Following on from my article about the first two entries in the series, we now move on to appreciate the art from books three and four: – ‘The Forest of Doom’ and ‘Starship Traveller’.

These were two very different editions, with ‘Forest of Doom’ continuing on with the fantasy/sorcery genre, whilst ‘Starship Traveller’ veered off on a science-fiction trajectory and introduced a more complex system of game play.

‘The Forest of Doom’ was illustrated by Malcolm Barter, and his style is similar to Russ Nicholson – who provided the artwork for the previous two books.

Not only did ‘Starship Traveller’ go in a different direction plot-wise, but the illustrations were also on an alternate wavelength. I’ll be honest here and say that I did not like this change, and never read/played this book as a result.

Examples of the artwork from Peter Andrew Jones are below.

To me, there is something about the sword and sorcery art that gives it an edge – perhaps there is more imagination and menace immersed into the illustrations – who knows?

I am not being overly critical of the designs from ‘Starship Traveller’ as they are stylish and futuristic, but I just find the artwork from ‘The Forest of Doom’ – as well as ‘The Warlock of Firetop Mountain’ and ‘The Citadel of Chaos’ – vastly superior.

Cover art and illustrations courtesy of Fighting Fantasy and Puffin Books.