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Is Indigo Prime for all ages? Cradlegrave? Anything by John Smith, for that matter? Dark Justice? Deadworld? Defoe? I think 2000AD would be poorer without them. And without Hope too.

I'd rather Tharg commissioned new stories than adapted old ones (although I did enjoy Hawk the Slayer). Also the Stainless Steel Rat books are of variable quality, and whoever adapted them might not choose the same ones I would choose.

If you play and enjoy Avenger I'm happy to send you my 'spare' reprint copies of Assassin and Usurper (unless you'd prefer to hunt down the originals for the Bob Harvey art)

Very kind of you, thank you! But I think I will get the ones with the original art in them.

[Talisman of Death, playthroughs 2 to 5]

Harsh, but totally fair criticism of Space Assassin. The art is glorious though.

Brave to attempt Snow Witch on a low skill. It's a good house rule, but frankly you're better off cheating -- after all, if the book doesn't play fair then why should you?

Talisman of Death, playthroughs 2 to 5

Playthrough 2:

Skill 12, Stamina 15, Luck 8, Potion of Fortune.

Having worked out the best route to the city on my last playthrough, I follow that route until I reach the Envoy of Death, who demands my Talisman. Last time, I fought this guy and kept the Talisman, only to unavoidably lose it on the next encounter. Since I now know I'm going to lose the Talisman whatever I do, it  makes sense to just hand it over -- or so I thought! He instantly kills me with it! This time the gods don't bring me back to life, so that's that.

Playthrough 3:

I roll new stats to make it legitimate (9-19-11, oops!), but instead of starting at the beginning I just carry on from the point where I left off. I fight the envoy, kill him without being wounded, and from there I soon reach the point where I got up to at the end of my first playthrough. This time I go with the man who rescues me from the man-trap, who turns out to be a friendly Sage. He sends me to the Red Dragon Inn, which I go through the same way as last time since that at least worked out for me, and then go back to the Sage for dinner. He tells me how to get back to Earth. Progress at last!

Now I go to the Thieves' Guild, and this time I manage to get them to help me. We infiltrate a temple where the stolen Talisman is being held, and I lose a Luck point for letting my new allies gratuitously murder someone. We find the Talisman and the evil High Priestess who has it, and the thieves leave me to it. She immediately sets me on fire, and then moves in for the kill. Her Skill is 12! Needless to say, I die pretty quickly.

(Having since read just about the whole book, I can say that there is no way through the book that does not involve fighting this woman, with a skill of 12 and a 1 in 3 chance of losing 6 stamina points at the start of the fight.)

Playthrough 4:

Fuck it, it's time to max out the stats: 12-24-12.

I start over, and follow what seems to me to be the best route as far as the infamous Red Dragon Inn, where I forget how I went through it the last time and accidentally pick a fight with the deadly duo of assassins from the Way of the Tiger books! Fortunately they are not actually quite as invincible as the barman had led me to believe, and I give a good enough account of myself until they decide to escape.

On my way back to see the Sage for dinner, I take a detour and find myself in a bit of a comedy skit, at the end of which I pick up a Spell of Agonising Doom -- sounds promising! I use that on the priestess and it takes 8 off her Stamina, which is handy, but she still has that same Skill score. This time I win, but at a cost of half my own Stamina. She immediately begins to come back to life, [spoiler]but I steal her Ring of Regeneration and she dies permanently. This also gives me 6 Stamina points back[/spoiler]. I escape with the Talisman! Huzzah!

I am ambushed by the two assassins from the Red Dragon, who are accompanied by a third guy, a Master of Illusion. I make all the wrong choices about which illusions are real and which are not, losing 8 Stamina as a result. I call on a goddess for aid, as advised by the Sage, and an eagle rescues me. He doesn't fly me out of the city though, the lazy git. I have to escape on foot.

Back in the wilderness, I take the most direct route to my final destination, a mountain where the portal to Earth is. I am threatened by a Wraith, and I manage to ward him off, but just after that I make a poor choice and get slaughtered by six Wraiths!

Playthrough 5:

I carry on where I left off, get past the Wraiths, get some useful advice from some friendly pig-people hybrids, and defeat a Dragon. This Dragon is not like the wuss in Firetop Mountain, he's a tough bastard, and after subsequently reading all the alternative choices I could have made, it seems like a miracle that I got past him on the first go!

Paragraph 400 says I might have to come back to Orb again. You know what? I just might! I think I'll pick up one of these Way of the Tiger books!

My wife, who has less than zero interest in comics as a medium, actually commented on that very cover to say how weathered Dredd looks and that it suits him (she's seen the 2012 film).

It's quite a striking image, and I'm glad Tharg resisted his customary inclination to clutter up the cover with too much text.

Aliens

[FF11: Talisman of Death]

FF11: Talisman of Death

I've never played this book before, having bought it just this week. I know nothing about it, except Mr Boots' playthrough above, and I've forgotten all the choices he made. I start with skill 10, stamina 21, luck 7 and the Potion of Fortune.

After collecting the Talisman of Death I am offered the choice between heading though a forest, or taking a more direct route through an open plain. Since I already have hundreds of baddies looking for me, I choose the forest where I will be concealed, instead of the riskier plain. I encounter a wolf, and given several options I elect to offer it food, for which the book rewards me with more food. I then encounter a band of warrior-women, and given four options of how to handle them I choose a pretty terrible one which results in them confiscating my sword (for a loss of 2 skill points) and, a couple of paragraphs later, the Talisman!

Since my mission is to take the Talisman back to Earth with me, away from the world of Orb, this is something of a setback. But I remember that this happened to BB too, and he got it back, so I am not disheartened. The Street of Seven Sins sounds appealing, so I go that way and am attacked by an invisible monster. Fortunately I had the sense to throw some blood-stained sawdust at it as it was advancing, so I can sort of see it well enough to fight it. Nevertheless I still lose 12 stamina points, even though I had one more skill point than it did! I eat some provisions, and then get attacked by a Death Knight with a Skill of 10! With defeat looming, I am rescued by an unlikely rescuer, and pick up a magic sword, restoring my own skill. This is a surprisingly forgiving development, and not the only one like it in this book.

Walking along the street, someone drops a charm on the floor in front of me, without noticing. Given the choice between stealing it for myself and handing it to its owner, I do the right thing and am rewarded with a luck point -- but in the very next place I go to, as soon as I arrive I am asked if I have this very same charm. Did I just fuck up? Well I am not cheating on this playthrough, so I grit my teeth and venture into the Red Dragon Inn with no charm except that with which I was born. This inn turns out to be the roughest dive you could ever hope not to blunder into, full of scumbags, thieves and murderers. Fortunately the barman warns me about who to steer clear of, and I chat to some much nicer thieves who tell me where I can find the Thieves' Guild, and we agree to meet there tomorrow. After all, I am going to need some help getting the Talisman back. Leaving the inn, I am rewarded with a luck point just for making it out of there alive!

The next day I go to the Guild (and there is a clever anti-cheating device here to filter out people who have not learned where it is). I meet the Guildmaster, and out of four possible options of things to say to him I manage to choose one that gets me killed instantly! However, instead of the adventure ending, I am directed to another paragraph, where the gods of Orb give me another life! With my scores back to their Initial levels I am transported back in time to earlier in the adventure, with the Talisman back in my possession!

(This reminds me of Night of the Necromancer, where there is a similar resurrection device. It feels right, in terms of plot, because it was already established in the introduction that I am a tool of the gods, so it's not such a cop-out as in The Forest of Doom where if you make it through the forest without both parts of the hammer you just walk round to the beginning and pop back in.)

This time I decide to explore a different route through the book. That turns out to be a stupid mistake, because instead of repeating my very sensible and prudent choice of travelling through the woods where I can't be seen, I decide to travel through the open plain, where I am pursued by dozens of orcs and Dark Elves. Too many to fight, I somehow manage to stay ahead of them until I run into the band of warrior-women I met last time. This time I am more careful about what I say, and they let me keep my sword and the Talisman, and escort me to the city.

In the city, I go down different streets to last time, and I collect some chainmail. An Envoy of Death tries to take the Talisman from me, and this time I manage to hold on to it. This encounter is described very well, and is an example of one of the strengths of this book -- there is generally better description all round, and it really brings this world to life. It's just fun to read.

However, not long after that I fall into a trap in which the Talisman is taken from me (after all that effort!). Someone rescues me, and offers me bread and board for the night, but the book insinuates that he is not to be trusted, so I decline and sleep rough instead. I am then murdered by an Ogre. This time I am not offered another life, and so my adventure ends here. (Looking back at BB's playthrough, I should have accepted the help!)

This book is really good. As I've said, it is written well. I am pleased that every choice you are offered is a real choice, with obvious pros and cons, instead of the "left or right?" nonsense in some other books. In some encounters you are offered more than two choices, and frequently as many as four. The art is excellent, and flicking though the book there are some great and intriguing pictures, although so far I have managed to avoid succumbing to the temptation to read about them, since I am trying to preserve the mystery of this book for as long as possible, and to complete it legitimately. It's very enjoyable, and I would recommend it to people who don't already have it. There are not too many fights (so far), and the fights are not unfair, although the Envoy of Death does take a skill point for every time he wounds you (but you get all but one of them back if you win).

I did not do nearly as well as Barrington did on his first go, but I did feel that I was starting to make progress. I'm going to give it another go now, although I might not write it up today.

I thought Hope was very good this week. What's not to understand in this episode?

Dredd ended very well. Normally I wouldn't like [spoiler]a cliffhanger ending[/spoiler] but it works really well here and is possibly the best way it could have ended.

Really liked this week's Droid Life.

Well this arrived today, and I spent plenty of time looking through it. It's a nice, well put together volume. As explained in the recent Megazine feature, most of the artists are from outside the prog, but there are several droids too. There's an excellent image by Stewart Moore, which includes impressively detailed pictures of Wagner, Ezquerra, Pat Mills and Matt Smith, all surrounding Dredd. Other stand-outs for me were Staz Johnson on Rogue, Phil Noto on Anderson, Mike Perkins on Harry 20, and Mark Eastbrook's painting of Dante.

As well as work by 45 (I presume; I didn't count) artists, there are also the covers to progs 1 and 2270 (the 45th birthday issue).

I'd recommend this to anyone.

Alright then, we need to shackle him to a desk.

So near to the end too! I'm indignant at the sheer injustice!

Is Brass Sun ever coming back? It's been four years!

Simping Detective.

I didn't like Blanche's art when I was a kid but now I think it's fabulous. I think Scholastic Books have replaced it though.

I was wrong about this, I've just seen Scholastic's The Crown of Kings in Forbidden Planet and it still has Blanche's art... although they don't seem to have reproduced it very clearly.

Apparently you can pre-order it from FP here: https://forbiddenplanet.com/posts/forbidden-planet-tv-garth-ennis-revives-battle-action/?utm_source=footer