Sentinel II : steel couture, Syd Mead, futurist Paperback – May 15, 1987

Great book! Bought it for my partner who works in the design industry and he was stoked! If you can get a good copy, it's well worth it!

I bought this when it was first published way back when (I can't really remember, sometime during the late 80s I think), and was impressed with futurist Syd Mead's imagination. In fact a couple of well known scifi authors lifted some of Syd Mead's work for a game module published by FASA.There's not much to say about this book other than the art is very interesting. I always used to enjoy seeing artists impressions of future technology and settings. The limitations of the art are of course that the artists shows you an idealized setting and situation where the scene is in its prime,. They don't show you ill mannered people being obnoxious by harassing people, drinking in public, spray painting graffiti and all else. But, that's the charm of art books like Syd Mead's is to see idealized scenes without all of the bad stuff society has to offer.Some of the concepts are a bit far out there, and are science fiction pieces unto themselves. Seeing a city in space with the background curved up and rendered, or a race involving forty foot tall mechanical robotic steeds, or a highway suspended by cables on the side of a mountain and so forth, helps fire and fuel the imagination. As per my review of "Fandango" I used to get a real high off of good conceptual artistry, but not anymore. Still, it is fun to look at concept sketches of future vehicles, buildings and settings.I briefly saw the first volume, Sentinel, somewhere many years ago, but I can't recall too much of it. I would not pay the exorbigtant $400+ smackers for a copy of this thing. I think I got mine for roughly $35 American in late 1980s dollars. I can't imagine a paying more than a few dollars more for a copy. There have to be good used copies out there.Take that for what it's worth.

Should you buy either Sentinel or Sentinel II, be prepared to shell out at least a hundred bucks for it. New(?) copies are being advertised at obscene markups.Sentinel was a great book, filled with Syd Mead's exquisite, visionary paintings, but sadly, went out of print long ago.With a name like Sentinel II, one would expect this book to be a follow-up, continuing where Sentinel left off. Unfortunately, it's a retread of Sentinel, with very little new material in it. It is a nicer edition, with heavy dust jacket and thicker paper, but ironically, the reproduction quality is inferior to the original volume.Specifically, the darker areas in the paintings are even darker in Sentinel II, with details sometimes completely lost. Despite thinner paper, the printing is better in the original.I give it 4 stars for the contents, but am tempted to grade it even lower for the substandard reproduction and the completely misleading title. If you can find Sentinel, forgo this one, unless you're an affluent completist.