Stephen Youll

Stephen Youll: Even though he's dead, I love Isaac Asimov. I really enjoyed his books, though they're very difficult to illustrate, because they're very narrative, and they're non-descriptive. But the way he writes, you can almost feel what he wants to tell you it looks like.  

But in terms of descriptive people -- usually, I enjoy [working] on more narrative writers like C. J. Cherryh, Isaac Asimov. Though there's one particular writer, Ian McDonald, who's Irish. He's wonderfully descriptive but wonderfully bizarre literary content that just brings stuff you didn't know you had inside you out. Some of my very favorite paintings and what people have said were my best paintings were for his books. He brings the best out of me, I guess, because the best ones I've ever done were for his books, so I have to say that. 

But there are some authors that I love to read, and still do really good paintings for, because I just love to read their books so much. David Feintuch is one of my favorite writers right now -- a pretty new writer, but really, tremendously talented at storytelling. He writes wonderful characters and does really crazy things to them that you can't believe, but that's what makes it so much fun to read the books. 

Margaret Weis I love reading. She did this really wonderful series of science fiction stories, Star the Guardians, and works with a tremendous amount of characters that you just love throughout the whole series. 

Robert Silverberg -- one of my very favorite books of his was Positronic Man, which still remains one of my all-time favorite science fiction stories. And I tell him every time I see him, and he's probably absolutely sick to death of hearing it -- but maybe not. That was one of my favorite books to illustrate. 

[Editor's note: Positronic Man is Silverberg's expansion of the Isaac Asimov story "Bicentennial Man," which provides the basis of the new Robin Williams movie of the same name.] 

Crescent Blues: Is there a book you'd like to illustrate or have a wish that you could've illustrated? 

Stephen Youll: I'd love to have illustrated a lot of Robert Silverberg's books. He is one of my favorite science fiction writers. 

We haven't even gotten to Lord of the Rings yet, but that is my all time favorite book. And you mentioned earlier how I get into [the mood for] painting, how I start painting.  

If I'm feeling stumped, I have the whole Lord of the Rings read by Robert Inglis, who's a brilliant reader. I put him on, and as soon as I start listening to those words I just snap right into it. I can concentrate as much as I want. It's like going into a place that is warm and cozy and comfortable and enthusiastic, and it brings out the artist in me. As soon as I'm blocked, I just put that on, and I can start painting straightaway.  

I've done that hundreds of times. I must have read Lord of the Rings or listened to it three hundred times easy -- maybe five hundred times. 

Crescent Blues: So you read science fiction and fantasy for pleasure. 

Stephen Youll: Oh, yeah. It's pleasurable to read the books before you illustrate them. When there's a book there -- a lot of times there's no book, so you have to call the writer and ask what the story's about or read the previous book and think about what the next book's going to be like, which I've had to do a few times. 

I love reading science fiction. I'm doing one now for Tor Books, a Jeffrey Carver book, and it's just delightful. Whenever there's anything like hover cars, or everybody has a robot -- that's just the coolest thing for me. And that's what cool about doing science fiction, and that's why I do it, because it is cool. There's nothing cooler than a hover car. [Both Youll and interviewer laugh.] 

Crescent Blues: I think I hear an exit line. Is there anything you'd like to add? 

Stephen Youll: At some point, I want to illustrate Lord of the Rings, but I don't want to spoil it for myself, because I think if I do a lousy job of it that would screw me up more than anything else. I really enjoy looking at other people's illustrations, like Alan Lee, the Hildebrandts -- I love what they did. I get more pleasure out of looking at their stuff, but I do want to do some of it myself.  

I think I owe it to one of my older brothers -- [Lord of the Rings] was his favorite book too -- and myself, because I've been reading it for so long now. I guess it's just the terror of not doing it the way you see it when you read it and feeling inadequate to illustrate a book that's so good to me. So I'm still waiting to catch up with myself. 

Teri Dohmen and Jean Marie Ward 

To learn more about House Atreides, read the Crescent Blues interview with Kevin Anderson

To learn more about Dune and the prequels written by Anderson and Brian Herbert, click here.