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  1. - Top - End - #1
    Titan in the Playground
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    Default Novels That Incorporate Illustrations?

    Most of the SFF novels I’ve read over the years have been pure text, no illustrations, apart from a map or two up front; but the first book of Sanderson’s Stormlight Archive had sketches scattered throughout, and the book made that out to be an innovation of sorts.

    So I’m wondering how many recent novels have incorporated illustrations, symbols, or other elements in the body of the book’s text. Is this becoming more common? Did Stormlight Archive help bring about a sea change, or did it remain a corner case for in-text illustrations?

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    Titan in the Playground
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    Default Re: Novels That Incorporate Illustrations?

    Calling it an innovation is probably stretching the concept of innovation well beyond the breaking point. The Fellowship of the Ring is, and has always been, illustrated, to name just one example. So were the original Dragonlance novels, and if Dragons of Autumn Twilight beat you there, I think any claims of innovation are truly dead and buried. I think the best you can claim is that the Stormlight Archives followed a long, but not terribly common, tradition of illustrated fantasy novels.

    In more modern times, they've been churning out illustrated versions of A Song of Ice and Fire novels/spinnoff short stories for years now. I'm reading Tanith Lee's Blood Opera (even more gothic than it sounds, somehow), which had illustrations added in the second edition printing in 2017. Todd Lockwood's The Summer Dragon contains a number of quite lovely pencil sketches by the author. I suspect the common ground for most modern illustrated editions is very high confidence that people will hack out the extra cash for an illustrated copy. Sanderson was already very successful, so an audience was pretty much assured. Martin's work is mega popular, so there's a market there. If you're enough of a weirdo to hunt up copies of Tanith Lee novels that have been out of print for a quarter century put out by a press named after a city in the chief editor's long-running series about post human mutants with floral genitalia*, you're probably so far gone that a slightly more expensive super expensive reprint is hardly an obstacle. And if you wanted to capitalize on the name Todd Lockwood, you pretty much have to include illustrations. None of these are likely to hold true for Rando Fantasy Novel by Random McRandomson, so they go unillustrated.

    And because it's a fascinating historical anecdote I feel compelled to include, Vanity Fair was originally and extensively illustrated (by Thackery himself); a large number of the originals went down with the Lusitania.

    *Not the weirdest - or least pleasant - thing in those books either.
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    Alfred Noyes, The Highwayman, 1906.

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    Default Re: Novels That Incorporate Illustrations?

    Quote Originally Posted by warty goblin View Post
    The Fellowship of the Ring is, and has always been, illustrated, to name just one example.
    I don't recall The Fellowship of the Ring being illustrated. The Hobbit, certainly, but not the three LOTR books.
    Last edited by hamishspence; 2021-12-13 at 01:37 AM.
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    Eldan's Avatar

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    Default Re: Novels That Incorporate Illustrations?

    However, speaking of Todd Lockwood, A Natural History of Dragons by Mary Brennan is a series of short novels about a Victorian Explorer describing Dragons, illustrated by him.
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    Default Re: Novels That Incorporate Illustrations?

    Quote Originally Posted by hamishspence View Post
    I don't recall The Fellowship of the Ring being illustrated. The Hobbit, certainly, but not the three LOTR books.
    There are many illustrated versions of Lord of the Rings, though I think they are all from the 80s and later? That said, those of Alan Lee and John Howe were famous enough that they were basically directly used as concept art for the movies. (Google them. Some of it is basically in the movies 1:1.)
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    MindFlayer

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    Default Re: Novels That Incorporate Illustrations?

    Quote Originally Posted by hamishspence View Post
    I don't recall The Fellowship of the Ring being illustrated. The Hobbit, certainly, but not the three LOTR books.
    Just the maps, the ring inscription, the image of the west gate of Moria, and the runes on Balin's tomb. That's more than most books these days, but not what I would call "illustrated".

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    Flumph

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    Default Re: Novels That Incorporate Illustrations?

    It's rare, but hardly new. Dragonlance (as noted) had character sketches every so often on chapter headings - but I'm not sure that I'd count that as illustrated as they were individual character sketches, had little to do with the story in progress (beyond being one of the characters in the chapter) and the same sketches were used for multiple chapters.

    The main modern example for me comes from the Diskworld books, specifically the first editions of Eric (1990) and The Last Hero (2001) by Terry Pratchet, and heavily illustrated by Josh Kirby and Paul Kidby respectively.
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    Default Re: Novels That Incorporate Illustrations?

    Quote Originally Posted by Eldan View Post
    There are many illustrated versions of Lord of the Rings, though I think they are all from the 80s and later? That said, those of Alan Lee and John Howe were famous enough that they were basically directly used as concept art for the movies. (Google them. Some of it is basically in the movies 1:1.)
    The things DavidSh mentions were there from the start, or at least were added quickly. I own the first Polish translation of LotR (from very early 1960s) and they included those things.
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    Flumph

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    Default Re: Novels That Incorporate Illustrations?

    ...It's the dominant format in young adult fiction from Japan, and they've been increasing their sales overseas in translation in recent years.

    Light novels with illustrations are an expected norm.

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    Default Re: Novels That Incorporate Illustrations?

    Quote Originally Posted by GloatingSwine View Post
    ...It's the dominant format in young adult fiction from Japan, and they've been increasing their sales overseas in translation in recent years.
    Yeah, the standard is for each series to be assigned an official artist, who'll do the cover art, a colour illustration or two at the start of each book (possibly including maps, charts, etc. if the author doesn't handle them personally), and usually some black-and-white illustrations scattered throughout the text. Along with any promotional material like posters. ​Nowadays even some companion volumes are getting translated, with author and artist sharing concept art and going into more detail about the design process.

    Light novels with illustrations are an expected norm.
    As in, there's a tendency for any novel which has this kind of illustration package to be marketed as a light novel, regardless of format.
    Last edited by Prime32; 2021-12-13 at 06:47 PM.

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    Default Re: Novels That Incorporate Illustrations?

    Some editions of Stardust by Neil Gaiman have many fine illustrations.

    I highly recommend them.
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    Default Re: Novels That Incorporate Illustrations?

    The one that comes to mind for me is Abarat (and its sequels). The illustrations are very strange and dreamlike, and I think they enhance the books a lot. If you google the name you'll find a bunch of them.
    Last edited by Eurus; 2021-12-30 at 09:42 PM.
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    RedWizardGuy

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    Default Re: Novels That Incorporate Illustrations?

    Terry Brooks' Shannara books had illustrations in the original trilogy, but they weren't present in later works.
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