Loving the Alien

One of the most difficult things when reading sci-fi is a question of visualisation. Depending on how good the story teller is and how colourful your imagination is, the experience can vary tremendously.Sometimes if I read a book it springs cinematically into my head, full formed and I can 'see' the settings, characters and ships in my head. Other times, its hard to visualise or imagine the more alien concepts. At such times, a little help is always welcome - something I found invaluable was 'Barlowes Guide to Extraterrestrials'. Published in 1979 by Wayne Douglas Barlowe and Ian Summers, it documents a selection of great science fiction aliens with a full page illustration and a description and biological workup of each one and the story in which it appears.

Its a beautiful and enthralling book - probably long out of print, but well worth looking for!
Ive scanned the 'index' sheets and comparative size chart which shows all of the entries as a big file, see how many you recognise!

Especially for Woodsy - No10 is the Overlord from 'Childhoods End'!