Back when I had a go at the Judges Guild Tunnels & Trolls solo The Toughest Dungeon in the World, I said that JG's T&T output 'at least initially' had the approval of Flying Buffalo, the company behind Tunnels & Trolls. Something appears to have changed by the time Judges Guild brought out their second T&T solo, Glenn Rahman's Jungle of Lost Souls, as the word 'Approved' on my copy has been covered with a label reading 'Suitable', and (in smaller print) 'Use of trademark not sanctioned by holder'. Cursory research has turned up no information ..read more

After Blood of the Zombies failed to inject new life into Wizard Books' second range of Fighting Fantasy gamebooks, there was no new 'official' FF published for around five years. Then Scholastic started publishing the series, and after reissuing several books that had already been republished twice, they brought out a brand new adventure, Ian Livingstone's The Port of Peril. Port was the first Scholastic FF book I bought, since I already had more than one copy of the books that preceded it. The cover illustration of the Scholastic The Citadel of Chaos did tempt m ..read more

It has now been confirmed that J.H. 'Herbie' Brennan, author of some of the quirkier gamebook series (plus a number of entertaining children's books and a multitude of guides to paranormal phenomena) passed on at the start of this year. Back when I got rid of much of my gamebook collection during the early 1990s, there was no question of my disposing of any of the books authored by Mr. Brennan: I enjoyed Grail Quest and Horror Classics far too much. His short series of Barmy Jeffers novels provided one of the best twists I've encountered in children's literature, and in more rec ..read more

Life and related phenomena have got in the way of my making much progress with the book I was planning on covering next here, but I do have a playthrough of another book that I was holding in reserve, so I shall publish it now rather than do nothing in the blog this month. Lost in the Mountains of Death, the third of Tracey Turner's Lost gamebooks, was part of the same bundle of books that introduced me to the series, so as regards my history with the book, I can't really add to what I said before. The title suggests that it may be closer in tone to the first gamebook I read that concerne ..read more

This month I've been busy on many fronts, and while I have made a start on the next playthrough for this blog, I'm nowhere near far enough in for it to be worth posting what has been written. Instead, here's a little exclusive. When I wrote Return to the Icefinger Mountains almost 12 years ago, I did it for National Novel Writing Month. The target word count for NaNoWriMo is 50,000, and the completed Return came in at around 42k. Not wanting to force unnecessary padding into a mini-gamebook that was due to be published in Fighting Fantazine, I made up the missing word count with a se ..read more

Well, I guess it's time to get back into the driver's seat of my playthrough of the second Car Wars Adventure Gamebook, American Steve Jackson and Creede and Sharleen Lambert's Fuel's Gold, which stalled after an unengaging fight against some anarchists. I drive off, and soon see a sign indicating the turning for where I'm supposed to deliver the package. Now I must decide whether to complete my mission or drive on and take Kathy the hitch-hiker all the way to where she's going. Yes, it's another opportunity to try and avoid the whole point of this adventure. By now I'm beginning to wonde ..read more

Today I'm back in the world of the American Steve Jackson's Car Wars Adventure Gamebooks. The second book, Fuel's Gold, which was written by Mr. Jackson along with Creede and Sharleen Lambard, is the only one in the series I've bought more than once: I got a copy not long after I started collecting the series, and then some time later I came across an eBay lot containing all the Car Wars books I still lacked, plus Fuel's Gold, and bid what I was prepared to pay for the books I wanted. Nobody outbid me, so I completed my collection and wound up with a spare Gold. Unlike Battle Road, t ..read more

The mini-adventure in issue 14 of Fighting Fantazine used a system other than Fighting Fantasy, so I'm skipping that one for now and moving on to issue 15 and Brett Schofield's Lords of Stone. This is the first of the Fantazine mini-adventures on which I worked as a playtester, so I've played it a lot more than any previous mini-adventure (apart from the one I wrote). Judging by the playability (or lack thereof) of certain published gamebooks, I think it not unreasonable to say that my playtesting technique is more thorough than some. It has three main phases: Play the adventur ..read more

So, having now replayed everything that precedes Lone Wolf book 11, The Prisoners of Time, I have a character who's better equipped, has slightly superior stats, and is currently in less than ideal health. In the gap between adventures I finish assimilating the power contained within the Lorestone of Luomi, gaining the Discipline of Pathsmanship and completing another Lore-circle, which adds another point to my Combat Skill, and two to my starting Endurance. I'm not sure why getting the Lorestone didn't restore any Endurance, given that the ones in books 7-9 did, and book 10 states that I ..read more

Back to Magnamund I go, and, as I said the last time I got a Lone Wolf killed, I'm going right back to the start to get a character who has better prospects of surviving the fight that's been causing me trouble in book 11. A bit extreme, but I'm still able to derive enjoyment from some of the earlier adventures in the series, while leaping straight back into The Prisoners of Time now holds less appeal than doing household chores or punching myself in the face, so replaying the less onerous books first might just help me get through the ordeal that is the penultimate Magnakai adventure. Be ..read more