Fantasy Book Club discussion

What did you think of the illustrations? Did they help set the mood, or did you find them distracting?

Ultimately, I liked the illustrations. There were some things that I had a hard time visualizing based just on the descriptions, and I was glad that the illustrations were there to help flesh out the shaky imagine in my head.

The weird thing for me was the placement. There were times where an illustration for one thing would be on the page before when it's described. I did find the placement to be a bit distracting at times, though I liked the illustrations themselves.

I agree on all counts. It could be distracting to see a garbage can with legs before the binjas are introduced, and so forth.

But the pictures were great. I really found them useful in visualizing the utterlings. I had to go back and look at the picture of Cauldron when he'd do someething, so I could get a mental picture of it.

And I loved, absolutely loved, the carnivorous giraffe.

I really loved the illustrations as well - and I agree, they really helped with visualization. I didn't personally find them distracting though.. To me they were kind of a novel thing. I don't know when the last time was that I read a book with illustrations, so it was a nice treat for me.

I really liked them, but I don't know why there were so many drawings of the unbrellas.

Because they were all over the place? Miéville probably wanted to convey the fact that everywhere Deeba turned, there were unbrellas.

I loved the illustrations. I thought they were a perfect addition.