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That alternate cover especially looks fantastic.

I've occasionally given extra copies of the Prog to lapsed readers or receptive friends and sadly it has never resulted in them wanting to read more. Imagine getting the most recent Prog: Brink mid-run, not exactly straightforward episodes of Dredd or Jaegir, Skip Tracer...

For getting someone into Dredd, it's best pitched at the individual depending on what they'd enjoy art and storywise... I gave someone America and they loved it, but I don't think it's ideal entry-level Dredd. The Pit was another good one. I actually think the 80s classics are probably less attractive for non-Squaxx than we realise... I'd also go with Case Files, but carefully pitched around a 'big' story that might hook.

[Red Seas]

Red Seas here too.

Enjoyed this a lot and signed up for more. Cheers!

You mentioning not owning some books reminds me I've got a handful of spare FF books from job lots that I've picked up. I should offer them to others here.

So at the moment I have spare copies of:

Forest of Doom
Island of the Lizard King
Scorpion Swamp
Rebel Planet
Demons of the Deep
Sword of the Samurai

Trade or free (pay postage) to anyone who wants them on this thread.

They're all puffin originals, with the green stripe (no Wizard / Scholastic rubbish here!) from cheap job lots I've picked up. All a bit tatty, faded spines etc as you'd expect, and not played by me.
I was hanging onto them till I had another couple and then thinking of ebaying them as a lot myself, but I'd much rather someone here had them if they're wanted.

Deathtrap Dungeon is incredibly brutal. I don't think it's possible to complete with a skill of less than 11, and you can say the same of IotLK and CotSW.
I've seen a lot of people saying they allow themselves skill bonuses from items in combat but not on skill checks, which is logical imo but also kinda against the rules: I think it's your book and you should play it your way though. Better than skipping fights after a while which I definitely did as a kid.
Funt, if you got to the Manticore you were almost at the end!

Actually now I think of it, the last one I read was probably The Riddling Reaver - a multiplayer job that needed a dungeon master. I never actually played it but read repeatedly up until my 20s - one of the most atmospheric FF books out there.

Love this book. I've ripped bits of it off for D&D campaigns in the past.

There's something so beautifully simplistic about those, I'm tempted to make them for myself (although I also would like to see this fabled Ice Cream Goat)

I never met Alan Grant but derived so much joy from his work. Feel genuinely shaken by this news.
Lovely obituary on the site and describing his passing as a painful gut punch is right.

That is interesting. If it is based on feedback then I'm good with that - I'd much rather fight a bunch of more reasonably skilled enemies and not have the provisions. I'm keen to do ToT again but there's a SK10 ST20 (I think) Sandworm fight in there that is putting me off, unless I max my own stats.
I get the idea of wanting certain monsters to appear like a threat, but I think it could be done in a cleverer way than just whacking its skill up. I guess it's easy to criticise in retrospect.

You mentioning not owning some books reminds me I've got a handful of spare FF books from job lots that I've picked up. I should offer them to others here.

I'll have another go at the weekend as I'd like to take it through to the end. There were some pretty severe stamina losses, but I could have offset those through provisions if I wasn't such a dunce.

On a FF-related note, it's Freeway Fighter apocalypse day:
https://officialfightingfantasy.blogspot.com/2022/07/21-july-2022.html

[Dredd]

I got 2289 and 2291 together yesterday so read those and 2290 all at once.

Dredd isn't difficult to follow, but it's not straightforward. I'm not sure if I should know who the guys in Brit-Cit are or not. It's an intrguing and very interesting story so far that seems to be very much setting up Dredd / MC1 as the bad guys. I'm engaged and want to read more. The dog bit seemed a bit unnecessary! Lovely work from Pat Goddard, although I think given the tone and his style, would have loved to have seen this in B&W.

Brink is as it always is, but I also am starting to find this run too long and too slow to maintain momentum. It's all very good and interesting, but I also feel like I could skip a week and not be the worse off for it, and the central character is yet to really be empathic or interesting in himself.

Skip Tracer is weak stuff and I'm at a loss as to why we're even getting this final series. I'm sad to say I don't care about anything here. Also why is the anime pop star there?

Dexter is something I've been critical of in the past but this tale is a great one so far. Just the right amount of wit in the writing, a good balance of story and gunplay: really nejoyable stuff. Big fan of Bettin's artwork here, especially his character designs and combat.

Finally Jaegir is back, hooray! There was a little bit too much going on in the opening episode I thought, but it all bodes well so set up the story and I am so excited to have this back.

(just seems Jim's response re. the lettering here, that's pretty cool and interesting stuff. The lettering stood out to me as being a little different too, but I'd have struggled to elucidate how. Thanks for the insight!)

This is awful to hear.

[Hookjaw.]

Hookjaw. It came out of nowhere and delighted me week after week.

Beautifully put. Hookjaw for me too.

[TEMPLE OF TERROR]

I'm really enjoying reading other peoples playthroughs as well, and I'm glad some other people are enjoying this and not finding it tedious!

It's become a bit of a hobby project for me now... I started buying a load off ebay during the pandemic for a laugh, but now I've got a spreadsheet and have been hunting down odd FF books in charity shops and online auctions. Although I've no hope of getting a complete set, I do have a wife-enraging big pile of them..

Also everyone should play WotT. I have no idea why these weren't bigger at the time.

Also:

TEMPLE OF TERROR

Played this before, but about 30 years ago, so it's all new to me, basically.
This one seems to be a nice little followon from Forest of Doom: it starts with a nice little scene-setting paragraph about some evil dude called Malbordus who is going to lead the Dark Elves to take over the world by finding some magic dragon statues and raising a dragon army. Then the scene cuts to Stonebridge, where I'm chilling out after finding the Kings magic hammer in FoD when Yaztromo rocks up and asks for a single volunteer to go stop Malbordus. All the dwarves hide in their beards and it's down to yours truly to stop him!

Yaztromo offers to teach you three spells at the start: he's made it clear I'm going to a big abandoned city in the desert, so I choose Create Water, Open Door and Read Symbols as these all seem like they'll be useful in an environment like that. He also says I've two routes: Overland, or via boat through Port Blacksand. Common sense says avoid the city of thieves, so I take the latter.

Whilsting cheerfully I strike out overland. Soon I spot a couple of Dark Elves attacking a simple homesteader - I rush to help, it's too late but I polish off the evil-doers and take their bow and two arrows (all the rest are in the homesteader, I assume). Good to get some Dark Elf killing practice in early! Further on I find a sinister looking, smoking amulet emblazoned with an M that the text says might have been dropped by Malbordus, do I want to pick it up? I certainly do not.
After losing 6 stamina fighting a random harpy, Yaztromo takes pity on me and sends an eagle to pick me up and take me to the desert. I'm zipping along like that kid in the Neverending Story when we're attacked by a Pteranadon. I now have to run a fight between the eagle and the pteranadon - problem is the eagle is terrible, and when it loses I plunge to my doom.

Attempt 2

Trying again, it looks like the eagle fight could be mandatory, so I decide to go via Blacksand. I haggle for passage there at reduced rate and am soon in the City of Thieves. This version of me is a bit more wary, so I carefully move through the city streets, treating everyone like a potential thief or enemy. Eventually I find a sailor pub, buy myself passage and a round of drinks for some clumsy oaf and head to sleep.
Next morning I'm up bright and early, discovering to my mild horror that I have enlisted on a pirate ship. Said ship is immediately sunk in battle:I float about for days hanging onto a mast, losing stamina and wishing I had stayed in Stonebridge, before washing up on a beach which the text says has no coconuts on it.
I head overland into the blistering heat of the desert of skulls, battling insects and discovering oddities in the sand. My spell of create water comes in handy here to keep me alive - eventually my trek leads me to the tent of Abjul the merchant. He generously gives me all the food and water I need, so to return the kindness I buy an Onyx Egg, a Bracelet of Mermaid Scales & a Crystal Key, using up the last of funds (cant imagine I'll need these in the lost city)
Back into the desert - I am attacked by, and kill a giant sandworm but the fight is a very tough one and I am not left in the best of states - something not helped by the freezing desert night, where lacking any sort of flame I freeze. Now in single digits stamina the next thing I do is stick my hand between two rocks and get stung by a scorpion for a further 4 stamina damage.
Probably hallucinating madly at this stage, I examine what I found in the sack and it's some kind of little pixie dude in a jar, who when I free from his confinement tells me to fashion a headscarf from a sack. With my headscarf and my create water spell, but on my last legs, I stagger around in the desert until - what is this? The lost city of Vatos lies before me, nestled in the dunes. I have arrived at my destination!

I use my open door spell to get in, forgetting this will cause me stamina damage. Inside I find a pretty neat helmet that increases my skill. But any good cheer I might have is extinguished when I encounter a terrible phantom - the MESSENGER OF DEATH. "DEATH" it whispers to me before vanishing, and I realise I'm stuck in some kind of weird scavenger hunt: the creature will be hiding the letters D-E-A-T-H in my path, and if I find them all, it appears and kills me. Contrived, but very cool.

I'd better tread carefully, I think to myself. Of course, the first thing I do after that is open a door to find a room contaning a giant centipede that rushes out and kills me.
Wow, that's hard, I think.... 

...who forgot he was carrying provisions? Gah!

Aside from my rank stupidity, I really enjoyed this one. The trip through the desert felt pretty epic and the messenger of death is a neat concept: I'll be opening doors, boxes etc looking for dragon trinkets, and presumably finding letters along the way.
Only downer I would say is the art: the cover is a lovely Chris Achilleos, but I'm less keen on the interior stuff by Bill Houston. The monsters look suitably twisted, but also lack a bit of menace and his humanoid faces look a bit off. That's a minor nitpick though. Definitely going to try this one again.

I must admit I thought Truss would be laughed out of the hustings early doors by the other MPs, virtue of a combination of her essentially being the Johnson-continuity candidate, being backed by known clowns like Dorres and Rees-Mogg, and being so incredibly stupid. Jim sums her up well in the post above and the fact that she's now likely to be our next PM is terrifying.
On the plus side, she's a charisma vacumn so I fancy her to lose the next election.

Matter of interest, why do you think the party faithful will pick Truss over Sunak?

It's not a cert, but Sunak has been hammered by the Johnson-loyalist press who seem to think it's all his fault. Looking at the way the negative press tanked Mordaunt's prospects in opinion polls, dropping her from front-runner to also ran in the minds of the Tory faithful, it looks good for her.
I'm pretty sure the racism thing comes into it too.