#18 - Rebel Planet

You know what I'm thinking, but I promised I wouldn't mention it anymore...

In book 18, Rebel Planet, you are humanity's last hope - to cut a long story, and long introduction to the book short, humans have been enslaved across their small ex-galactic empire of sorts (remember that phrase, I'll be coming back to it) by an alien race intent on ruling the galaxy, and you have to infiltrate their home planet and destroy the central computer which controls the aliens' hive mind.

The rebels (another phrase to come back to) are scattered and paranoid, rightly so having been infiltrated by the enemy, a race known as the Arcadians. They outlawed Esperanto across the former Earth empire, which is awesome for me, as I don't speak it.

Okay, I'll stop being obtuse with the references - you're a Jedi, basically, out to destroy the enemy's secret weapon, you have a 'laser sword' and martial arts knowledge, but without the mind tricks (that failed me in the last quest anyway). It's like Star Wars, but the introduction tries to play it down by saying there isn't much fighting - so it's Attack of the Clones, then? It lied, by the way, and even the back cover described the mission as 'foolhardy' - it's as if the copywriters weren't on the same page as the author.

Anyway, Rebel Planet is different to even the other space-based FF books; firstly, the main part of your mission - finding three parts to a code number - isn't dealt with in a 'hey, you made it this far, here's the conveniently-three-digit pass number, you'll need to add it/subtract if from the others and turn to that page to win' kind of way. You need to actually study pictures and poems and whatnot to get the numbers, which is cool in a way, even if the solutions might not be entirely logical.

Onto my adventure! After taking off, undercover as a merchant, I was approached by an enemy ship which I correctly guessed to be my escort. Actually, I initially decided screw it, I rolled 10/24/12, I'm gonna stand up to it, not run away! Turns out acting ballsy gets you places you wouldn't expect in Rebel Planet. Once on the first planet, I decided to lax at the hotel, not that I didn't get enough of that in Appointment With F.E.A.R, but hey. The receptionist there is asleep, and on trying to wake him, I discover he is dead. D'oh. After dispatching the guards who didn't hesitate to attack me, I picked up and pocketed a button with a picture of an eagle holding a scroll, cause you know, of the six items I'm allowed to carry at one time in this adventure, a button absolutely counted as one. I had a strange feeling perhaps this was where FF gamebooks stopped letting you carry any old thing without consequence, and knew it later on when at customs I was pulled up for having an infra red scanner - fortunately, I didn't also have a rope, so they didn't think it too suspicious. I'm not sure what you could build using a rope and an infra red scanner that would arouse suspicion, I'm not McGyver.

I soon find the bar, Fission Chips, though not before being distracted by a theatre playing a '20th century comedy' called Star Trek. I'm assuming it was Star Trek IV. This bar is where I'm meant to meet my contact, but instead some damn dirty humans ambushed me, and I quickly dispatched both with my knowledge of pressure points, killing them in a blow each. Awesome.

Anyway, I went back, got in simply by saying I was from Earth (I told you just being upfront and ballsy gets you places in this book). At the bar, I bought some 'alcoholic mouthwash' for 10 credits. In this book, if you can't ever afford to pay for something, your mission is over, according to the instructions; imagine if my quest ended because I couldn't afford alcoholic mouthwash. I'm sure there's a movie coming out soon which deals in similar subject matter I wouldn't mind seeing...

So I eventually made contact with the underground, where we each pussyfooted around each other, suspicious of course, but eventually I proved to them I was genuine by refusing to kill someone they asked me to - once again, standing up and standing proud.

Onto the next planet, and I have the choice of staying at swanky hotel the Zodiac, or a complete, cheap dive, Porky's. No-brainer, huh? Porky himself tells me half the buildings in the city were destroyed by the 'Street Fighter', which is used to break up student protests. I suspect there's a link between the student protests and the underground movement - why? Because the book gives me the option of going to the university. On my first visit, I get into a fight with some louts in the Arts faculty, grab some files, and get rejected by a bunch of science nerds (oh how I long for the medieval Allansia at this point). On the way back to Porky's I'm forced to fight the Street Fighter, which is some kind of giant ground-punching machine. Hmmm. It's a tough fight - this thing reduces your stamina more each attack round that passes by!

On getting back to Porky's, he's acting an asshole and wants to charge me to use his computer. Fuck it, I act ballsy again, but this time get into a fight. The poor, fat (why'd you think he's called Porky?) guy is no match for my awesomeness, and I get free access to his internets.

Turns out my contact is in the Arts faculty at uni, damn it! I was just there. I went back, he wasn't there, but apparently left a clue to three of the digits in the password on his desk - the picture provided conveniently included half the Roman numerals in existence, damn it! Then I was arrested, damn it!

And sentenced to death. Hmmmm. Perhaps this was the time to stop acting ballsy, and try and find a sneaky way out... They confiscated all my stuff, including my awesome eagle-holding-a-scroll button, but somehow missed my money belt - funny, cause I pictured that as a bum-bag, not something you could ever miss on anyone, really (wow, Wikipedia - are they really making a comeback?)

I spill to the guard, keeping back some of my info, and I'm sentenced to fight some monsters, instead of death. A slower death, if you will. The monsters aren't that hard though, so like a future Maximus I'm let go, and onto the next planet it is.

Here, I quickly find a couple of people, one of whom is the leader. Unfortunately, I don't have the password they are looking for, so they won't tell me the rest of the code, and my mission is over. No option to torture the jebus out of them, nothing. Grrr.

Okay, I'm not telling the whole truth here. Several times throughout Rebel Planet i was faced with 50/50 options, one of which resulted in instant death, increasingly so as the adventure developed. They were incredibly frustrating, and I ignored them for the most part, deciding it was not fair to reduce the chances of completing this book by 50% to 25% to 12.5% and so on, often within the range of two or three pages. If there's knowledge gained earlier in the book that can help you, for sure, but not rubbish like 'left door or right door? East or west? One or two?'

If the book wasn't so enjoyable, I probably wouldn't have bothered though! Rebel Planet, apart from the ridiculous number of instant deaths (at least on the path I travelled) at least seems really well thought out and engrossing. You can't rely on all aliens=bad, all humans=good; there are traitors amongst people and arty, liberal (south) Arcadians. The merchant cover is one often used in FF gamebooks, but here it works well - probably because the set up is so good, to be honest. Long, but it really sets the scene.

Once we're back in Allansia, I promise to start abiding by the instant death rules - even if a slight cheat here and there isn't helping me at all in space!

#17 - Appointment With F.E.A.R

My first thought on realising Appointment With F.E.A.R was tonight's book was, 'what, another sci-fi one?' Not that that's a bad thing, but I seriously didn't remember there being this many in the series - and that's the last time I'll say that, honest!

Turns out AWF has nothing to do with space and everything to do with Batman, Superman, Spiderman, you name it, if it was from Marvel or DC, it's in here somewhere in some form. At first I was suspicious, thinking it wasn't really going to work in the FF format, but I was wrong. Totally wrong. I really enjoyed this book.

You're a superhero called the Silver Crusader, at least your secret identity is, and you look after Titan City, in much the same way a certain Mr Kent (namechecked in the first paragraph as 'Clark St') looks after a certain imaginatively named metropolis. A group of super-villians are going to be meeting in Titan City in the near future, and it's your job to work out where and when, and arrest them all.

Being a superhero, you get to choose a superpower - I chose PSI Powers, which basically sounded like Jedi mind trick powers.

You wear a 'crimewatch' which allows the cops to alert you of anything they discover, or harass you with annoying side quests catching pickpockets and petty crims. Rolling an average 9/18/12 (if you don't know what those mean by now, start again) I figured I'd better be pretty direct. From the very start of the book though, I knew this wasn't going to be easy. Within five minutes I'd been in a street brawl, beenpushed into a pile of dog 'sidewalk deposits', learned of a gang with the comical (chemical?) name, the Alchemists and saved a family from a burning car.

I soon learned of a potential explosion at the chemistry labs of a nearby university, so decided to check it out. On the way, someone shouted they were being robbed; this town needed more than a single, lone superhero. Anyway, I got to the uni just in time to throw the almost-exploded concoction out the window, unfortunately onto a bunch of students outside. Oops. My hero points went into the negative, and a I briefly considered a career as an anti-hero, but realised the 440 paragraphs that make up AWF probably wouldn't allow for so much freedom!

But Steve Jackson did an excellent job of giving the book a sense of freedom regardless. There were always chances to directly investigate crime, go home and relax, or check out a range of more leisurely activities, some of which sounded completely out of place in a FF gamebook, and showed just how long ago this series was published: I went to check out a concert by Georgie Boy and the Vulture Club, only to find the gig cancelled due to the lead singer's facial dermatitis.

Another day I had the choice to go visit my grandma. Even I realised I had better things to do with my character's time, not to mention my own!

One day, late for work again, i decided to buy my boss a gift to say sorry, and went to the games section of a bookstore, planning (apparently) to buy him a Dungeons and Dragons set - nice to see Jackson had no rivalry with the better-known opposition! It was no game though (at least in-game (alright, enough with the meta and embedded brackets!)) when four fire men turned up - no, not the type in helmets carrying hoses, the type made of fire.

I was down to a single stamina point after that fight, and then the book told me I tied them up with a rope. Eh? Really? I didn't realise bookstores carried rope made of, um, fire-retardant... stuff. Anyway...

I turned down the chance to see Andrew Lloyd-Webber's production Rats, instead racing home, trying not to injure myself in the slightest - imagine how lame a superhero I'd be if I was killed by tripping over or something and losing my last stamina point.

So the next day I had the option of either attending the arrival of the president, or a trade show entitled 'Home Appliances of the Future'. Hmmm... I checked out the convoy, of course, and a guy tried to assassinate the president. I captured him, he got a shot off, but it turns out the pres was killed by someone else entirely - perhaps on a grassy knoll? The book doesn't say, haha.

Now, here is where something went kind of wrong. A clever part of AWF is the way Steve Jackson incorporated parts where you had to know certain information to know what page to turn to, without being given the options in the text - kind of like Warlock Of Firetop Mountain's keys, except there were several places in AWF where certain numbers were needed.

So I'm asked if I know the street and avenue numbers of the corner where the meeting is to take place, to add them together and go from there, as it's the day of the meeting. Alright, I had the definite avenue number, and a street number... wasn't sure if it was right, but when I turned to the page in question and it said, 'Your information was correct', I thought, yay! I captured the Alchemists, and thought, wow, I must be close... until I ended up back at my apartment, seemingly unconcerned I'd missed the meeting, and relaxed, planning not to be late for work the next day.

I'd read this paragraph already! It seems the avenue and street numbers I'd added up were used in a different situation entirely, it just seemed to slot in to where I was at the time.

So damn, I suppose I failed! Was enjoying it otherwise. Despite the apparent several different ways the book can go, as each superpower has a different ending, and the ingenuous way Jackson made the book almost uncheatable, the dated references and gimmicky, fun tone don't lend the book classic status. Without these though, it would have been a lot less fun! I suppose it's kind of like a candy FF book - enjoyable, clever, funny, but you can see through it and it's pretty flimsy really. Good though.

My cover is the one above: funny to think the image was also used on the new printings, as it's pretty of-its-time, really.

Last things: what's with the reference on paragraph 72 to the 'muscle bound gigolos'? Has the meaning of gigolos changed since 1985? And hey, I have some readers now, haha, wooo. I better keep up the quality!

#16 - Seas Of Blood

I've fond memories of Seas of Blood - none concrete, but something inside me went 'whoopee!' when I picked it up. I remember this year at high school, I think it was 1994, where I pretty much got fantasy/dungeons and dragons kind of stuff out of my system - in that year I borrowed from the school library a ridiculous amount of Terry Pratchett, the complete Lord of the Rings, and kinda wound up my thing with Fighting Fantasy too. The following year music, girls and being a proper teenager kicked in, you see.

But one of those last books I remember indulging in was Seas of Blood - you're a pirate, one of the best two in the land. Your infamy hasn't resulted in your arrest somehow, nor has it for your rival, Abdul, a turban-clad Middle Eastern-looking dude (it was the 1980s, I'll cut them some slack if you will). You agree to a contest to see just who is the best pirate - in 50 days you agree to meet a town down the coast, and whoever has the most gold wins.

I rolled some real high numbers for my crew, just as well since I figured there'd be a fair few fights in the next 50 days/45 minutes. Unfortunately, my skill and luck rolls were pitiful (hello Mr and Mrs seven), so I decided boat fights were okay, hand to hand, not so much.

We started off in Tak, described as 'the greatest den of thieves, criminals and cut-throats the civilised world has ever seen'. Hmm, how about that other greatest den, Blacksand? Or should the two cities I dunno, agree to meet in 50 days and see who has the most ill-gotten booty?

Anyway... knowing the strength of my crew I immediately set sail for a wealthy town nearby, Lagash. I dispatched a ship on the way, scoring for myself 68 gold, which is where I realised I'd no idea how much I'd need to complete this book. It makes it more realistic not knowing, I suppose, but was 68 gold a lot? Did I need 100? One million?

After trashing the ship, apparently I decided Lagash was too dangerous to attack. Err, I won this fight didn't I? What kind of pirate am I?

I hit the next locale, murdering a bunch of priests in the process, only to realise I was down to two crew points already - only 10 days and not even a quarter of the way down the coast. Hmmm. I knew there'd be fights, arrr, but nothing like this!

I collected a few slaves on my travels, hired a few extra crew, and eventually found myself assaulting Kish, which was defended by a Sith Orb. Err, I thought this was a while ago, in a land a decent distance away, not a long time ago in a galaxy far away... Some insanely lucky dice rolls (not my actual luck score, which was down to two) got me past it, but not the storm which trashed my boat on the way to Nippur. Some pirate - I survived being attacked by winged beasts, sword-weilding priests, and entire town militia and a tree (don't ask), but was drowned in a storm. Johnny Depp would be ashamed (you really didn't think this entry would be complete without a link to that, did you? Or how about this?).

My guess Seas of Blood would be full of fighting was correct, but so many of the rumbles just seemed like random dice rolling - it was one after the other, without much inspiration, it seemed. Another problem was that once you left port from Tak, there was no word, at least in my game, of what Abdul was up to. Previous books in the series, like Deathtrap Dungeon, at least tried to incorporate developing secondary character plots within the limiting confines of a FF book - Seas of Blood can be considered a missed opportunity, no doubt.

All in all, not as interesting as I remember, just a dice-roll book really. Disappointing. Though I bet if I'd won the bet, I'd be saying otherwise!

#15 - The Rings Of Kether

Another space mission then, huh? I don't remember there being so many, to be honest - maybe my collection (eventually sold by my little brother for some cigarettes, I think) concentrated more on the 'fantasy' and 'fighting' sides of Fighting Fantasy.

Anyway, unlike most people who read these kinds of books, in The Rings Of Kether you're out to bust an interplanetary illegal narcotics ring. It seems that despite living in a future where there are anti-gravity devices, robots and moon colonies, people still want to get wasted every now and then - fancy that.

There are two endings to this book, and I managed to find my way to one of them with little effort or difficulty to be honest - the fights were few (I had my first scrap about 3/4 of the way through) but not far between - for myself they all came at the end. But they also weren't actually all that difficult - the boss, at least the one I faced, was Skill 10 Stamina 8 - and I had seven stamina-boosting pep pills left - the kind you can pop any time, even mid fight, as this is the future, remember. Each one is like a steak, and gives you six stamina. Awesome.

Some other problems with the book were in the presentation - there's no box on the adventure sheet for your ship's 'weapons strength', and upon landing on Kether, I was told my 'spy ray' was confiscated - not that I was told in the introduction that I had one - and the rest of the book assumes I have one. I must've had two, and kept the second from customs. Somehow.

Some investigations (in the canteen and the library) led me to a small asteroid, which turned out to be some kind of cult hangout - freaky, but not what I was after. I did come across a strange little poem, which I swear was one of those things I'd need to have read a few paragraphs later, but no. This is the future, all I need to do is blast my way through everything. Or just walk on past, like much of the book seemed to be. You have quite a lot of freedom to mess about and look around in The Rings Of Kether, and due to the lack of fights, it never quite seems like you're in danger. None of this turn left you win, turn right you die carry-on.

I was eventually led to the Isosceles Tower (I wonder what shape it was?) where I discovered the drug runners' hideout was on an island 4000km off the coast, much like drug lords here on Earth, I suppose. I got there to find they had heli-pads and everything, much like drug lords here on Earth, I suppose again.

I jumped in some massive vehicle and barged on in, crushing a bunch of guards a la Arnie in The Terminator. Found another dead guy with a stash of pep pills, which was funny considering by this stage I'd not lost a single point of stamina, failed a single skill or luck test or been in a single fight.

I soon found the drug factory itself, and according to the book, "There is nobody about, so you busy yourself destroying some of the equipment." Sounds so, err, casual, doesn't it? As if I have nothing better to do! I take some of the drugs as 'evidence' (yeah right) and head on out - only to be confronted by this massive alien with three eyes and a mouth almost bigger than its head. Wow, a fight! Not really - I hiffed my stash into its mouth like a ball into a clown's face at a carnival (what an awkward simile) and it coma-d out, like a true noob.

After navigating some Cube-like booby-trapped rooms where I finally got to use up some of my long-stored stamina, I met the 'boss' - 'Blaster' Babbet. What a name. I beat him up, and saved the galaxy from the scourge of what was obviously some killer weed.

Not a bad adventure - I liked the sense of freedom, and that clues felt like they could come from anywhere, and even that some were red herrings - especially that following the red herrings didn't necessarily mean the end of your mission either. The downside of this though was that it almost seemed like no matter what you did, you'd eventually solve it. Maybe I got lucky? But even I followed dead ends and answered riddles incorrectly, yet never felt as if I wasn't going to finish the book.

I know it sounds silly, considering the subject matter of some of the other books, but it almost seemed like this was far too big a concept to tackle in 400 pages... at least as open as it was. Perhaps a little tightening would've done it better, which is normally the opposite of what most FF books need.

Not bad all in all, but I think Starship Traveller has a better atmosphere, and I did enjoy Space Assassin a little more. This was just a little too easy. Are there any instant deaths? I'm not a fan of the turn left and die, turn right and win kind of deaths, but not having an item, or a piece of information - these deaths are usually fair...

But hooray! I won. 5/15. 33%!

#14 - Temple of Terror

Another brutal, brusing book from Ian Livingstone, Temple of Terror finds the series back in its familiar fantasy setting after a couple of diversions into the future.

As if to make up for lost time, Temple of Terror has it all - one good wizard and one evil wizard, phantoms, torture, deserts, pirates, spells, dwarves, sandworms, drinking, and more. And I didn't even get to the end!

Basically Allansia is under threat from Malbordus, an evil wizard (check) who only needs to locate the five lost dragon artefacts in the city of Vatos to be unstoppable - one does wonder why none of the previous evil wizards bothered looking for these MacGuffins, but hey. I'm not one to question the methods of evil wizards.

Apparently this Malbordus guy became evil because when he was born, the moon was full and howling wolves surrounded his mother's hut - it's perhaps just as well he wasn't American Indian.

The book begins with a visit to Yaztromo, the friendly old wizard from Forest of Doom, who mentioned I looked familiar. I assume this is an injoke of sorts, bla bla bla, but I died a horrible death at the hands of a wyvern on that adventure, so yah... He taught me a few spells and I was soon off, to either go across the desert or through Port Blacksand. I've enjoyed my previous wanders through the city of thieves, so thought yeah, why not.

Why not? Because I soon found myself on a pirate ship I knew was going to get its ass kicked by an approaching man-o-war. Luckily I escaped, and was soon in the desert. Dang it.

Somewhere in amongst all this I was at a bar, and bumped into a guy, spilling his three large jugs of ale. It cost a solitary gold piece to replace them - why the hell was I bothering with this quest, when I could get three beers for a buck? Jebus.

Anyway, after an arduous trek across the desert, I found the city of Vatos and began searching for the dragon artefacts. I soon came across a casket, and was asked if I wanted to open it. Considering I'd just seen Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, I thought yeah, alright. Bingo! Dragon artefact. If only it was so easy for Indy.

An interesting twist in this book was the 'Death' creature thingee - he doesn't kill you right away, but instead leaves the five letters of the word 'death' lying about - if you read all five, you die. I only managed to read 'Th' which I suppose would just give me a lisp or something.

Something else I found interesting was that when I came across a small box with a picture of a dragon on it, I was 'surprised and delighted' to find a dragon artefact inside. Woah, couldn't see that one coming. But without the sarcasm, I truly was surprised to kill a phantom by throwing a button at it. No kidding.

In the end, the endless adjustments to my luck, skill and stamina scores were too much, and I was killed in the first attack round by a 'night horror'. This thing was almost impossible to injure, and drained your skill as you fought it. I really hope beating this thing isn't required to finish, 'cause it's a horribly unbalanced opponent to come across prior to any 'boss'. I actually came across a paragraph where you fight Malbordus (not one I was on, it was on the opposite page) and he wasn't even as difficult to beat as this 'night horror'.

So, Temple of Terror covered a lot of ground and threw the kitchen sink at it, but I think was let down by the continual battering your character goes through. I was surprised to make it as far as I did, to be honest.

My book's exactly like the one above. I'd better start hunting down some of the ones I'm missing though, before I run out! Buahaha. Four from fourteen.

#13 - Freeway Fighter

13 books in, the team behind the Fighting Fantasy series were obviously not afraid of messing with the formula - by this point, the 'norm' was less common than variation, it would seem.

Freeway Fighter falls into the latter camp, being set not only on Earth (references are made in the introduction to society narrowly avoiding World War III and it being the year 2022) but in the near future (2022, I told you that already!). A virus has wiped out 85% of humanity, which has since divided into two camps - those who formed walled communities, and those who live on the outside as bounty hunters (NSFW).

It's the kind of world, the books says, where you'd kill someone for a can of beans. I came pretty close to this a few times in my flatting days, but it was a little more serious this time, I suppose.

As Wikipedia puts it, the Mad Max-isms are pretty blatant, you're heading from one civilised outpost to another in an attempt to exchange the excess grain your town has for 10,000 litres of petrol. Much like today. You're equipped with a car loaded up with awesome weapons like spikes and rockets, though the cover art is perhaps a little misleading - on the inside, on the very first paragraph, you're given a different image. It's basically drawn, but looks more like a De Lorean than a '50s Dodge.

I rolled some good personal stats and some bad car stats, so decided I'd try and fight my way through. Helping my decision were the higher bonuses given to stamina and the extremely forgiving, different fighting rules - I could tell this book would be a series of fights from the moment I read to roll two dice and add 24 to the result, instead of 12.

So I head off, ignoring anything along the way - at least that was my plan, just get right to the other town - but was distracted by a hot girl at a servo. Livingstone knows his target market, ha. Anyway, it was a trap, but the heavies were so lame I killed them no problems. Oddly enough, the garage had no fuel, which would prove decisive later on...

Which wasn't too much later on. After being told time and time again I enjoy the speed of the motorway clear of 85% of its traffic, and getting into random shootouts where it took hit after hit to kill anyone (guns in the future suck), I eventually ran out of fuel, ending my game. WTF?! Really? Apparently the Dodge/De Lorean gets pretty bad mileage, which leads me to ask why the hell wasn't I after 10,000 gallons instead of litres, if these gas-guzzling things were all that were left.

So, of all the least expected endings in any of the FF gamebooks, running out of fuel I doubted would be one. I was winning every fight easy, surely I could've hijacked something, someone? Arghgh. I was enjoying the atmosphere otherwise, though others report it gets a bit repetitive later on, as it's pretty much a blast through without too much variation. Still, running out of gas pissed me off as an ending.

My version is one of the later editions, late '80s I suspect, with the gold dragon thing at the top and the bold "X million copies sold" brag on the back, unlike the one pictured above.

4/13.

#12 - Space Assassin

Space Assassin, the second sci-fi themed book in the Fighting Fantasy series is much-maligned, going by the review sites linked from Wikipedia. I think it is unfair, really - I quite enjoyed the book, even if I finished it without too much difficulty.

You're an assassin (duh) sent onboard a spaceship known to house Cyrus, the evil leader of this part of the galaxy who wants to use your planet for a gruesome, genocidal experiment. Being a member of the Assassins' Guild (you can take Fighting Fantasy out of the middle ages, but you can't take the middle ages out of Fighting Fantasy) with training in 27 different kinds of martial arts (but not a single one you'd need in space), you're selected for the job.

I rolled some pretty damn fine skill, stamina, luck, armour and extra-shit scores, so decided I'd pretty much try and fight my way through. Space Assassin has a pretty cool blaster-fighting system that isn't too complex and means you're not continually stopping to eat food eight times a day, as can happen in some other FF books. It also has an inventory limit, not that I really needed to pick up anything on my journey - not a single item I retrieved came in handy at all. I ate one of the energy bars, but only in lieu of a pep pill (like provisions, but you can pop them during fights!).

Soon after arriving on board, I found a dead creature, just left by the airlock, and some dodgy wiring that almost electrocuted me. Making a mental note I was in a dystopian future, my resolve to blast my way through hardened. I threatened scientists and got away with it, brazenly attacked guards and opened random doors for fun.

The armour concept of the book made fighting ridiculously easy. I rolled an 11 initially, then used some of my extra-shit roll to add armour on, so I began with an armour rating of 17 - mean I'd have to be hit six times before I even had a chance of being injured. The enemies I came across were uniformly weak, and it was never an issue. The only time I had concern for my fighting-safety came during a hand-to-hand battle with an octopus-like thing.

So after a few rooms of things the book tells me were specifically designed to be difficult for humans to use (you'd think they'd design things specifically for themselves, but no, they're more interested in making things hard for everyone else), I came across a library with microfiche. At first I thought, 'ha! Something designed by, and for, humans!' Then I remembered what a bitch it is already to use microfiche, that any society still using it in a world of spaceships and blasters is doing it for the inconvenience factor, surely.

Anyway, all the rooms I came across were at least interesting, and my plan of shooting my way through was coming along fine, till I came across a door with a plaque announcing squirrels. I passed on that one, figuring squirrels were not what I needed to bother with. In space.

The book after this took a rather surreal turn. I came across some buttons, pressed both, and was ejected into some kind of lush grassland - no explanation was really ever given, I went for a swim (in my spacesuit because apparently wearing it meant 'zero-risk' of drowning?!), and was soon back on the ship. Must've been the future space-drugs.

But then I came across something I never recalled any FF gamebook having - a real-life logic puzzle of sorts. I had to work out which letter came next in the sequence, then turn to that letter's position in the alphabet, times 10. The sequence was OTTFFSS. I got it in about 30 seconds, I'll leave it up to you what you think it is.

But I thought that was cool, a non-dice roll-related skill puzzle that relied on real-world smarts. Okay, that's pushing it, it wasn't that hard really, but I got a bit of a buzz from it.

Mentally, the effort required was nothing compared to the next couple of encounters though. I found myself in some kind of tank battle simulator thing that had a bizarre set of rules, complete with its own rule set and adventure page sheet. I've no idea how it worked - I can only assume each 'status' position of yours was accompanied by a particular position on the gameboard by the enemy, who must've followed some kind of pattern that was too long to be recognised in the short space of time the game took. I couldn't work it out, but luck got me through, just.

The next was a Goonies or Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade-style 'step on the wrong tile and die' scenario, except you had to add up the numbers of the tiles you wanted to stand on, and turn to that page. If it didn't make sense, you died. If not, you got through. Now, this page pissed me off. Firstly, because in the picture, the intro and outro to the room didn't make it clear if you had to stand on the middle tile or not - it seemed so, but wasn't entirely apparent. This meant there were about a billion zillion options, all based on luck. I'd been told earlier in the game by a friendly character to always take the middle, so I did, and it didn't work.

Instead of condemning my character to death over what I felt was something patently unfair, I worked out what the correct path was and continued. Cheating? Technically, yeah. But only in that way where there's a bug in the game you're playing and the only past it is to use a cheat code from Gamespot or something.

So I came across Cyrus, and he was a chicken. I threatened him, he begged for mercy, asked me to play cards, then ran away. I chased him, and found him wearing a giant bionic robot suit like Homer Simpson (didn't) that time, except the book called it a 'Waldo'. Yeah, Wikipedia has nothing (nor anything on why Where's Wally? is called Where's Waldo? in the US - probably an FCC thing).

Still, he was weak as hell, and I dispatched him coldly, and was met with a page-400 victory of "Congratulations." Woah. Is that it? I save the world, and all I get is, "Congratulations"? Could you imagine if, after blowing up the Death Star, all Luke got was a one-word recognition of his efforts? Actually, I don't think there's a single word spoken in that scene, and Chewie doesn't even get a medal, so yeah.

Anyway, I enjoyed Space Assassin, it was quite different, even to Starship Traveller, and dare I say it, a little more enjoyable. Perhaps a little easy? Only if you ignore the random, bizarre asides, which I suppose give the book, at least this early in the series, a certain distinctiveness. I'd no idea what to expect going in, as I don't think I had this one as a kid, but it was worth it.

And it was mercifully quicker than Talisman of Death! 4/12 I'm at now. 33% win rate. Not bad? We'll see.

#11 - Talisman Of Death

If you were ever the kind of person to want value for money from your gamebooks, Talisman of Death is your way to go. Not because it takes a million attempts to finish (in fact, I completed this one) but because it is long. Loooong. Just when I thought I'd be nearing the end, or dead, bam and there I was, right back in it.

You're an ordinary Earth guy, at least I think you're ordinary as there's no background at all really, except that you seem to have some psychedelic dream and suddenly you're the chosen one in the world of Orb, chosen to save the world that is. As all chosen ones are these days.

You have to take the Talisman of Death (what kind of craftsman would even create a 'Talisman of Death', let alone allow it to fall into the wrong hands?)back to 'your' world, ie. Earth, to save the world of Orb. No mention is made what might happen to Earth once it contains this evil thing, but hey.

One of the differences I noted in this book is by this point, book 11, Jackson and Livingstone had finally worked out a combat system for fighting more than one opponent at a time, and it shows - almost every fight that isn't against some ridiculously formidable foe (more on that later) is against two average/weak guys. They, or the authors, obviously weren't too sure if this new system was fair though, often letting fights end well before either party was near death, or having one of the double-team pull out. They wouldn't be so kind in later books, from memory, knowing that most people end up cheating the dice anyway.

I rolled average stats with good luck, and set out on my quest, which in a few ways reminded me of an old Commodore 64 text-adventure I used to play.

Anyway, I quickly came across a bunch of travellers and told them I was on a quest against evil, which they told me was a lie. I told them I was from another planet, which they knew was the truth. Was this not a quest against evil? Whose side was I on? They gave me a ride to the local town, where they made me hand over my gears and stole the Talisman.

Phew! I was sick of running from evil spectres and whatnot who were after that thing. At one point, I was given the option of running towards some dark elves (who were probably out to get me) and running for the hills. I chose the latter, obviously.


Relieved of my sacred duties and in a medieval-esque world I'd no care for, I hit the bars on the Hamburg-esque 'Street of Seven Sins'. I fought some guys, got a holy sword and slept on a bale of hay in an inn, all without paying, and hooked up with a bunch of thieves who going by artwork were also transported from Earth, more specifically 1940s Russia.

We discussed plans for a heist (to get the Talisman back, damnit), and when I told them where it was, they killed me.

But... my spirit was re-combined with my body, and my quest began anew. I told you this book was long. All this re-combining happened in the Valley of Death, by the way, which I thought was a totally cool Coolio reference. 10 years in advance.

Anwyay, I rushed through all the earlier scenarios, re-lost the millstone of Death, and came across some theives looking to rob a jeweller. I helped them out, just to fit in and all, and one of them killed the jeweller in cold blood - and I wasn't given the option of bailing out! Talk about Grand Theft Auto all you want, but this was pretty cold...

So, fast-forwarding a little, I re-meet the thieves, and this time keep the important info to myself, for now. We regained the talisman, defeating their leader Hawkana with a heavy use of luck. I didn't used to use so muc luck in battles when I was younger, but maybe I cheated then, unlike now, haha.

And fast-forwarding a little again (I told you this book was long), I made it to the end... only to be killed by a dragon. Well, killed, and re-incarnated again. Goddamnit. By this point I was kind of just wishing the book had some balls. This time I didn't have to go too far back, and it was a matter of not doing what I did last time that killed me, some lucky rolls, and I'd defeated the dragon in battle (wasn't even a real dragon, even if it could really kill) and saved the other world, the one that gave me nothing but grief and death.

Despite the length and illogical plot, Talisman of Death was actually quite enjoyable. The sense of freedom that came with losing responsibility of looking after the talisman in the town was great - it's not often in FF gamebooks you get to just wander around a town, checking out the stores.

A good, if frustrating entry in the catalogue.

#10 - House of Hell

This is the only Fighting Fantasy gamebook to be set in modern times, at least in the mid '80s when it was published. Your car breaks down on a stormy night, and the only house in walking distance is the titular House of Hell - only this time it's not populated by Transylvanian cross-dressers, instead it's full of demons and ghosts and strange weirdos of all sorts (who, as far as I know, all keep their clothes on).

Oddly enough, despite its modern setting, or perhaps because of it, the entire premise is now badly dated - we'd now have a cellphone handy, right? Or could wave down somebody who did, surely.

Anyway, I wandered up to the door, used the knocker, and a butler arrived. He told me the Master was 'expecting' me, and we both went inside. The book doesn't give the option to query this rather strange introduction, so ah well. Lets assume the '80s were a simpler, more innocent time.

I made some small talk with the master, then laid into his white wine - which turned out to be laced with the strongest aspirin known to man - once again, the '80s must've been a simpler, more innocent time, as one hit was enough to knock me cold. Is there pseudoephedrine in aspirin?

Tied up upon awaking, I broke a window and used the shards to cut myself free, and wandered into the hallway. The doors all had plaques on them reading things like 'Balthus Room' and 'Diabolus Room', nto particularly inviting, so I wandered through hallways and whatnot before coming across the front door.

Woah, easiest FF book ever, I thought.

I opened it, and saw a hideous monster that looked like a hippy crossed with a goat-headed demon thing, and almost frightened myself to death. That's something this book has that other FF books don't - a fear score. My ability to absorb fear was minuscule, another reason I stayed clear of doors as often as possible. There's this pic in The Warlock Of Firetop Mountain that always used to freak the crap out of me in real life, let alone the game. I can't find it on Google images, but trust me, this aged old man leaping at you carrying a club or something is an image I'll never forget.

I ran away, and was forced to choose between two doors - one was locked, so no longer with even the hint of a choice, I entered the room... and found a kitchen, with some keys. Sweet! I grabbed the keys, and got burned, literally. They were red hot! The noise created when I dropped said burning keys attracted some 'mysterious friends' of the Master, who weren't so mysterious as evil. They dragged me down into a dungeon of sorts, where ended my adventure.

The very first door I tried.

Sorry I can't report too much more on House of Hell... it seemed interesting, if a little dependent on just choosing the right doors - particularly with a low fear score like mine. I was four sevenths of the way to being frightened to death before I even opened a single door! Another site suggests the book is so difficult, some parts which lead to certain death are required to go down in order to find out information you need later on in a successful attempt. Hmmm. Others suggest it's just really, really hard and requires an almost perfect run of events. Hmmm.

Seems interesting though, I'd recommend giving it a go, but don't drink the white wine. I think.

My version is as above, but hellishly worn - it seems an entire generation of people have tried it out, haha. It has a stamp for Swanson School Library inside. I wonder why they got rid of it?

#9 - Caverns of the Snow Witch

This, the ninth book in the series is apparently a prequel to Forest of Doom - though getting as far as I did on both the attempts I made in the hour prior to sitting down in front of the computer, you wouldn't know it.

Brutal is perhaps the best word to describe Caverns of the Snow Witch... according to Wikipedia it's a three-parter with a couple of secondary characters eventually tagging along with you. I never got as far as half way through the first mission, and only briefly met a dwarf before being stabbed in the shoulder to death.

First of all, it didn't help that I initially rolled a piss-poor skill level of seven. My stamina was 24 though, I'm not sure what kind of training leads a warrior to have such power and endurance but the dexterity of a wombat. My luck was 11, which I assumed I was going to need.

Soon after trekking off in search of a Yeti, after easily killing a couple of goblins, I had the option of trudging on despite the weather, or hanging out in the snow overnight. I've seen The Empire Strikes Back and know not to spend too much time in the snow, so I pushed ahead, eventually contracting a mean case of frostbite in, not surprisingly, my sword arm. With my skill at a ridiculously low four, Iwolfed down my Potion of Skill to restore it, and found refuge in a warm cabin.

On leaving the cabin, I took the occupants' weapons - a war hammer (I assume this is the link to Forest of Doom) and a spear. After losing even more stamina in the snow (when will this end?!) I soon came across the Yeti, but the frostbite prevented me from slaying the creature in one swoop, and I was mercilessly slaughtered.

Right, that was far too short an adventure to write about I decided, so re-rolled for a second attempt. Skill? Seven. Bugger. Stamina 22, luck 11. Once again I must've been using some cheap infomercial-advertised exercise system.

So with a luck of 11, I took my chances on the ice bridge and dispatched the two goblins - not without difficulty though, they got me down to a single stamina point. Hmmm. I wolfed down five meals, which in Fighting Fantasy world gets you back up to full strength somehow, like they come with loaded with caffeine and guarana or something, and built an igloo for the night. It would seem my skill rating of seven only applies to fighting, and not eskimo-related abilities.

I didn't get frostbite, but had to eat two meals to regain my energy after the long walk in the snow. So after only turning the page five or six times, I was seven meals down. At this rate, I'd be looking forward to eating the Snow Witch, should I make it that far.

I made it to the Yeti, and the spear did almost nothing, but the dice were much kinder. I killed him with six stamina remaining. At this point the book said I considered returning to collect my reward, but chose to press on. Yeah, with six stamina points and two meals, I chose to head on. Thanks, freedom of choice!

I then managed to aviod an avalanche through pure luck, and entered the caverns. The first person I met was a goblin, who upon mentioning his desire to run away, was promptly killed Battle Royale-style by the 'obedience collar' around his neck. Then, to rub it in, I lost a luck point. Ian Livingstone wasn't mucking around when he wrote this book.

Eventually, I came across a room of 10 people worshipping an ice statue, and had three options - tell them I was going to play a magic flute for the Snow Witch (I didn't have one), fight them (err, no thanks) or try to just wander past. I tried the latter, and was caught by a whip and forced to fight the ice statue, which turned out to actually be a demon. Great... Somehow, through the use of luck, luck, and extremely lucky dice rolls, I came out of it alive, with a single stamina point left. The worshippers let me leave, thinking I must have the demon's powers now - yeah, a guy who'd die if on the receiving end of a dead-arm punch has the powers of a demon. Right... My reward, apart from a delayed inevitable death? One luck point. I was now up to three.

I then saved a dwarf from a pit, and told him I was determined to press on into the cavern. Yup, with a single stamina point and no food, I was going to slay the greatest threat to Allansia apparently.

Ultimately, I was killed by an "ugly robed man" when he stabbed me in the shoulder. I'm not sure if it was he or his robes that were ugly, I'm not sure I would've cared, almost being a zombie and all.

I wasn't impressed by this book - at every turn, I was losing stamina or being asked to fight powerful opponents, right from the get-go, with no let up. I've read the book is quite interesting once you get past the Snow Witch, who apparently is dealt with inside the first half of the story, but getting there without a high skill roll is nigh on impossible.

Perhaps I'm just annoyed I rolled two sevens, haha!

There's not really a lot more I can say, not getting too far either time. Well, maybe I'll have better luck with House Of Hell.

#8 - Scorpion Swamp

Scorpion Swamp was the first of the Fighting Fantasy gamebooks to mess with the formula, to fix what wasn't broke, the first to take drugs and experiment with its sexuality, so to speak.

Well, maybe not, but it is still quite a departure from the previous six. Firstly, magic spells. Magic freakin' spells! The story is non-linear, allowing you to re-visit previous locations. Non-freakin'-linear! There isn't a single goal, but a choice of three, determined by your early choices in the town of Fenmarge. Three-freakin'-quests! And you had no food. Which just plain sucked, and was almost the death of me on more than one occasion. If Homer Simpson had a supply of Power Sauce bars to help him to the top of the Murderhorn, the least the writer could have given us to wander through Scorpion Swamp was a banana or something.

Ah, the writer. One of the little-known things that elevates the Fighting Fantasy series above others, is that the first book not written by co-founders Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone was written by none other than Steve Jackson. Confused? The former is a Brit, the latter, a Yank. Awesome.

With the change in authorship came a change in style, obviously. Something that stuck out were the amusing, pithy comments that often accompanied battles, usually along the lines of 'if you die here then maybe you shouldn't have done such and such' or implying your remains will become fertiliser. Much better than the boring old, 'If you defeat whatsisface, turn to page x'.

Anyway! I got skill 10, stamina 21, luck 12, and headed into the swamp armed with barely more than some parchment and pencil in order to make a map for my boss, Poomchucker. Yes, Poomchucker. I had a choice of three wizards to serve: one good, one evil, and one 'strange' with the name Poomchucker. Well, that was a no-brainer...

He wanted me to make a map, which was convenient, because in the book's introduction it said making a map was very important anyway. So I entered the swamp (covered in 'evil fog' by the way, which amused me; I always thought fog had its good points, to be honest), and soon came across a 'Master of Wolves' (no word on whether he danced with them). The option was there to fight, and at this stage I was full of stamina and skill, so thought why not. It was a tough battle, I took his 'Wolf Amulet' and headed over to ransack his hut - magically sealed. Damn, I thought, I have all these magic freakin' spells, but no, there was nothing I could do about it, the book maintained. Ah well.

I decided that as I had approached the swamp from the south, chances were that the town I was looking for, Willowbend, was on the other side, so I headed north. I needed food badly already - wolf guy was pretty tough. Of all the rule changes, why the hell no damn food?! I had to use several luck points to defeat him, a common feature of many future battles in the swamp.

One stamina spell (already!) and several leech bites later, I began to wonder why this Poomchucker couldn't just go around the swamp to find his damned Willowbend.

I next came across some trees wielding swords called 'Sword Trees'. Okay Jackson #2, I'm thinking about now, something's not right here... I defeated the trees (barely) only to be told I pocket some of their seeds - why the hell would I bother? I can't imagine for what purpose I'd need hostile swordfighting trees. They'd knocked me down to only a few stamina points - lucky I'd burned them with a fire spell beforehand, or I'd probably have been killed.

Next I came across a river which I iced over using a spell, only for my bridge to crumble halfway across. Luckily I soon swept by a stone bridge which I can only assume the 'evil' fog prevented me from seeing earlier.

I kept venturing north, killed a unicorn, and left a giant eagle in peace (I'd just killed one endangered species, I didn't want to start on another) and fell into quicksand, which knocked me down to two stamina points... the 'Wolf Amulet' let me pass a bunch of, um, wolves, and a giant I chanced across was just a big wouss who'd lost his hanky. Counting my blessings - I'd gotten past an entire pack of wolves and a giant while on only two stamina - I soon came across a big purple berry.

Anyone who's read my previous posts will know I hardly ever pass up the chance to eat shit on my adventures, and with a lack of anything edible on my journey to date, I pigged in. Two more stamina! Sweet.

I then met a ranger who advised me Willowbend was to the south then west; I followed those exact directions, which happened to also be the way in which a Will'O'Wisp was travelling; bad omen, it led me into a mudhole, and I was back down to two stamina.

My next opponent was slime. Not the ghost, but actual slime. I noticed one of the options - try a spell - led to paragraph 400. Ooerr. Out of interest, I had a quick peek, but no, it wasn't instant victory - it was just another paragraph. Steve Jackson II really did do something different with Scorpion Swamp!

Anyway, I beat the swamp without taking a hit (luckily, as a single one would've killed me). Some brigands soon approached, but a quick friendship spell sorted them out. They recommended a tavern to spend the night at, which I did, gaining a measly two (two is always measly, even if I only have two to begin with) stamina points - what was I sleeping on, the floor? Luckily a local wizard swapped me a stamina spell in exchange for my unicorn horn.

Now, I figured the trip home would be easy - I'd killed or befriended everything on my path home, but something happened - it wasn't as easy to navigate back. Everything seemed a little different, and some things - like the scorpion horde and the Sword Trees - were back in full force. I would've killed for some stamina-regaining spells of the like they must've had!

I was particularly annoyed when after dispatching some orcs, I was told their provisions were 'too disgusting to touch'. O RLY? Said who!? I even ate a defeated thief's cheese, my standards can't have been that high.

Eventually, I scrambled from the swamp with six stamina points left, and completed my quest.

I have to say, I really enjoyed Scorpion Swamp, and felt the change in style and format really, really worked. It built upon the 're-visiting' functions Forest of Doom had introduced, and made them work in a much more realistic, natural manner. I was particularly impressed how the trip back wasn't as simple as it seemed, mimicking a real sense of confusion one would have in a real swamp of its type. The return to some locations even built upon what had happened in previous encounters, a feature that may seem natural in computer games or more complex publications, but quite an achievement in a 400-paragraph book in the infancy of its series. Kudos to Steve Jackson II.

In my uber-box of books, there two copies of this one; one as above, which I assume is the original - it appears by book eight, Jackson the first and Livingstone realised they had a pretty decent franchise going, and began designing them as such; the second with the later, flashier logo that's well-represented here. I played the second, not that they're any different in content, but the newer one was in better condition. Much like my success rate, after completing Scorpion Swamp - 25%!

It wasn't easy though, I had excellent luck with the dice, and used my good luck score often in battles. Overall I enjoyed Scorpion Swamp, and would definitely recommend it. Hell, there are two more quests I could go back and attempt, which I won't right now, but yeah. A book you can come back to, probably.

#7 - Island of the Lizard King

Success! Finally, no less than seven books in, I managed to complete one. I know I know, narratively I shouldn't reveal this till the end, but I'm just so excited... was it the change in dice (I couldn't find ol' unlucky reds, and instead used so-fresh-so-clean green), or the fact I was stalking the island of the Lizard King, in a previous age known as Mr Mojo Risin'?

Enough music geekery. I rolled a skill of 11, big help, even if I lost two points later on while trying to chip a gemstone (Why? Because it was an option, why else?), which I regained upon finding a vitally important sword. Add to that a stamina of 21 and eight luck (no guessing which of the potions I chose) and I thought, yeah, I've got a shot at this.

There's a convoluted story behind why you've got to invade this island and depose this self-proclaimed king, which I won't go into except to say it's pretty noble, and rather suicidal. Regardless, you begin the adventure with a companion, Mungo, and if you know anything about the Fighting Fantasy gamebook series, it's that companions who aren't a part of your Adventure Sheet aren't permanent by any means - they'd might as well be described as wearing red tunics or something.

Anyway, we're immediately told there's a circus in town down the road, the infamous Trial Of Champions... seven books in, Jackson and Livingstone were already building an empire of sorts. It's a nice tie-in, if a little obvious in the very next book :)

So we reach the titular island, Mungo's inevitably killed (by a giant crab of all things), and I'm right into eating and drinking random things (look, I'm tying into my previous posts, just like...). After defeating a band of headhunters, I chowed on their bananas and coconuts, receiving a single stamina point in reward. One? It makes you wonder what the hell my normal provisions are made of, considering they each give me four stamina points, and I can fit ten of them in my backpack (with all the other crap I'm carrying, it must be some kind of spaceman food). Later in the book, I'm forced to use one meal - the explanation being I need salt to rid my legs of leeches. Salt, huh? Magic.

I ate some fungus, well at least I tried to. It sprayed rash-inducing spores into my face, which cleared up pretty quickly. Still, I was offered to eat what was left. Um, nuh-uh.

Some pygmies gave me some berries in exchange for a hand-axe. Not having learnt my lesson, I ate some, and my stamina increased by TWO stamina points. Salt is four, berries are two, but bananas and coconuts are a meagre one. Imagine if I found a hamburger on this island!

No hamburgers, but something equally as awesome showed up - a 'Pouch of Unlimited Contents'. Ooer. It sounds like something out of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, but here it was, in medieval Allansia. The only use I had for it putting the spear and axe I didn't have into it so they wouldn't fall off a raft while fighting a crocodile, but I'm sure it came in handy carrying all that damn salt I must've needed to supply me with enough nutrients to heal my wounds.

So I battled and ate my way across the island, eventually reaching the mines where the enslaved dwarves were kept. Before rescuing them however, I had to find them. And how did I find them? I quote:

"A thought suddenly crosses your mind that perhaps the boots you are wearing might be enchanted. You put your foot up against the wall and try to walk up it. Sure enough, it works. You are wearing a magical pair of Boots of Climbing."

No previous mention was made of mushroom-eating or those pygmies' berries being enchanted, for the record. I don't often purchase new shoes and wonder, a few days later, if they are enchanted, but I certainly will now! Lucky it was a wall I needed to walk through when I began wondering if my boots were magic, and not a crocodile-infested pit that needed jumping across.

In my adventures underground I also acquired a pail of water, which I carried through a couple of fights, eventually giving to some dwarves. It's amazing the things you just know you'll need - like a monkey.

At work, at least where I work now, we often joke about how cool it'd be to have an army of monkeys to do your bidding (I think I'm the only one of us who has seen Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, and therefore the only one who thinks it could possibly be a bad idea in reality) but when I was told the Lizard King (I can't stop picturing Jim Morrison) is afraid of monkeys, I realised this book was way cooler than I remember.

So I took Bubbles on my shoulder like some kind of primatical pirate, and went into battle, dispatching a hobgoblin and a cyclops with this bizarre, but obviously useful, distraction. I know the authors state in the introduction there are dead ends and red herrings, but a pet monkey? Come on! Okay, I knew he'd come in handy, but even if I didn't, there's no way I'd turn down a monkey companion, if only to replace Mungo.

Turns out (shocking!) the Lizard King is afraid of monkeys. Why? Well, who wouldn't be afraid of a monkey willing to sit on the shoulder of a complete stranger as said stranger fought and battled his way through an army of Lizard Men, hobgoblins and cyclopses? Cyclopsi?

In the end, perhaps I'd done too well - despite having no more than four stamina points and no magic, salty food - as the Lizard King himself was a pushover. There's no record of whether Jim Morrison was afraid of monkeys, but even he'd have put up a better fight.

So wooooo! I completed one. I suppose it helped there are less instant deaths in this book than some of the previous ones... and some have suggested it's quite linear and less dependant on having specific items/knowledge (though if you do have them, it makes it considerably easier). I suppose I had enough... a lot of I found was based on reading things. Wow! Who would've thought a gamebook would place such emphasis on reading!?

My copy only mentions the previous six as being available, so must be pretty old, but has the green Puffin strip across the top, unlike the pic above. The title page inside has the Lizard King hanging out with a two-headed dragon. I'm glad I never had to find out if the two-headed dragon was a part of the story at all...

One from seven! If this was cricket I'd be screwed, but I'm just glad to be on the scoreboard...

#5 - Deathtrap Dungeon

I've always had fond memories of book #6, perhaps in a large degree because of the fact when I was in third form (aged 12) I received 17/20 (top mark in the class, by the way) for a short story I wrote which was largely a rewrite of the introduction to Deathtrap Dungeon. Or was it my rewrite of Forest Of Doom? Ah bugger. Anyway, the singular goal and incredibly varied situations made this book one to revisit over and over, perhaps then not entirely suited to a single attempt, as this blog is 'meant' to be...


I rolled some perfect luck and stamina, which was just as well, as I was entering the tournament with the fighting skills of an animate wet paper bag. It probably didn't help that according to the introduction, I spent the week or so before entering the dungeon in a state of Bacchanalian indulgence, and had to pass through Blacksand. I've been killed, or nearly, by both of those things so far in the series if I recall correctly.

So there's a dungeon, created as a tourism investment, no one's ever escaped, riches on offer etc etc. What I don't get is that everyone in town turns out to watch the bounty hunters enter the maze, while none to date have ever returned - it seems kind of boring, doesn't it? Annually turning out to watch a bunch of doomed delusionals wander into a cave? All the action happens on the inside, after all.

And what action - the titular Deathtrap Dungeon is chocked with danger, disaster awaits at almost every turn. One website I came across in my brief post-death (oops, gave away the ending there...) research stated there were something like 31 possible instantaneous ways to die - meaning every time you look up a new page/paragraph, there's literally a one-in-13 chance you're gonna die. I quickly realised the book contains so many random deaths for no apparent reason - "You turned left! Bad choice. You die," kind of things - I took a little liberty in re-choosing which direction in which to walk. Not something I've done at all so far, but Deathtrap Dungeon so lives up to its billing, it'd be impossible to review after one dip without doing so.

Anyway. Highlights? Okay, well, on entering, you come across six boxes, one for each of the competitors in this year's competition, including yourself. Your first decision pretty much is should you open the one with your name on it or not? The book makes it out to be pretty dramatic... till you realise there's no option to check out the boxes already opened, and whether footprints healthily led away from them.

Continuing my FF habit of eating/drinking pretty much anything I come across, I drank some water I found in a bamboo stick. It's not like I'm going to get the chance to do that in real life now is it? Without much subtlety, or planning, the book then checked whether I'd drunk the bamboo water on the very next page I turned to... see what I mean? Brutal.

At one point in the maze I was asked whether I wanted to pick up a goblet. Now, at this point in the series, there was no penalty for carrying insane loads of trinkets and shit. I can't remember if there ever was a limit, but it seems pretty silly to say no, doesn't it? Rarely will an item you're carrying ever be the death of you in FF.

Later in the book, I came within a stamina point of dying, during a fight, while abseiling from a giant Buddha-esque statue... a scene which contains one of the book's 50/50 death points, which nothing you've rolled or discovered can save you from. Annoying, cause you probably need one of those eye-gems to finish the book, given the level of detail the sequence entails, though I can't really recall.

I eventually died while hanging out and forming an 'alliance' with a fellow contestant. My death involved a pit I shouldn't have tried to jump, but a quick check of the alternative scenarios (as I explained above) showed that not even the 'right' decision or rolls could have saved me - another random sequence which may mirror the reality of the situation quite well (whatever reality there could be), but is a bitch for gameplay.

All in all, it didn't quite spark with me in the same way as I remembered it - perhaps then I was less put-off by instant deaths and less averse to 'reloads' from arbitrary save points (the last page number I could remember where I was alive!).

Perhaps Trial Of Champions, the sequel-in-spirit, will survive the past 15 years a bit better.

My copy is very much identical to the one pictured above, but with the Puffin branding. There were still only seven published at the time. I know this doesn't mean nothing to no one, but I'm totally looking forward to the day I get up to whichever one of mine it is that is the earliest with the super-flashy logo and stuff with Jackson and Livingstone's names, and the actual author acknowledged on page 185 or something.

#5 - City Of Thieves

After the outer space diversions of Starship Traveller, it's a relief to back on Allansian soil and carrying nought but a sword, some gold and the classic 10 evenly-portioned parcels of food. But that's not to say Fighting Fantasy's fifth book is a retread of the first three; not at all. Yeah, you're an adventurer in search of booty and whatnot... but City Of Thieves introduces us to the most notorious city in Allansia, Port Blacksand.

You're an adventurer/bounty hunter kind of guy who comes across a town being harassed by an evil wizard - the humorously titled Zanzar Bone. He sounds like some kind of glam rocker, what with that name and the Moon Dogs and Spirit Walkers he uses to terrorise the town. Your mission is to go to Port Blacksand, a proverbial wretched hive of scum and villiany which seems to do its best to keep good, law-abiding folk out, and find Nicodemus - a powerful wizard on the side of good.

The first thing I have to do to get into the city is to kill or bribe a guard. Hmm. Well, I rolled high skill and stamina scores, so there's no guessing which I did.

I turned left, and saw a locksmith. I figure I'll probably need a key of some sort during the adventure - why else would I notice a locksmith and not, say, a sign with a map, perhaps pointing out where all the bars, loos and powerful wizards are?

Then I'm suddenly hit by six arrows, courtesy of a terrible dice roll, and killed. Oh dear.

This wouldn't be much of an entry if that was where it ended, so I re-rolled my stats, and started again - this time I'm not as strong, so tried to talk my way in past the guard. I said I had some expensive chalices to sell - which I most certainly did not - and the guard said he wanted to see them. I told him they were cursed, and could only be examined by a mage - who knows, perhaps he'd tell me where Nicodemus lived - and that didn't work. Bribery did though.

I took a winding route throughout the city, and soon realised not to trust anyone, but interact with them anyway - you never know when a blessing could come in disguise, huh? Money came and went as I found it and lost it (most embarrassingly when I was outwitted by a trio of dwarfs), till eventually I came across a man on a bridge. The book told me I gave him two gold pieces in exchange for being told where Nicodemus lived; which I found rather amusing as I'd just lost all my money playing 'Don't Drop the Cannonball' with a man who looked like a Greek statue. Nicodemus lived right beneath the bridge anwyay, and I'm sure the text would have led me there eventually, so I hope that guy enjoyed his pretend, invisible money.

Nicodemus told me to do the job myself, and that before I met Zanzar Bowie I'd have to get a tattoo of a white unicorn inside a yellow sun - on my forehead. Damn hippie. He also said I'd need a silver arrow, a black pearl, some hag's hair and a lotus flower. Conveniently, I'd not come across any of these things, but soon would - it's like the city's collective consciousness knew to present me with these things after meeting Nicodemus, knowing I'd probably ignore them beforehand.

Well, you never throw anything away in Fighting Fantasy gamebooks, Collective Consciousness of Port Blacksand, so there.

Anyway. I eventually came across a pirate ship, which seemed too good an opportunity to pass up. I dealt to the crew like a ninja, and soon found myself back on dry land fighting a group of robbers, or as I was calling them by this point, average everyday Port Blacksanders. They almost killed me, as did some haunted plant which drove me down to a single point of stamina. I had no food either, having traded it all for a silver arrow.

So when a boy came up to me offering to sell me either plums or apples, I was ecstatic. He recommended the plums, and knowing this town pretty well by now I chose the apples, and they were a bit off, doing a single point of stamina damage. Problem: I only had one point left.

I was killed by an apple marginally past its use-by-date.

So as an introduction to Port Blacksand, an important locale in the Fighting Fantasy series, it does well. By the end I wasn't even trusting well-meaning young fruiterers, and was avoiding even the most minimally-threatening sounding encounters - I walked right past an inviting manhole cover, for crying out loud! The fact I passed perhaps the only manhole cover in the entire city (I'd been down a few streets by this stage, and I hadn't been told of any others) and didn't check it out speaks volumes. Jabba the Hutt would've loved it here, except for the fact I don't think I came across any women bar the old hag who picked my pocket. There was a sweet lute player though, who could've given the Mos Eisley cantina band some much-needed variation.

I'm not even sure why someone would bother helping the townsfolk of Silverton anyway - they seem a stupid bunch. In the introduction, a man rings a bell once, announcing nightfall, and immediately everyone outdoors starts panicking - as if nightfall has an exact moment, and isn't a gradual descending of the sun beyond the horizon and general darkening of the sky.

My copy's cover is the same as the one above, but without the mistakes in the rules that Wikipedia says it has - that part of their article isn't cited, should I change it? The rules in mine read perfectly fine.

So, once again I failed to even reach the primary villian, damnit. I recall these books being easier when I was younger - perhaps then I was a little more open to re-rolls and checking the consequences of a decision before making it!

0/5. I need some weighted dice.

#4 - Starship Traveller

Boldly going where no previous Fighting Fantasy book had gone before, Steve Jackson wasted no time in blurring the line between fantasy and science fiction in setting the fourth installment not only in outer space, but another universe altogether.

You're the hapless captain of a starship named Traveller (if you want to be super-nerdy, you can pretend it's Voyager, though the book came a decade before) whose Scotty analogue has messed up and allowed the warp drives to malfunction. Traveller is speeding ever faster towards a black hole, and your Spock equivalent suggests using its gravitational pull to slow the ship down.

So far, so Star Trekkin'. ("Boldly going forward 'cause we can't find reverse... Still can't find reverse... Totally going forward and things are getting worse...")

Anyway, the otherwise logical plan didn't work (else there'd be no book) and you now have to get back to Earth - the problem being, you're in a different universe altogether.

I began with a pretty averagely-skilled crew, not bad, but the dice weren't overly generous. Something different about this particular book is the fact you have a crew to look after - it's not just you and your Tardis-like rucksack (and 10 proportionally-similar provisions, of course). Something else is that unlike in Star Trek, unless otherwise noted, all aliens have phasers set to kill (we'll never know if stormtroopers have the same policy, seeing as they never hit anything).

Another departure I found was that unlike previous books, rolling within your skill/luck often had a bad outcome, as opposed to the expected positive. My very own Dr McCoy saved an entire medieval planet from a deadly fever, rolled dice to prove his luck, and died. Another time I successfully rolled within my skill level to convince some prison guards I wasn't a proverbial Christian to be thrown to the lions for their entertainment - they didn't believe me and made me fight the 'Manslayer Robot' anyway.

What kind of messed-up alien society would build a robot specifically designed to kill a species from a different universe? It's as if they knew a species calling itself 'man' would arrive and, through a grave misunderstanding, be thrown to the mechanical lions.

Anwyay... soon after beginning my journey, I found myself at a blue planet, descended and found myself "in a wide street of some kind, which is completely deserted. Buildings, of sorts, line the street and behind you a large building stands at the end of the road. The buildings are strange structures. They are a multitude of shapes and sizes and all look incomplete."

In other words, I was on the main street of Tirau. (Cue a ba-da-bing drum roll of sorts for the Kiwis reading this...)

Okay, the planet I was on, I can't recall its name but it was a libertarian paradise (of which Tirau most certainly is not, and besides, 'libertarian paradise'? There's an oxymoron to dwell on...) with a history akin to that of an early, albeit interplanetary United States. Races from all different worlds had fled there to escape problems at home, and decided on their new planet there would be no laws, no rules and no hierarchy (obviously Id' stumbled across this planet in around their equivalent of the 1880, not 2008). They had 'guards' though, which intrigued... turns out, as anyone is allowed to rob/beat/kill anyone they like, what with no rules and all, those planning to rob/beat/kill you are at least courteous enough to dress up as guards - to warn passers-by to be 'on guard'.

Muahaha. Cheesy puns are awesome. I particularly like the fact I managed to find a planet called Malini, whose primary income was mining, in particular the mineral Malinite. Mining Malini for Malinite. (Almost makes you wish for less subtle naming conventions, such as the Mon Calamari. Yes, two different links, I'm trying to make a point here...)

I also came across a planet stuck in the middle ages, whose weather was controlled by an Oz-esque man-behind-the-curtain - in this case, a man-behind-the-computer.

Eventually my crew got tired of re-enacting Dr Who and Star Trek episodes, and decided to force the issue of getting home. I'd collected a bunch of possible locations-of, stardates-to-arrive-at and speeds-at-which-to-approach some black holes, and tried out one - we all died, but the text made clear we would never have known it, which was such a relief.

I never managed to finish this book as a youngster, and after tonight, I'm still zero/roll-a-six-sided-die-and-multiply-the-result-by-a-million. It's fiendishly difficult - at one point I found myself in a Warlock-esque maze whose structure seemed random and the only guide I had was always turning to pages whose numbers I didn't immediately recognise or that I hadn't read yet. The kicker was that when checking, out of morbid, un-sportsmanlike interest where a couple of the pages I hadn't chosen (honest!) led, they were to death. Random death. This, in a sequence which if you survive, provides you with (possibly) one of the details you need to get home. Grrr.

Anyway... the version I have of the book is similar to the one above, same artwork, but with the serrated green strip at the top, and without the big '4' at the bottom. Obviously, its not an original pressing, but inside it still only says there are five books - so it was early, but not early enough to have the original, soon-to-be-dropped presentation style. Unless they changed all the covers without updating the pressing info and whatnot, which is unlikely.

I imagine that thing on the cover is the Manslayer Robot. In my humble opinion, it's one of the few original designs which is scarier and more futuristic than the newer, 21st century reissue re-imaginings.

The Wikipedia article on Starship Traveller (which has both covers displayed) claims the book can be completed without ever having to roll any dice. I find this hard to believe - then again, I never got into any ship-to-ship combat, of which I was led to believe there would be plenty. I obviously went the wrong way - at one point, being down to a single stamina point.

The back cover of the book asks, "Will you be able to discover the way back to Earth from the alien peoples and planets you encounter, or will the starship be doomed to roam uncharted space forever?" It's a rhetorical question in the end, as once your crew get suitably annoyed at a lack of inter-dimensional-homeward-bound travel they force the Traveller into the nearest black hole regardless of your research. You will not be floating in space for longer than an hour, in your time, to be honest.

0 from 4. It would seem I'm not so sharp with the blaster or the sword nowadays.