Apr 30
Well it’s reached that time again were here in the UK we are blessed with bank holidays! So for those like myself who will be relaxing with an extra long weekend, here are some honourable mentions.
These covers break our explicit and hard kept rules, which are enforced with an iron fist. These are part of a franchise (this time of adventure choice novels), but nonetheless each of them sports an excellent cover so I hope you enjoy them.
Also just to say thanks to everyone who has been sending me in covers! We’ll slowly get through them all so keep an eye out and I promise they will appear at some stage.
Have a great weekend for those benefiting from it!
To face the evil rabbit turn to page 8
To run away turn to page 57
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(Average: 6.39 out of 10)
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April 30th, 2010 at 10:47 am
So, The Last Battledroid… what’s that one about then?
April 30th, 2010 at 10:59 am
Knowing my movies the way I do. It’s probably an American trapped behind lines who befriends a group of well caring but deadly battledroids. Soon they learn to accept him as one of their own and as they are slaughtered in battle, he indeed is left alone as ‘The Last Battledroid.’ Even though he’s not a robot.
But whatever it is about it certainly didn’t win Game book of the year not only in 1985 but 1986! Wow! I’m impressed.
April 30th, 2010 at 3:34 pm
I’m embarrassed to say i own 2 of these titles ‘Lone Wolf’ and ‘The Rack of Baal’
Now I think ‘The Rack of Baal’ refers to the pecs of the red pointy-eared guy on the cover
April 30th, 2010 at 5:14 pm
Not embarrassing at all. The adventure books are amazing. And apparently I read someplace that the last battledroid has quite a complex system. Hours of fun!
And I am sure throughout the ages when people envisioned any figure of Baal, he’d look something like that! Like he’s exploding out of a Meat Loaf album.
April 30th, 2010 at 5:25 pm
We had Fighting Fantasy choose your own adventure books in Australia. I’ll see if I can find some. Does that count as part of a franchise?…Bas
April 30th, 2010 at 9:00 pm
In America, we don’t have bank holidays, we have recessions. It’s a way to give hardworking Americans time off from having a job and a viable retirement. Baal has nothing on me. I’m pure evil!
May 1st, 2010 at 3:17 pm
Bookworm> Yea we classify adventure books pretty much as a franchise. But send it in anyway. There’s another bank holiday in May so I am sure it will get into another honourable mentions! 🙂
May 1st, 2010 at 3:19 pm
Goldman > Probably wouldn’t mention that in a job interview 😛
May 1st, 2010 at 9:38 pm
@ SI
ROFL , “exploding out of a Meatloaf album”!!
May 1st, 2010 at 10:50 pm
You think that publishers would do a focus group or see what else is out there before making covers to their new books.
I did my research before I did my cover.
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41bgcfw3feL._SS500_.jpg
Some 80s sci-fi covers are kinda cool and retro…but some of these are just bad.
Nice site. Keep up the nice work.
May 4th, 2010 at 12:46 pm
The spanish edition of Lone Wolf had also some ugly covers, for example, “Flight from the Dark”:
http://www.gamebooks.org/gallery/lonewolf01sp.jpg
or “Castle Death”:
http://apitikane.com/web/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/dsc02458_redimensionar_redimensionar.jpg
May 4th, 2010 at 1:55 pm
Parado. They sure are special. Possibly the one mentioned above might be a later edition.
April 18th, 2012 at 3:24 pm
The Falcon series was awesome, nearly as good as Grailquest. Oh, sweet nostalgia 😀
January 24th, 2020 at 2:23 pm
Looking at Mr Devers bio, a gamebook based on his experiences as a recording engineer working with the Sex Pistols might have generated a worthy cover.
January 24th, 2020 at 3:57 pm
1. Swashbuckler boots do not go with full plate armor.
2. He may be inadvertently giving an Ent a handjob.
3. I hate it when you lose the gun that goes in your action figure’s hand.
4. This cover is totally Baaller.
January 24th, 2020 at 8:48 pm
1) Impressive crotch armor.
2) Impressive eyes.
3) Impressive hydraulics.
4) Impressive glowing out of place nipples.
January 25th, 2020 at 12:07 am
I kind of like “The Last Battledroid” art, which is better than it needed to be, and delightfully 80s. Could have been on one of those Asimov-continuation books of the time, which I’m sure was the idea. The rest are bad in a dull sort of way, but not up to so many of the anatomical issues we see here.
Baal doesn’t have much of a rack, but they do glow.
@JP: What if it’s not inadvertent? Either way, turn to page 34.
January 25th, 2020 at 2:59 am
1. Goddamn medieval preppers, always ordering every gimmicky new weapon in the monthly scroll.
2. If you look at the large-size version, the guy in green has some serious ‘I have seen some _shit_, man” eyes. [1]
3. Really can’t tell what’s supposed to be happening with its lower body, if it has one. And it appears to have a really fancy toaster for a fist.
4. Is that like a rack of lamb? (IT’S A COOKING SHOW!!!)
[1] I note that the cover of the Spanish edition of “Flight From the Dark” (post #5) shares many elements with the better picture: suspicious trees, unhappy sword-wielder in green, a dead enemy whose body appears to be made of soap bubbles. An important scene, or just a knockoff of the other cover?
January 25th, 2020 at 9:43 pm
1: “I can’t actually move.”
2: “In Germany I’m Johann, in England I am Joooohnnnn…”
3: Promising one-fisted fun.
4: Designed by Tony Manero.
January 27th, 2020 at 12:33 am
@Bruce: Yep, #2 has classic “What has been seen cannot be unseen” eyes.
In #3, it’s the Last Battledroid, because the real ones were all destroyed and they had to repurpose the cook. Thus the toaster, which probably shoots lasers or toast-shaped projectiles now.
@THX, re #4 — GSS!