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May 19

And then the bear ate them all ...Click for larger image

Good Show Sir Comments: The Revenant … for children!

Thanks to Ryan for sending this in!

Published 1983

Actually, that cover IS a classical work of art!I would touch it without protective gloves.I've seen worse. Far, far, worse.Interesting, but I would still read it in public.Middlng: Neither awful nor awfully goodWould not like to be seen reading that!Awful... just awful...That belongs in a gold-lame picture frame!Gah... my eyes are burning! Feels so good!Good Show Sir! (Average: 6.20 out of 10)
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25 Responses to “The Road to the Middle Islands”

  1. A. R. Yngve Says:

    As a parent, I can only think of one thing to say in response to this cover art…
    RUN AWAY, CHILDREN!! RUN AWAY!! SAVE YOURSELVES!!

  2. fred Says:

    Cloudy with a chance of queens.

  3. Francis Boyle Says:

    There’s a fine line between whimsical and twee and I think it’s the yellow one on this cover.

  4. THX 1139 Says:

    David Attenborough’s documentaries were never as good from Netflix.

  5. Tor Mented Says:

    From the way he is dressed, I guess the gnome comes from the Wilderness of Two-2.

  6. Max Bathroom Says:

    When you’re a professional jazz musician and a weasel, you’ll quickly find that smaller audiences are a lot less trouble than playing pub gigs.

  7. Bruce A Munro Says:

    Non-traditional couples enjoy some music while a Karen glares.

  8. BMunro Says:

    If this is the Road to the Middle Islands, does that make the dwarf Bob Hope?

  9. B. Chiclitz Says:

    The two bears seem to be more into the music than the otters.

  10. Tor Mented Says:

    That’s because they’ve got each otter.

  11. Tat Wood Says:

    The weasels have no sense of tradition: the Best Man’s only supposed to cop off with the Bridesmaid AFTER the ceremony.

    But is it the crab or the seagull that’s conducting the wedding?
    Was the bloke from the Limu Emu adverts unavailable? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_t9mqUJpAc (Apologies to anyone coming to this cold after the previous 150-odd adverts in this relentlessly ‘wacky’ campaign.)

  12. fred Says:

    When the vikings show up it’s party time.

  13. JuanPaul Says:

    A road to an island is called a bridge.

  14. GSS ex-noob Says:

    My eyes are worn out just reading the cover. Between the excess title/author words in Ye Olde Font (Four-4? wtf) and them being white on pastel, I’d never make it to the book itself.

    It took me 3 looks to spot the Queen of the Clouds.

    Think we need more tags — there’s a crab, some butterflies, and a bird too.

    @FB, Tor, JuanPaul: GSS!

    @Bruce: Then the bear is Dorothy Lamour, and the musical mustelid is Der Bingle? Or vice versa?

    @Tat: It’d be less twee if the emu and Doug were there.

    3 bucks for this… maybe if they paid me that, I’d take it away to be recycled.

    (I did throw one book into the bin — Dianetics. Neither of us could figure out why/how it got into the house.)

  15. Emster Says:

    My inner child says, “Poorly attempted Narnia knock-off… that’s a nope.”

  16. Bruce A Munro Says:

    @Emster: _Buddhist_ Narnia, mind you.

  17. GSS ex-noob Says:

    @Bruce: You have croggled my mind trying to figure out Buddhist Narnia.

    It’s probably kinda boring. No exciting fights with weapons and cavalry and all.

  18. Hammy Says:

    @GSSxn (#14):

    I don’t think I’d pay $3.00 for it, either. If you look closely, the list price printed on the cover is $2.95, and I can’t see paying 1.01666… times list for most paperbacks.

  19. GSS ex-noob Says:

    Yeah, when a used book seller charges more than list price for a rando paperback that isn’t a classic or rare first edition, it’s time to find a different book purveyor. I mean, there’s a good reason the big chain is called “Half Price Books”.

    Ryan has come across some real doozies! He should do a video of a walkthrough of the places he finds these gems.

  20. Francis Boyle Says:

    @GSS ex-noob

    I thought this was Buddhist Narnia and I thought it was pretty cool when I was younger. (Still do, actually.)

  21. Max Bathroom Says:

    @Francis Boyle
    I think Journey To The West is more Taoist than Buddhist, even if it is about bringing a set of Sutras from India to China. The thing that astonished me when I read that one a few years back is that the series is quite faithful to the book. I’d always assumed a lot of the awesome in that was down to a Japanese television company mocking Chinese mythology and British translators enjoying themselves, but it all seems to be on the level

  22. Tat Wood Says:

    @Max, Francis: there was a Talking Book of the Arthur Waley version in the 60s. It was read by Kenneth Williams but played more-or-less straight. (Still more fun than ‘Galloping Galaxies’ though).

  23. Ryan Says:

    @GSS – The secret to my success is locating the used bookstores in closest proximity to a semiconductor fab or R&D lab, or else to a survivalist community. The chip boys and their staff go in for the outre stuff that we like the best, while the desert gun nuts have exactly what you would expect in their Army/Navy Surplus stores.

    That means Mountain View, San Jose, and Sunnyvale CA and Mesa, Tempe and Chandler, AZ are your integrated circuit foundry-adjacent targets, while out in the deserts near Las Vegas, NV, Quartzsite, AZ and Zurich, CA are your hotspots in the wilderness.

  24. Max Bathroom Says:

    @Tat Wood
    Thanks for the tip about that. I’ll have to keep an eye out for that, as I finally managed to get hold of a copy of the Nicol Williamson Hobbit box a couple of years back so that sounds a fine replacement to be trying to find…

  25. GSS ex-noob Says:

    @Ryan: Thank you for sharing your expertise. And photographs.

    I’ll stick with the chip boys; not feeling up to visiting the survivalists.

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