The Mountains of Magnatz
- THE MOUNTAINS OF MAGNATZ - A black ink and black color pencil drawing on an 11 x 14 size coquille board. It appears in the book, "THE EYES OF THE OVERWORLD," by Jack Vance, published by Underwood-Miller in 1977.
Shortly after this book was published I received a phone call from the author, who is one of my favorite writers. He was upset that my illustration (the one you see here), revealed the "surprise" in the story, and ruined the reading experience for that chapter in the book. Well, I did know that it is important for an illustrator not to do that sort of thing; as a young reader I remember opening a book that featured Edgar Allan Poe's classic mystery story, "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," and before I started reading the story I saw the full page drawing by the famous illustrator, Arthur Rackham; it showed the murderer to be a large chimpanzee. And so, as I read the story and followed Poe's detective looking for clues to the killer's identity, there was no "mystery" for me, I and anyone else who read that book, already knew who the killer was from Rackham's illustration.
I told that story to Jack, and though I was aware of the problem, it had somehow slipped past me. I apologized for my blunder and happily, his mood turned more friendly and we continued to have a nice long chat. Not long after, it was my pleasure to meet Mr. Vance at the First World Fantasy Convention where we sat together at a table greeting fans and signing copies of this book.
I don't know how many writers like sharing their book-signing gig with an illustrator, but I did not notice any resentment from Vance.
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