Bonus Saturday post! There are six books in the Golden Dragon series, so it seemed silly to leave one for another day. This is Castle of Lost Souls.

This is an odd one. Apparently Dave Morris originally wrote this as a serialized solo adventure in White Dwarf magazine (as noted in the copyright info), well before the Golden Dragon series. Despite being the last volume, Lost Souls is a good deal easier than the previous books and seems to be aimed at beginners. Which is fine! It is just odd to end the series with a beginner book, you know?

Leo Hartas is back on illustration duties and he’s welcome after the previous book. He is off the peak of Lord of Shadow Keep but his weird perspectives are still on point, imbuing an otherwise straightforward book with an off-kilter vibe.

This one happens to have my favorite cover in the series. The covers were all done by James Warhola, Andy Warhol’s nephew, Mad Magazine mainstay and Garbage Pail Kids illustrator. As I mentioned before, all these covers are preposterous, but this one, in which a sweater-vested prep draws a sword on an agitated old man, is a great example of how ridiculously open to interpretation they are. Is he a kid on a fantasy adventure? Is he a prep school bully intent on lighting a homeless guy on fire? What the hell is happening here?