(Intelli Gaming: Book Series Review)
As virtual worlds start to coexist with reality, fantasy worlds of old stay relevant by providing deep and long forgotten mysteries, evils and fantasies. Whether you dream of being a mighty warrior, a space assassin or an enigmatic super-hero, Fighting Fantasy has a book for you.
In the wonderful collection that were the gamebooks titled in French as"Livres dont vous êtes le héros", many focused on one particular world with multiple books following one another. You could thus carry items with you. You could also gain some form of levels from one book to another. Some even had proper XP. But there existed a collection destined to hold the lone adventure, books that were iconic to a specific genre yet one offs. That collection, is "Fighting Fantasy ".
To be complete, I cannot pass by the first and one of the most important title of this entire series. That book is The Warlock of Firetop Mountain, also known as book 1 of the series. Here, I want to review and examine this entire series. There are 70+ books and I have not read all of them but just a select few, which I will present here. I also like the illustrations as they show the variety of this series and the flexibility of this system of games. But first, the good old Pros / Cons for the series:
Pros
Largest collection with over 70+ books.
Various authors.
Versatile: varied content, both futuristic and medieval fantastic or anything between!
Cons
Usually, the Character sheet was very uninspiring.
Unequal collection (unlike the Dark Eye... coming soon!)
I must admit that I was not impressed by The Warlock of Firetop Mountain. It was fun and I knew I was reading the very first book of the series, published in 1982. Written by Steven Jackson and Ian Livingstone and illustrated by Russ Nicholson, the book tells the story of the adventurer, YOU, who seeks the treasure of the Warlock within his castle. Some of the illustrations are fantastic and perhaps I shall revisit the overall works of Russ Nicholson in the future. The cover however, was illustrated by Peter Andrew Jones. More on this fantastic artist below.
The character sheet was not memorable and some of the endings were unpredictable. Also, since this was a single book, you did not feel like you were investing in a character that would go on for many more adventures. As such, your definition as who you are is very bland. You can easily role-play into that but it lacks a bit of support. If you compare this to the feeling you get in the Lonewolf series(coming soon...), you will see how much more shallow you character is in The Warlock of Firetop Mountain.
Many titles in the series served as inspiration for me. This was at a time where Internet was being invented. So the amount of fantasy material was limited mostly to the bookstores and libraries. For instance this following book, Caverns of the Snow Witch, with a cover illustrated by Les Edwards will always remain a nice inspiration of fantasy. There is a lot of mystery about this cover. Who is this Witch? She is using magic to control this Orc? Why are his feet stuck in the ice? Did he fall into a trap only to be frozen to death?
Written in 1984 by Ian Livingstone and illustrated by Edward Crosby and Gary Ward, Caverns of the Snow Witch remains a classic. Neanderthals, Crystal Warriors and the Witch herself are just some of the mysteries offered by the world of Allansia. That world will be revisited in the Crypt of the Sorcerer below.
Some of these books had very nice illustrations inside also. In fact, all of the books of the series had illustrations inside but not all were to my taste. Various art styles were on display and I have covered extensively the art style of John Blanche in a previous article.
Talisman of Death was written by Jamie Thomson and Mark Smith and originally published in 1984. Its cover is one of the most iconic of the entire series. The cover showcases the artwork of Peter Andrew Jones and the interior illustrations are by Bob Harvey. In this fantasy world of Orb, the Talisman of Death must be retrieved from the Evil One.
Space Assassins was a welcome departure from the worlds of fantasy and instead dealt with a a more science-fiction oriented universe. This is an example of what made Fighting Fantasy so great as a series: its versatility.
Written by Andrew Chapman in 1985, with cover art by Chris Achilleos and interior illustrations by Geoffrey Senior, the book focuses on the crusade of a space assassin, YOU, to help rid the cosmos of the evil cyborg mutants. During the course of the adventure, martial arts, weapons and your ship, the Vandervecken will be used to win battles.
Appointment with F.E.A.R. was again written by Steve Jackson, this time in 1985, with cover art by Brian Bolland. The interior illustrations were this time provided by Declan Considine. I read this book but never completed it. One reason is because it is punishing - you can die easily. But the setting is different from the usual. Here, it is a universe of super heroes, much like the ones of Marvel and DC. In this particular adventure, instead of knowing in advance that you need to go kill the evil bad guy in his fortress, here the information is more subtle and mature. You play the role of Jean Lafayette, who transforms into Silver Crusader. You then learn about the dangers in a more dynamic way and have to race against time to save Titan City - and thus the world. I have good memories of wondering very hard which course of action would yield the best results. In that sense, it was a more of a detective novel at the same time.
I did not read the book above but I liked the cover to illustrate some of the darker tones of the evil present in those worlds. Crypt of the Sorcerer is such an example. Again written by Ian Livingstone, this book was published in 1986 and illustrated by John Sibbick. The cover illustration was by Les Edwards. The back cover of the book mentions the following:
The long-dead sorcerer Razaak has been re-awoken and is poised to fulfil his promise of death and tyranny. The Forces of Chaos are at large across Allansia and it seems that they are all pitted against YOU! For it is up to you to battle against the odds - to find the only weapon to which Razaak is vulnerable, to arm yourself with protections against his awesome powers, and to face him in his lair, the Crypt of the Sorcerer!
So the book enlarges the world called Allansia, previously visited in The Caverns of the Snow Witch. Following on this is another of my favourites:
Daggers of Darkness was written in 1988 by Luke Sharp and illustrated by Martin McKenna. I have a copy of this book, shown above and I have read it many times. The character sheet was more interesting than others and featured a doll like drawing to mark your wounds on specific body parts. Also, as the name implied, the intrigue was centred around gaining favours from each of the six Clans. The evil mastermind that tries to stop you is Vizir Chingiz. And the cover illustration (by Les Edwards again) really made me dream about how much more powerful a fighter could be with his loyal pets at his side.
Again, a book that I did not read, which I have selected as the last of this G7! It does not represent any particular member of the G7, just that it is the last book I am discussing here! It is fitting however to have the Shadow Warriors represent the closure of the G7. Even the colours match those of NATO!
The book was written by Stephen Hand in 1991 and the original title is : Legend of the Shadow Warriors. The illustrations are again by Martin McKenna and the cover is the work of Terry Oakes. The imaginary world visited here is Gallantaria. Afterwards, another series titled Horror Classics (French: "Épouvante") would see the day - or the night in fact! That series was entirely devoted to horror and scary settings. More on this another time.
I hope you have enjoyed this review / retrospective. An article is not enough to pay respect to the entire series. I did not cover the interior illustrations nor the character sheets and its variations from novel to novel. Also, some mini-games were present in many books. Did any of you read those books? What did you read as a kid that related to fantasy or science-fiction?
Thanks for reading!
