Do you like your books being illustrated?

[rune]

No, Im not a big lover of illustrations in my books

[Nesacat]

For me it depends on the nature of the book and the illustrations. Some books are greatly enhanced by illustrations for instance Alice In Wonderland; even the Wizard of Oz and the original Narnia books. It's hard to imagine the Pooh stories without the illustrations and the same goes The Wind In The Willows.

Alan Lee's artwork for instance added a new dimension to Tolkien's Lord Of The Rings and the love of the artist for his work in those books comes acroass very, very clearly indeed.

On the other hand haphazard illustrations which are there to fill in space and pad a book out or which are not particularly connected with the book itself makes reading the book very aggravating. I have a collection of horror tales where the illustrations while lovely in themselves have nothing whatsoever to do with the stories they belong in and they strike quite a jarring note.

[j. d. worthington]

There are plenty of science fiction (and fantasy) books from the 1980s that were that way as well... usually novelettes that were larded (literally) with illustrations and then published as books (usually trade pb); and often the artist only haphazardly read the text, it seemed. The illustrations might be marginally connected, or not connected at all, to the text. Very annoying....

[Nesacat]

There is one particular illustration that I love of a gargoyle sitting on the edge of a roof under a night sky reading a huge tome. It was amazingly well done and I later saw the piece auctioned at the 2005 Worldcon in Glasgow. Lovely though it was, it really did not fit into a story where it had been placed. The story was about a rampaging teen biker gang who come up against a kid who is not quite as he seems to be. There were no gargoyles by any stretch of the imagination.

[Talysia]

I don't mind books being illustrated, as long as the pictures aren't too intrusive. I think I prefer any pictures inside the book to be of locations rather than people, and maps are quite all right,as long as they're clear and have relevance to the story.

[Kettricken]

I don't mind that books are illustrated, as long as it adds something to the story. Like Nesacat said, Lord of the Rings illustrated by Alan Lee is wonderful.

Also, the illustrations must be of a very good quality or must reflect 'the feeling' of the book. Loved Sheperd's illustrations in Winnie-the-Pooh for example, because of the simple 'cuteness' of the drawings.

[Allegra]

I like Clive Barker's own illustrations in his Abarat. In fact I like his art more than his writing.