What do you see when you read

Some time ago Emily Asher-Perrin posted an article on Tor.com asking:

"How Do You “See” the Books You Read?"

https://www.tor.com/2019/02/13/how-do-you-see-the-books-you-read/

Based on the fact there were 75 comments, her essay did seem to strike a chord with people. So I am also asking, do you just read the words or do you create visual images of the places and characters the author describes? I was is my late 50's before I realized that other people did (I don't). I attribute some of this to skimming the text, but I have also noticed this inability to form a visual image using my imagination when trying to pick frames for a picture or paint from a sample. (just ask Helen) I need to see the thing complete. 

I wonder if that is part of the reason that science fiction illustration is so important to me. I own multiple copies of the same book because of the covers. I will buy one to read but then be seduced by a "better" possibly more representative cover. They don't need to be representative, I like artists was diverse as Weird Tales alumni like Hannes Bok and Virgil Finlay, the Gernsbeckian Frank R. Paul or the increasingly surreal/abstract stylings of Richard Powers but something just calls to me. That said, traditional SF tropes, space ships and suits, alien landscapes, futuristic cities and powers plants really attract me. I have discussed what conjures up science fiction to me in earlier posts, something I will come back to again and again. 

http://ajaggedorbit.blogspot.com/2018/06/science-fiction-and-me-why-i-read-what.html

Here are a couple of new arrivals that are certainly candidates based on the covers. They also have a bit of a WWII vibe (at least to me) based on the style of the suits and equipment, which reminds me of the b&w films of my youth.

Cover by H. Fox (1962)

Cover by Gordon C. Davies (1957)