OK, so, movie novelizations are nothing earth shattering, especially for 1981 — the 1980s are arguably the movie novelization heyday. What’s interesting to me about the Dragonslayer novelization is how many editions there are. Usually these things got printed in a decent number once, a month or so before the film came out. It’s a hype tool. After the movie came out? Meh, who needs it, right? People who are interested have already seen the movie.

Well, a lot of people apparently needed the Dragonslayer novelization. The first image is the hardcover. A hardcover novelization! That’s crazy! I mean, I don’t doubt that it happened, but certainly not very often — the only one I’ve seen other than this is the first Star Wars novelization. That’s a book club edition. This doesn’t seem to be a book club edition, or, if it is, it isn’t actually indicated anywhere. It’s book club edition size, though (they’re a bit shorter than your standard hardcover). Weird that it doesn’t stress the fact that it is a movie novelization.

Second image is the standard paperback novelization. No surprises there, and it hypes the movie. The third is the UK edition, which is dated 1982 (coinciding with the UK release) and features a photo cover of star Peter MacNicol (you know him from Ghostbusters 2).

Fourth picture? The fifth printing of the novel, dated 1988 and boasting a pretty rad new painted cover. Now, does this mean that people kept buying the novelization over the years? Maybe! That’d be weird, though, since it left theaters grossing like four million less than its budget. More likely explanation: Wayland Drew also wrote the Willow novelization (also 1988, and also one that features a couple of editions, one of which not clearly linked to the movie), so this reprint was probably a cash-in. Maybe folks will think it is a Willow sequel or something. You’ll notice that there is no mention on the cover that this is a movie tie-in and the logo is not the same. It’s still pretty weird!