Based on the cover art

[james_davis_nicoll]

When you guess this was published?

Comments

[onyxlynx]

Judging by the price of the book, late '70s.

*wistfully* I remember being able to get a paperback and a sandwich for $5, and now one can't get either (grilled cheese sandwich for $8? What are they making it with, gold?).

[commodorified]

Mid-sixties?

[azurelunatic]

1976.

[beatrice_otter]

That was my guess, too--the bicentennial!

[seawasp]

1980-something? Maybe late 70s.

[yamamanama.livejournal.com]

Early 80s?

[beamjockey.livejournal.com]

Early to middle 1980s, by the art.

I'd guess that a $2.75 price is consistent with that stratum.

Though the blurb "THE PENTAGON SELLS OUT! RUSSIA SEIZES CONTROL!" suggests there was a Democrat in the White House at the publication date.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

I agree on circa 1982, between the art and the typefaces. The price tag doesn't hurt either.

[jcbemis.livejournal.com]

1983 or 1984

[sbisson.livejournal.com]

1981?

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Mid-1990s! Well after the fall of the Soviet Union.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Having looked it up: I note that Amazon's listing for the book has a clear off-by-30-years error.

[david wilford (from livejournal.com)]

Based on the cover art - it's not science fiction.

[maruad.livejournal.com]

I thought late 60's, early 70's based on the cover art. The price seems high for that era though.

[sean o'hara (from livejournal.com)]

Watergate Era.

[spiralsheep.livejournal.com]

It reminds me somewhat of the late 70s to early 80s Len Deighton thriller covers so I'd guess second half of the 70s. I can see the price on the side but, being a Brit, $2.75 doesn't have a date attached in my head.

[ice-hesitant.livejournal.com]

1991

[eska.livejournal.com]

1978

[seth ellis (from livejournal.com)]

I'm going to say mid-80's. There's something very Reaganite about his hair.

[seth ellis (from livejournal.com)]

A fuller comment: the design—the lettering and the round cartouchey border—is very 70's, but the artwork is 80's, with the bold outline and the retro adventure-comic feel. So I still say 80's, with a 70's hangover born of bad design.

[owlmirror36.livejournal.com]

Going by the flag, 1976. July 4th all year 'round.

[ellemir.livejournal.com]

Looks like the Seventies to me.

1977?

[jwgh]

I was going to say 1950s Red Scare-era, with the expectation that I would be wrong and it was actually 2013 or something, but I see most people think it was a while after that.

[graydon saunders (from livejournal.com)]

The $2.75 suggests 1984, but nothing tells us the art is from the publication year. The art itself feels very seventies.

[scifantasy.livejournal.com]

198-mumble.

[(Anonymous)]

The technique looks not a million miles away from the slightly more serious/realistic covers that Walter Velez did before he was monopolised by Ace’s covers for Robert Asprin, Esther Friesner, and Craig Shaw Gardner in the mid to late 80s.
So say 83 or 84?

- matthew davis

[keithmm.livejournal.com]

Well, let's see: the military stops defending the US, the US gets invaded but for some reason doesn't use nukes, the Russkies as the big bads... The survivalist novels busted out in a big way in the early 1980s, and it's no coincidence that why yes, this is the era of the original Red Dawn. I was only a teenager back then, but I remember how bugshit crazy it was at the height of the Cold War before Reagan's second term started to bring it down a little bit.

So 1984 it is.

[w. dow rieder (from livejournal.com)]

80s, by price and cover art - is that a Howard Chaykin cover? Looks like this style.

[juliansinger.livejournal.com]

ISFDB says Greg Theakston, who I think I remember mostly from his DC work with the New Gods stuff. (And/or in Who's Who.)

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

2015, but only in certain States.

[juliansinger.livejournal.com]

Early 80s. Both from a kerning/font/design perspective, and from a "that's when people were so anti-Communist as to write wonderfully over the top books about it" perspective.

Edmonson has a wiki entry but Kotlan appears not to. Who's Kotlan?