Here's a real Christmas treat. Leo Hartas has brought back his classic cutaway adventure book Haunted Castle. Originally published almost thirty years ago, it's packed with spooky visual gags and meticulously rendered mouth-watering illustrations by one of Britain's foremost fantasy artists.
Haunted Castle has long been out of print because, while the art and the concept were Leo's from the start, he didn't own the copyright in the text, which was written by Nicholas Turpin. The brilliant but far from easy solution: write all-new text. The 2025 edition has a fresh interactive storyline by author Amanda Boulter and will appeal to fans of gamebooks and puzzles and, as they say, to kids of all ages.
I have no recollection of the original release of this, Dave. I've just bought it and will get some more as Christmas presents if I like it. I feel I owe it to Leo having looked on his website earlier this year but not buying any of his works as much as I loved them. He's in good company as I also recently bottled buying a Ralph Bakshi 'The Lord of the Rings' cell. Not quite sure why I baulk at buying art when I don't think twice about placing horse racing bets of the same value and given the small fortune I paid for a set of the 'Tim and the Hidden People' books!
ReplyDeleteI feel a bit guilty, Andy, because I had two copies of the original edition and sold one on eBay a few years ago. That felt like betrayal, but I can make up for it by buying a copy of the new version. (In my defence, the old version was going for silly money.)
Delete