by Jack Gaughan.

Yagi Bold is the solid version of Yagi Link Double, designed by Teruoki Yagi in the late 1960s. It’s here used with some of its alternate forms that allow for linked pairs, like EN or NL.

[More info on ISFDB]

Beyond the Galactic Lens (Cap Kennedy #16, 1975). Cover art by Eddie Jones. [More info on ISFDB]

Kern – Beyond the Galactic Lens is not an instruction for spaced out type designers, but rather a novel by British writer of science fiction, fantasy and western novels, E.C. Tubb (1919–2010), written under one of his whopping 58 pen names, Gregory Kern. It was published in 1975 by DAW Books as the 16th volume in the Cap Kennedy series, with cover typography in all-caps Roslyn Gothic.

The concluding 17th volume, The Galactiad, followed in 1983, again with Roslyn Gothic on the cover. The display typeface by Harry Winters had previously made an appearance on Seetee Alert! (Cap Kennedy #6) from March 1974, there in both weights, but wasn’t used for any other books from the series.

The Galactiad (Cap Kennedy #17, 1983). Cover art by Wayne Barlowe. [More info on ISFDB]

Seetee Alert! (Cap Kennedy #6, 1974). Cover art by Jack Gaughan. [More info on ISFDB] The secondary typefaces are unidentified.

When DAW Books published the first US edition of Michael G. Coney’s science fiction novel Hello Summer, Goodbye, they changed the title to Rax (“Rax” is the name of the cold, giant planet which perturbs the orbit of the home world of Alika-Drove, the novel’s protagonist.) They stuck with the cover typeface, though: Just like for the first edition by Gollancz, it is Roslyn Gothic Bold. Here the display typeface by Harry Winters is used in all caps, in two stacked and justified lines. Theodore Sturgeon’s blurb is set in News Gothic.

The art was provided by Josh Kirby. On Stranger than SF, the reviewer comments:

The cover art for the DAW paperback is well done, but doesn’t reflect the story. It makes me think “tragic fantasy quest” not “poignant coming-of-age science fiction apocalypse.” I almost didn't read it. I’m glad I did.

[More info on ISFDB]

Martin Wait’s Company was released by Letraset in 1978, followed in 1982 by the striped Transmission. In 1979, the technoid semi slab with Art Nouveau elements was used for the cover of Death’s Master (DAW #24). The fantasy novel by Tanith Lee is the second book in her series Tales from the Flat Earth. Company is used with tight letterspacing and its alternate mirrored H and round E. The cover art is by David Schleinkofer.

[More info on ISFDB]

Letragraphica sheets for 60pt Company, in uppercase and numerals (LG2809) including the alternates for E H Y, as well as lowercase letters (LG2810).

Neuland licht (or Inline) on the cover of the first edition of Imaro. Published by DAW Books in 1981, the fantasy novel written by Charles R. Saunders “may have been one of the first forays into the sword and sorcery genre by a Black author.” [Wikipedia] Imaro is set in the fantasy world of Nyumbani, an alternate Africa. Its eponymous hero has been dubbed the “Black Tarzan”. Saunders died in May 2020, at the age of 73. Locus credits the pioneering Black science fiction writer “as the founder of the ‘sword and soul’ subgenre, combining African history, culture, and mythology with sword-and-sorcery tropes.”

See Rob Giampietro’s essay “New Black Face” (2004) about how Neuland (and Lithos) came “to signify Africans and African-Americans, regardless of how a designer uses them, and regardless of the purpose for which their creators originally intended them”.

The cover art is by Ken Kelly.

[More info on ISFDB]

The blurb on the back cover is set in center-aligned Goudy Oldstyle.

The second book from Ron Goulart’s Odd Jobs series, with cover art by Josh Kirby (1928–2001). From the back cover:

His name was Adolph Hibbler and he had escaped the doom of Hitler’s Reich by inventing the cryogenic deep freeze long before the rest of the world. As a human icicle he had been just a circus sideshow for many decades until he finally thawed out—in the 21st Century.

The trouble began with a series of mysterious events and the government had to call in Odd Jobs, Inc. But when Jake and Hildy Pace started uncovering the clues they found an odder job than any previous capers.

For a topic this bizarre, DAW Books had to call in ITC Honda. It’s in fact a pretty good choice: With its traces of modernized blackletter, Honda alludes to faces that were popular in Germany in the 1930s (cf. Wallau, Potsdam, Tannenberg), while at the same time offering the readability needed for an American paperback cover from the 1980s.

The face is unfamiliar, but it’s always me.

Fonts In Use readers be like: “The face is familiar! That’s another fairly early Use of Checkmate.” Here it’s used for the author name (mixed case) and the title (all caps), stacked and justified. The notch in U has been closed, for a firmer baseline.

Flux was published in June 1974 as part of Ron Goulart’s Barnum System series. Cover art by Jack Gaughan.

Debut novel and first book in the Diadem series by Jo Clayton (1939–1998). First published by DAW Books in 1977, this is a later edition from 1984, but with the same cover art by Michael Whelan (b. 1950). The typography features Wexford Ultra Bold (VGC, 1972) by Richard Schlatter (b. 1944), in tightly spaced caps. Wexford can easily be distinguished from other 1970s “Bauhaus-y” faces by the low-waisted E and the pointed M. Harold Lohner made a digital interpretation and expansion named Wexley.

Far out among the stars the masterminds of the spider people had placed their mightiest mysteries in the scientific device called the diadem. And when that coronet was stolen, they were prepared to pursue it throughout eternity. The thief crashed among the nomads of Jaydugar, a semi-barbarian world …and the diadem found its way into the hands – and onto the skull – of the girl Aleytys. She was herself a strange one – daughter of a sky wanderer, outcast among the people who had raised her out of fear and awe. And the diadem was to prove both her bane and her treasure. For she could not remove it once it had sunk its electronic web into her brain and her nervous system – and she did not know how to control the powers that were contained within it. Yet every moment she wore it, she would be a target for the vengeance of the spider race and the avarice of a thousand worlds.

Cover art (and several interior illustrations) by Jack Gaughan. The typeface is Angular Black, designed by Georg Salden in 1973 and distributed by VGC from 1975 on. If you feel there’s something fishy about the overly wide Y, that’s because it’s not by Salden. The original glyph in Angular is asymmetrical and descending (see The Star Wars Portfolio by Ralph McQuarrie, 1977). This was apparently too unconventional for the anonymous cover typographer, so it got replaced by a homemade glyph. Angular is available in digital form as Carree, a revised and expanded version sold by TypeManufactur—including the descending Y.

From the back cover:

The world of Zacar was wracked with storms and life there was hard. Yet two races shared it with no love between them. The Raski were the first people, the Yuth the late-comers.
This is the story of Elossa, the Yurth girl who followed the Call that every Yurth sensitive must follow when the time came. And this is the story of Stans, the Raski, who had to achieve manhood by blood rite against the hated Yurth.
This is a novel of a world where ancient injustices had been done and never righted, where brooding evil and age-old vengeance awaited peace-makers - and of two who brought this terror down upon their own heads.
It’s a new novel, written directly for DAW Books, other-planetary, wonder-filled, and in Andre Norton’s grandest tradition.

Cadwalader Ringgold, otherwise an admirer of Andre Norton’s science fiction, thinks the cover is the best thing about this book:

I cannot honestly recommend Yurth Burden (1978). It was a disagreeable chore to read. The characters were uninspiring and the motivation for their quest was muddled and ambiguous. One senses that Ms Norton wrote only to a point where so could justify terminate the story. The author seamed to lose interest the narrative. Multiple plot point were left unanswered but, thankfully, there was no sequel.

Posted on the suggestion of @soundclamp.