There are some noteworthy production upgrades in Glozel est Authentique! (1984). Full color cover, for one (though it is rather less fun than the other three we’ve tackled this week). The art throughout it vastly better, the layout more professional. I dig the cream-colored paper. The font is monospaced again, though, and hard on the eyes. I daresay the scenarios aren’t as hostile to comprehension as in the previous books, but with clarity comes…I don’t want to call it disappointment, because that would imply I had something higher than dismal expectations at this point. “Rueful confirmation” maybe does the trick.

The first scenario takes the genuinely interesting archaeological sorta-hoax in Glozel, France as its starting point. In the real world, this was a series of “tombs” that were accidentally discovered under a field from which a bizarre collection of artifacts was found. My understanding is that some of the artifacts were genuine, but that the sites were “enhanced” with other items both historical and forged, and that the upshot is that no one has a clue what’s legit and what isn’t. The scenario takes the position that it all est authentique, but the attached revelation is sort of astoundingly boring, namely that the site was an ancient Phoenician trading post that was abandoned; the artifacts were an attempt by locals to tempt the merchants back through sympathetic magic. The real threat here is a totally unrelated conspiracy involving a surviving clutch of Knights Templars who tried to discredit the dig in order to preserve their privacy for nefarious cult stuff and who are now very annoyed that they accidentally attracted more publicity for the site.

As dreary as that sounds, I prefer it to the second scenario, “Secrets of the Kremlin.” Gonna skip right to the reveal on this one and save us all some suffering. The secrets are that Josef Stalin has a copy of the Necronomicon and also has a pet Dark Young hidden in the Kremlin.