Reddit mentions of Neil Gaiman and Charles Vess' Stardust

Not sci-fi, but do you mean something like Gaiman and Vess' Stardust? If you are unfamiliar with it, the Amazon preview has some pages that show what it's like. It's regular prose fiction, but interspersed in the text are illustrations of varying size which accentuate the story. It's really well done. Because sci-i and fantasy often take place in highly imaginative worlds, I think illustrations can bring the story to life for a reader.

On the other hand, I imagine there might be some readers dissatisfied with included illustrations because they imagine things to look differently. But I think they would be a very small minority.

I do like this idea. I even considered it for my own sci-fi novella. I ended up abandoning it though, mostly because the cost for illustrations on top of the cover art was going to be more than I wanted to invest in my first book. But I still like the idea and might return to it for a future book, or re-release an illustrated edition of my novella someday.

If you really like Gaiman--and it would seem that you do--then you really, really, REALLY owe it to yourself to get a copy of the original published format with Charles Vess' illustrations on every page. (Preferably in the slightly larger hardback edition, though that can be pricey.)

That fact that the story was ever published as straight text is an affront to all that is good, and if there is a god then the publisher should fear greatly for their immortal soul's fate.

Stardust the novel is pretty good, but if you really want to read it the way it was intended to be read, make sure to grab the fully illustrated version with Charles Vess' illustrations. They really do add a lot to the story for me.

And if you get the book, make sure you get the fully illustrated edition.

Stardust was originally published as a fully illustrated graphic novel, with illustrations by Charles Vess, and it's really well done.

They later decided that the story was good enough to release as a standard novel without the illustrations, and while good, is nowhere near as awesome as the illustrated version. Both are still in print and you can find either in bookstores.

EDIT: And if you're ordering online and want to be able to tell the difference, the easiest way is that the illustrated edition is published by Vertigo, whereas the non-illustrated one is HarperCollins.

Amazon link for non-illustrated edition

Illustrated Edition

You might try Stardust by Neil Gaiman and Charles Vess.

The maiden warriors of retail suggest that it's currently available through them. The illustrator is Charles Vess.

Edit from a proper keyboard (which makes some things so much easier): go here - and my apologies to the mods for the sales link.

I'm reading a bunch of stuff right now.

I've tried Les Miserables several times but I always get to this part in the middle where Hugo starts talking about the French Revolution and it goes on for a hundred (two hundred?) pages. It completely drops the main story in that time and I haven't been able to get through it yet. This time I'm going to skip it and read it after I finish the rest of the book.

I'm reading this old favorite of mine called Behind The Attic Wall by Sylvia Cassedy. It's a very strange, ambiguous book that has stayed with me since I was a kid, so I decided that instead of simply rereading it for the 180th time I'd study each chapter and write about the storytelling elements Cassedy used.

Then I have a bunch of fantasy waiting for me. The Name of the Wind by Rothfuss, Stardust by Gaiman, and this trilogy I picked up from a thrift store years ago (Dragon's Gold, Serpent's Silver, and Chimera's Copper by Piers Anthony). It's about a boy named Kelvin and his sister Jon who accidentally-on-purpose slayed a dragon and then took all its scales, and then the sister gets kidnapped on their way home, and that's as far as I've gotten. The boy is the Chosen One, I think.