The introduction and chapter headings by Barker are informative and point out interesting facts or draw attention to details that might otherwise be missed at first glance. The chapter headings themselves seem a little random in places; you'll be in a chapter about landscape and be looking at a sketch of a creature, or see a painting of a moonlit castle in a chapter about demons. Barker presumably knows the links, but it does seem a little obscure at times.

My only gripe in an otherwise essential purchase is the relative absence of material related to his existing output. I was hoping to see large full colour reproductions of the "Books of Blood" paintings for example, or the sublime pen and ink drawings from "The Thief of Always" novella, but the majority of the images are unrelated to the fiction, and are simply of themselves. This is no bad thing though, as most of the images reproduced are presumably being printed for the first time and are a rare treat.

Barker says in his introduction that many of the paintings come to him as he paints; in other words he frequently never plans to paint something, he lets the brush do the thinking, producing works of uninhibited by conscious draftsmanship. Sometimes this is wonderful - the flights of fantasy involved in many of the paintings are mind-boggling, but occasionally I would have liked some coherence; at such times it occurred to me that some of the images created to accompany the existing fiction wouldn't have gone amiss. Perhaps Barker's publishers are saving them up - we can only hope a sister publication will follow.... *****