The Art of Discworld

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Summary: I have not seen this book but.....
Review: Although I have not seen this book, I have seen Kidby's art before. He illustrates the covers of the Pratchett Discworld book published in the U.K. Like Terry Pratchett says, Kidby's pictures match what I see when I read the books. The characters, colours and textures he uses are so much like Discworld that you can do almost everything except smell the smells.
Why the American publisher of Pratchett's books don't use the U.K. edition covers, I will never know. The American covers are ugly and uninspiring while Kidby's pictures draw you into the Disc....

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Summary: A Giant Candy Box of Discworld Visual Delights
Review: Terry Pratchett's Discworld is an extraordinarily varied and detailed creation of fantasy-that-is-awfully-real (not to mention being seriously funny). I suppose all of us who are fans of this work carry an assortment of internal visual images of what the world and its inhabitants look like, but "The Art of Discworld" comes pretty close to showing us how Terry Pratchett envisions his own creation. The drawings and paintings are by Paul Kidby, and Pratchett assures us in the introduction that "Paul sees things my way about seventy-five per cent of the time, which suggests either mind-reading is happening or that my vision of my characters is really rather vagues until I see his drawings." The illustrations in the book are, as might be expected, numerous and wonderfully vivid, showing us everyone and everything (some of those things animate and some not) of importance in the Discworld universe. But as absorbing as the paintings are, they are matched in interest by Pratchett's comments on each character, telling us how they came about and how they have evolved over time. I would have a hard time selecting my favorite illustration from the book. Heck, I would have a hard time limiting my choice to the top ten -- or twenty -- pictures. "The Art of Discworld" is guaranteed to be a delight to any fan of Pratchett's fiction. Or as the Librarian would say, "Ook!"