Futuria: Art of the Sci-fi Age is a chunky collection of futuristic visions by a selection of talented digital artists and 3D-rendering experts inspired by sci-fi games, books and movies. The work is presented in three sections, each with a featured artist.

The Cyberpunk section shows bustling cityscapes littered with archetypal dystopian future city elements such as neon signs, holographic advertisements, flying cars, mesh walkways and puddled streets. The featured artist is Gal Balkan from Tel Aviv, who lists sci-fi films, cosmology and music as his primary sources of inspiration. His work is very detailed and architecturally convincing where the cityscapes and buildings are given scale by the inclusion of a lone person, or a small group of people being dwarfed by their surroundings.

The Post-Apocalyptic section sees futuristic scenes and individual elements in a broken, aged state. This is perfectly illustrated by Xiangzhao’s “The Stranded Robot” showing the discovery of a giant automaton half-submerged and badly rusted. Another motif is the deserted urban landscape taken over by flora and fauna as nature reasserts control. Apparently, the natural environment of New York is mostly deciduous woodland, partly wetlands and partly grasslands - this is what the state would revert to if all the people left! Giulia Gentilini illustrates this in his picture “Sunny Day” which shows a collapsed and overgrown railway line with grazing deer in the foreground against a backdrop of deserted tower blocks.

This section showcases the work of Prague-based artist, Filip Hodas, renowned for his “Pop Culture Dystopia” series. He illustrates recognisable but dilapidated icons and famous structures reclaimed by apocalypse survivors. Some are overgrown and graffiti-ridden, others are bedecked with signage and supporting ramshackle habitats. Examples include a statue of Bart Simpson, Big Ben (Elizabeth Tower), the Statue of Liberty, Al-Khazneh treasury (Petra) and the Sphinx at Giza.

This final section, “The Artificial Portal”, is the most varied with pictures ranging from scenes of cities and off-world habitats to individual spacecraft and cyborgs. The featured artist is a 15-year veteran of the video game industry, Albert Ramon Puig, who has worked on titles such as the Asphalt series, The Waking Dead and Lords of the Fallen. Futuria includes numerous examples of his cityscapes on double-page spreads.

This hefty hardcover book has a very particular artistic design style. I’m not fond of the exposed cut board edges to the cover and considering the wonders within, the choice of image for the cover is simple, a bit bland and unrepresentative of most art within - this must obviously be following a “less is more” principle. Furthermore, the use of a silver typeface on fluorescent yellow pages is an eccentric choice for the introduction pages. Notwithstanding, the quality of art is consistently impressive and the sheer detail shown in the fantastical worlds illustrated definitely captivates and fires the imagination.