I don't know why, but this volume of Giger's paintings presents them in a really shoddy appearance. The book itself is patterned a lot like a smaller book of his called "ARhT". If you compare the paintings that appeare in both of these books, you'll find that the retrospective pictures look less colorful and lacking in detail (some are actually just black and white photos) maybe it has something to do with it being an older publication. I dunno. Get ARhT instead. the paintings look better and Giger tells some really cool stories and maxims on life.

I didn't like this book at all. I expected paintings of aliens and supernatural creatures. Instead I got art that's nonsense, from my point of view. The paintings look nice, but they're meaningless to me. I think that Giger needs better ideas for the subject matter of his paintings. Also, Giger's obsession with sex seems juvenile to me.

One of the few things I liked in the book was a sketch of a kid ringing a doorbell while another kid drops a guillotine blade toward the neck of the woman who stuck her head out the window to see who was at the door.

This book includes the two "Necronom" paintings that inspired the makers of "Alien" to hire Giger as designer of the alien, but if you're looking for artwork related to "Alien," there's a separate book for that. I think there is also a book that covers all of Giger's filmwork including Alien, Poltergeist II, and Species.

Very good Giger book for those who can't afford the pricey ones.

When I bought this book, I was expecting it to be full of Giger's "as seen on TV" biomechanical art. And yes, those black-and-gray conflations of living tissue, buildings, and machines are well-represented, and it's great stuff-- cables, bones, human forms or parts of human forms, chitin, metal. The liquid, glossy motifs Giger uses are much more effective on a well-printed page than on a CRT, and it seems like every time I look at them, there's another nuance or detail or set of teeth or something that I hadn't noticed.

But there's also a lot of stuff in here I hadn't seen before. The "Totems" toward the very end actually affected me more strongly than any of the classic biomechanisms.

If you know what you're getting into, this is a good way to get examples of several types of work Giger's done besides the Alien/Species style. (He does have some all-biomechanical books as well, if that's your sole interest.)

...H. R. Giger has been a fave of mine for years--even before "Alien" and "Species". I was silently pleased when some of his work was lent to medium other than the sci-fi and slick 'zines he was noted for doing--deb harry's solo project's album cover, for one. These are visions of biological organisms as mechanisms and of architecture as anatomy with, for instance, veins and sinews as electrical conduits and potable water lines and sewers as ligaments and ribs and tissue...living organisms have a mechanical metallic sheen, bridges and sewers and scaffolds have mouths and faces and deformed bodies that may be human or may not...they are sensuous at times, horrific at other times, but they all are bold and eye-catching modern art...it is almost like he has vision of a nightmare future...see how he's developed his style throughout the years in this great, great book...