Heavy Metal Thunder by Kyle B. Stiff

Heavy Metal Thunder is a brilliant Kindle gamebook by Kyle B Stiff set in the far future where you are an amnesiac freedom fighter trying to get home.

The book is available for Kindle for £1.94 or $3.04 and at that price you would have to be mad not to buy it. 

The Kindle edition is hyperlinked so that you do not have to search through the book making gameplay very convenient, so you can be happy about that.

On with the review!



Theme 5/5

The story is set in the Solar System in the far future where every possible thing has been discovered and every possible style of art, music and culture has been tried to all of their possible permutations and so humanity has fallen into a state of decadence and apathy thus allowing themselves to be easily conquered by a horde of invading aliens. 

You are a member of the resistance, a conditioned and highly trained super soldier who awakes on a station with no memory of who they are.  This book is all about returning home and on the way, you encounter all kinds of insanity from the manager of the space station to poetic navigators to the man who tried to kill you.  You manage to earn yourself a new name (no more Mr Wiggles for you).

The book is written with much madness and humour but none of it detracts from the gameplay which is a huge difficult to avoid trap where humour in gamebooks is concerned so Kyle should get a great mark for that alone.  However, there is so much more in this book.  The skills and and stats also fit in well with the universe presented, allowing you to take such skills as xenology, navigation and piloting. 

Immersion 4/5

The cover image, by Oliver Wetter is very badass and it goes very well with the badass title.  There are no other illustrations but there is plenty of backstory to get immersed in.  The book has a very detailed history of humanity and also gives a lot of detail of the space stations you visit or ships that you are on.  There are also a lot of great descriptions of battles.  Combat is well thought out and is logical within the universe of the book. 

Gameplay 4/5

You have plenty to explore in the book and you have plenty of choices from exploring the station at the beginning to exploring the strange objecct in space to giving interviews to people who want to be on your space ship crew to fighting the final battle.  Some choices are better than others but there are no arbitrary deaths done for the sake of a joke, so you have the freedom to explore.  Kyle also adds regeneration points so if you die, you don't have to go back to the beginning of the book and tells you that using the rules aren't necessary if you just want to play the book like a Choose Your Own Adventure book.  The book is very convergent as you play through certain set pieces before coming to the next point in the book and this makes the book very replayable.

Exposition 4/5

the book is full of madness and humour, some of it crude but all of it funny, and, as I have already said, none of the jokes are made at the expense of the gameplay.  Paragraphs are nice and full with plenty of description and interaction with the various characters thet you will come across in the book. None of them are flat - everyone you come across will have an interesting story.  The set pieces are all very enthralling whether you are exploring an abandoned space station, commanding a ship or fighting in the final battle where you meet the man who tried to kill you.

Rules 4/5

The rules system is extensive and covers stats and several skills.  There are several stats and skills to keep track of, but  I can tell that Kyle knows gamebooks, because he tells you that you can throw all of these rules out and play the book as a Choose Your Own Adventure book.  He also lets you have regeneration points that you can go back to if you die.  The rules also allow progression and customisation of your character.  If you do play by the rules, there is lots to keep track of, but you don't have to if you just fancy a read and that is very considerate of Kyle.

Conclusion 21/25

Heavy Metal Thunder is an excellent gamebook with a great setting, larger than life characters and a fast paced storyline set in a mad universe.  The best bit of it is that it is the first in a series and so there is plenty more to come.  It was a brave move by Kyle to make a gamebook full of humour but Kyle manages to pull it off in a way that the humour does not lead to frustration.  This is an excellent gamebook with a great storyline and a wonderful system and it only costs £1.94!

The book is available for Kindle for £1.94 or $3.04 and at that price you would have to be mad not to buy it. 

Kyle's blog is here so check out his other writings :)

Avenger! (Way of the Tiger book 1) by Mark Smith and Jamie Thomson

I'm really sorry for the delay, dear readers.  I've been doing this April A to Z thing on my other blog and loads of other stuff and my review kept on getting shoved to the bottom of the pile.  It's here now, though!

Everybody knows that ninjas are awesome. In the Avenger!, the first book in the Way of the Tiger series, you play a ninja.  25/25 See you next time.

Jamie Thomson and Mark Smith have created a highly detailed and immersive world to place your character who, unlike some gamebook protagonists, actually has a lot of back story and  gives them an epic quest that also has many human touches.  Yes, I loved this book which has many more virtues than just the fact that it contains ninjas.  And what is better is the fact that this book is the first in a series of six books but it was probably going to be more based on how the sixth book ended.

The book was released in 1985 and has a lot of similarities with Lone Wolf, released one year earlier - you are a member of an order of monks, you have special skills and you gain a skill when you finish this book.  However, there are many differences such as the combat system, lack of random character creation and a different story where your order is still around.


Theme 5/5


The book is set in the detailed world of Orb, a place of many cultures defined by which of Orb's many gods they worship.  There is a very pretty coloured map on the inside cover showing  you part of the world of Orb and diagrams of the martial arts moves that you perform in the book.  You also get the background to your order and  throughout the book, you are given details of the customs and character of the places you visit as well as the gods that these people worship.  


The Ninja's Covenant is:

'I will vanish into the night; change my body to wood or stone; sink into the earth and walk through walls and locked doors.  I will be killed many times, yet will not die; change my face and become invisible, able to walk among men without being seen.'


You also have your own backstory.  You were washed up on the Island of Tranquil Dreams as a baby, sporting a strange birthmark.  You do not know who your real father is but you were taken in by the worshippers of the god Kwon and taught the way of the ninja.  You had a foster father Naijishi who taught you much but he was killed by Yaemon, a monk who worships the god Vile.  Yaemon stole the scrolls of Kettsuin from the monks and now he plans to use them to trap Kwon in some eternal fire.  Your mission is to stop Yaemon, avenge your father and save Kwon.


The other characters in this book are just as awesome (if not more awesome) than you are.  There are no nameless mooks here.  Despite the thoroughness of your training (which makes you feel awesome just reading it), your allies and opponents all have their special skills and makes every combat a challenge.  Glaivas, an ally of yours is an expert swordsman and ranger.  Honoric is a mighty warrior with a fear inducing, magic suppressing sword.  Manse the deathmage can kill you with a word and Yaemon is an unparalleled martial artist.  Even the 'mooks' have a sense of individuality such as the heavy two headed giant that you can't throw, Olvar, a barbarian that can make lightning bolts and ogre with a huge spiked hammer.  You need to come up with a new strategy to defeat all of them.  Thomson and Smith have left no stone unturned with their distribution of individuality.


Basically, this book oozes with flavour.  You get the sense that Orb is a living breathing world and not a bunch of set pieces that are there just because you are.  You usually end up in the middle of some crazy situation such as witnessing a soldier decapitate a priest or getting captured and forced to fight in an arena.  


You also have purpose and backstory in this book, going way above the 'kill generic sorcerer, steal treasure' theme that Fighting Fantasy was going for.
 

Illustration 4/5


Bob Harvey's dynamic illustrations really make an impact.  Most of the illustrations are of some of the best moments in the book such as the decapitation mentioned above, an ogre boarding your ship and a crazy chaotic barbarian about to bring his huge sword down upon you.  The cover presumably shows you dressed in your black ninja costume at the temple of Kwon, ready for action.  
 

Gameplay 4/5


The route to victory is quite wide but there is an optimum path with the minimum of danger.  Many of the choices you have to make can also be helped by clues that you can pick up from the text, such as when you listen to Honoric boasting to Manse.  The consequences of other choices are quite logical such as what happens if you try to throw a giant (do you really think you practiced on a a giant in the monastery?)


The power level skills are a little unbalanced in this book with the climbing, acrobatics and poison dart skills being stronger and the immunity to poisons  and feigning death skills being weaker.  However, this may be redressed in future books.  Not having a skill is rarely deadly and you will be given a choice or a die roll to get out of danger if you lack the skill you need.  The random elements of the book are very well balanced and there are no unfair combats or unavoidable luck based deaths.

There is one error in the book.  You may be able to get a magic suppressing sword but if you go to a particular location then the book forgets that you have it later on.  This might actually prove fatal quite late on into the book and it can be frustrating.


The final battle against Yaemon is a little anti-climatic.  Instead of rolling dice, you have to choose a move to perform and you either will or will not inflict damage upon him.  The same move will not work if you try to do it twice in a row but if you try another move and go back to your successful move, then you will inflict damage again.  This means that if you find two different moves that inflict damage, you've automatically won.  Thomson and Smith must have learnt from this mistake because in their book the Citadel of Chaos, you have a limited number of moves and if you damage your opponent, the Overlord, you get a mark.  If you have that mark, you can never perform that move again.


Besides those two issues, Avenger has a great level of gameplay, especially from the option based combats, which, along with the diagrams at the beginning and the exposition during the combat, make for some exciting times.
 

Exposition 5/5 


Smith and Thomson have a good sense of the awesome and the epic and the writing really comes to life when they are describing a battle scene.  Take this little gem:  
 

With a punishing sidekick, you knock a new attacker to the floor where he lies inert.  Another huge wart faced Halforc lunges at you with his cutlass.  With incredible speed, you clap your hands together, trapping the blade between them, inches from your face.  He has time to gape in astonishment before you smash the top of your right foot into his temple. 


You also get the feeling that the writers are really into the world of Orb as they lovingly describe its peoples, gods and landscape.  There are some bits that also made me laugh (perhaps unintentionally) such as this bit:

The old man calls a girl's name and his acolyte appears, a surprisingly pretty girl of no more than eighty seasons.  Whilst you wonder what she is doing with the stooped old man in a chapel that is too small to hold twenty people, he produces a long and wicked looking sacrificial knife.

Rules 5/5


The rules have the rare accomplishment of being quite simple, fitting for the setting (luck on a spaceship?) and versatile.  They are more complicated than most gamebooks but not too complicated (they are still nowhere near RPG level) - you have modifiers for punching, kicking, throwing and fate, an inner force score which allows you to double damage dealt in combat.  You also have an endurance score to keep track of.  Combat is innovative and provides you with many options, unlike the purely luck based combat of Fighting Fantasy and Lone Wolf.  You get to choose to punch, kick or throw to attack, each maneuver having different advantages and disadvantages.  You can also block an opponents attack if you sacrifice some offensive power later on and use inner force to deal double damage.  You need to experiment with how each move works against each opponent.




Total - 23/25


Avenger! certainly is a grand feast.  There is tons to get your teeth into from the backstory, the scenarios, the interactions with the NPCs and the experience of the world of Orb.  The book is challenging but not impossible and you get a real sense of achievement when you kill three of Orb's most powerful villains and get a personal visit from your god to congratulate you.  It's a must have for any gamebook fan.

The Forbidden Gate (Knightmare gamebook 5) by Dave Morris

Once again, Ill be reviewing a gamebook based on an existing franchise.  This time, it is The Forbidden gate, the fifth gamebook based on the Knightmare TV series.  There are six gamebooks and one puzzle book in the Knightmare series.  Dave Morris wrote first one jointly with Tim Child (the creator of the Knightmare TV show) and then wrote the remaining books alone.  The gamebooks (not the puzzle book) are all preceded by a novella about Treguard's adventures which are also very entertaining.

For those of you who don't know about the Knightmare TV show here is the concept:  A team of four children are pitted against a dungeon full of monsters, traps and strange characters.  One of them is the 'dungeoneer' who has to survive the dungeon while wearing a huge horned helmet that obscures their view (this is so that they do not see the blue screens used for the effects backdrop).  The dungeoneer's friends guide them through the dungeon.  Unlike many childrens' TV gameshows it was a very sophisticated game with a high failure rate but that made success all the more sweeter.

It is interesting to read the gamebooks in chronological order as they gradually move away from the format of the TV show where you have to find your way through a three level dungeon to a more open setting where you travel across the land and interact more with people.  I guess that one issue with transferring the format of a TV show to the format of a gamebook means that things will get lost in translation and things that work for TV don't work in the gamebook (thankfully, in the gamebook your vision is not obscured by the helmet of justice.  That would make for boring reading similar to doing the Colossal Cave with no brass lantern).

Anyway, on to the review...


Theme 3/5

The aim of the gamebook is to steal an earth dragon's egg from right under its nose.  Now that's a dangerous task and the reason why you have to go into a dragon's lair and steal its young is not clearly given.  Maybe Treguard wants to train one up for the Knightmare challenge.

However, as in all Knightmare gamebooks, it is the journey which is important and not the destination.  You spend very little time on the dragon's island - most of your adventure involves getting passage on a ship and then surviving the journey.  The ways of succeeding the challenge involve acting as a true knight - with quick wits and chivalry.  So the dragon's egg is really some macguffin to prove to Treguard that you are worthy to be a knight.  It's a bit like the end of Midnight Rogue where the gem is a fake but by overcoming your trials, you have proven yourself to be part of the guild.

As Treguard says:

'The path to chivalry is long and arduous' he says 'Now you must prove yourself worthy.'

Illustration 2/5


The cover illustration, intended for the novella shows a lovely forest with a castle on the top of a hill in the background and Lord Fear's eyes in the sky.  It is a nice picture, but I don't think that the colour scheme befits a Knightmare book (the previous ones all having black as the dominant colour).  It seems more suited to an elvish glade rather than a forbidden gate.  Even the menacing eyes don't seem that menacing as they are a lovely shade of azure and drawn like clouds.

The interior illustrations of the gamebook are all quite small and done well enough - there just aren't many of them.


Gameplay 4/5

Dave Morris demonstrates his skill in this area.  Despite being only 97 paragraphs, Morris manages to stretch it out by having the range of skills and having the player try to find the optimum path for your chosen skill.  Morris has also put situations in the book which could allow you to succeed very well.  for example, you can get an extra skill and a spell in the book if you do particularly well.  There is also a very clever ending situation where if you make the right choices (which appear to be the wrong choices at first), you are able to free some slaves in addition to stealing the dragon's egg, giving the player a kind of bonus ending to work for.

As in previous Knightmare gamebooks, Dave Morris also rewards the player for reading the novella before hand as it is a good idea to know the 'morality' of the gamebook.  There are certain ways of thinking that the gamebook encourages - for example, using weapons is rarely the best way out of a problem.

The tricks that Dave Morris uses do help make the most of a short 97 gamebook and even though it is still too short to get lots of play out of it, it certainly stretches it out and marks should be given for ingenuity.


Exposition 3/5


I have always found Dave Morris's writing very eloquent (sometimes too much so when writing the dialogue for a barbarian).  The world here is one of chivalry, sorcery and roguish opponents.  There are also moments for humour such as a golden malicious apple and the scene where you return to Knightmare Castle by accident to find Pickle and Treguard eating sandwiches and drinking coffee.  It is a good mix of evocative drama with a touch of light heartedness.


Rules 3/5

The rules are vaguely linked to the rules from the TV show.  Your health is measured in Life Force grades.  You start off unwounded with a green grade.  If you lose a grade, you go down to amber and if you lose antoher one, you go down to red.  If you are wounded while on red life force, you die.  You can restore life force by eating food on paragraphs marked with an *.  This makes the idea of resting to eat more realistic than Fighting Fantasy's rule of 'You can't eat when in combat.  You can eat when running, climbing, swimming, talking or falling but not when in combat.'

You are also able to learn spells.  When you are given the chance, you are given the name of the spell which may or may not be self explanatory.  Spells are not items and you may only use them once.

You may carry up to 5 items.  Dave Morris does something very clever with the encumbrance limit towards the end of the book.  If you get into the dragon's lair, you find two different varieties of eggs, but since they both count as 3 items, you may only take one egg.  Nice touch.  You may carry 50 gold pieces as one item.  You also have the choice of one skill to choose from the following list:  Acrobatics, Fisticuffs, Gambling, Seamanship, Swimming, Swordplay, Thievery, Trading.

Those of you who are familiar with the Virtual Reality series of gamebooks will find the last set of rules very familiar.  Indeed, it seems that this book (published in 1993) was a precursor to the Virtual Reality series (published in 1994).

The rules work well enough - however, the short length of the book makes the skills only useful in a few situations.  The only use of some skills is to obtain passage on a ship to the either by getting money or by making your skills useful to the captain of the ship.  However, as the Virtual Reality series has shown us, such a system is very good for longer gamebooks.





Total 15/25

The problem with all of the Knightmare gamebooks is that they are too short to showcase the skill that Dave Morris has.  The Quest for the Dragon's egg quest is the shortest Knightmare quest at only 97 paragraphs and it seems that Dave Morris put a lot of effort into making such a short gamebook replayable.

In tiger terms, is a decent snack. It seems that Dave Morris was given a very small piece of meat and told to make it palatable. He added plenty of other tasty stuff to bulk it out and cooked it as well as he could.  However, it is still a very small piece of meat so it won't satisfy for long.

One good thing about this book is that it may have been an important experiment for Dave Morris which may have led to the Virtual Reality series - this book certainly demonstrates that the game system is a good way of improving gameplay and increasing replayability.  It is a good reminder that gamebooks and other art forms should never be looked at in a vacuum but rather as a smaller part of a larger creative process.  The Forbidden gate did very well as a Virtual Reality precursor and it may have been the deciding factor in bringing us the series.

Stormin' Sonic by Marc Gascoigne and Jonathan Green

It's a testament to the popularitiy of gamebooks in the 80s and 90s that eventually, companies started making spin off gamebooks of their products.  There were gamebooks based on boardgames, gamebooks based on toys, gamebooks based on TV shows, gamebooks based on comics and gamebooks based on computer games so since Sonic the Hedgehog was such an icon to children everywhere in the 90s that it was only a matter of time before he also got his own gamebook series.

There are six Sonic the Hedgehog books written by various authors.  Stormin' Sonic, the sixth and final book in the series was written by Jonathan Green and Marc Gascoigne.  I never played Sonic when I was a little 'un (cue tales of woe involving working twenty seven hours a day down pit) but I wanted to see what I had missed out on.

One interesting thought I had about this book and all gamebooks based on a tie in to an existing product is how much of it is dictated by the product's existing rules and story.  For example, did Jonathan and Marc have to make Robotnik the enemy, include characters from the game and base the game rules on rules from the computer game?  And do such things change a gamebook for the better or for the worse?  I would like to hear peoples' thoughts on this.

Theme 3/5

The weather on Miobius has gone nuts and you need to set it right.  The perpetrator is Robotnik (obviously) and you need to travel to different zones on the planet to collect clues in order to track down your arch enemy and stop him.  This plot invloves the theft of a chaos emerald and the inevitable appearance of Knuckles the echidna and the inexplicable kidnapping of Sally Acorn only to have her disappear just after she is rescued.  I'm sure a weather based story is almost inevitable in any long running adventure series or cartoon series (I'm talking about TV film and games, not just gamebooks) so it is not the most original of themes.  However, the four areas that Sonic and Tails explore are pretty fun with many opportunities for cool things to happen.


An interesting side note is that I think I'm starting to see how certain authors' ideas evolve.  The basic story of Stormin' Sonic is that a crazy individual has created a flying machine crewed by mechanical creatures in order to control the weather and take over large areas of land or even the entire world.  The hero has to explore four areas in order to obtain the means to defeat his opponent by getting on board his ship, defeating him in combat and then trying to excape from the ship before it is destroyed.  Does that remind you of any other gamebooks?

Illustration 2/5

 The many simple, cartoonish illustrations give me the impression that this book is aimed at younger readers; maybe pre-teens.  They are serviceable, pleasant to look at and do not have too many details.

Gameplay 2/5


After an introductory scene where Sonic finds out what is going on, we then move onto a hub where we choose one of four places to go. Once we have enough clues, we can then go on to save Sally Acorn and defeat Robotnik.  This then leads to the final scenario where we face Robotnik and his minions.  Most of the branches lead of to an area where you could get some rings and then return to the main path.  This makes the book quite linear as most of the choices revolve around how you will fight enemies as you will probably have to go to all of the locations anyway, your only choice is in which order you do so.  There is also an annoying section where if you have found Sally Acorn's scarf, you drop everything and end up in the final area without the option of exploring other places.  This caused me to lose my first play through, so I made sure that I went in another direction.

There are also a few occasions where Sonic will not let you take a certain course of action despite you choosing it.  These choices involve you being particularly cowardly.  If you choose them, Sonic will scold you and do the thing you didn't choose to do.  The idea behind this was probably to have someone kids look up to tell them how they should act and to make sure that they don't do naughty things like leave their best friend to roll down a mountain in a giant snowball or teleport back home before you have sorted out Robotnik.  The effectiveness of such a program of moral instruction has yet to be determined.

Who can resist the lure of the
mystery box?

One thing that I liked amongst the options was the occasional option to try 'something else' to overcome the problem.  Intrigued by this option, I had to choose the 'something else' option every time - the mystery box of gamebooks.  I was not disappointed, especially when the option involved Sonic and Tails putting on an ice skating display to impress some robotniks.


Exposition 3/5

The writing sees to be aimed at pre teens and the language takes me back to the 90s.  I'm sure that I would have enjoyed it more as an 11 year old Sonic fan, the targeted audience for this book.  Marc Gascoigne and Jonathan Green write conversationally, informally and sometimes break the fourth wall in order to connect with the reader.  Here is a paragraph from the book to highlight the writing.

As they plod through the sandy wastes, Sonic and Tails suddenly spy on the horizon a large pyramid built from stone blocks.  'Woah!' Sonic exclaims 'Where on Mobius did that come from?'


'I don't know,' Tails admits 'but let's go and explore it.  We might find the treasure of the fairies!'


'That's "Pharaohs" you dweeb!' Sonic sighs.  Should the pair act on Tails' suggestion (turn to 137) or keep on moving (turn to 113).


'Dweeb' is a very 90s kids' word and many others show up in the book such as 'dude' and 'cool' which are used in non ironic ways.


Rules 4/5

The rules system is very simple, has some nice exposition with it and is quite fair.

Sonic's stats are speed, strength, agility, coolness, quick wits and good looks.  You can allocate one of these stats a value of 5, one a value of 4, one a value of 3 and the others a value of 2.  Tasks and combats are resolved in a similar fashion - roll on die and add it to the stat that the book states.  If it is equal to or greater than a difficulty stated in the book (set between 6 and 10) then you succeed.  If not, something bad happens.

In the case of combat, your opponent will have a rating.  If you get equal to or higher than the rating, you beat your opponent.  If you don't, they can take a swing at you by rolling one die and adding it to their rating.  If they obtain a score of higher than 10 you will lose all of your rings or a life (just like in the game).

I found most of the die rolls to be fair and the consequences of failing are never huge.  The worst thing that can happen is that you lose all of your rings or a life.  You start with one of three lives and you may be able to gain more of them if you find one or if you get 100 rings.  There are a couple of instant deaths but they occur at the end of the book if you have not fulfilled all of the tasks.  This means that, with the correct choices and a little luck in combat, you should be able to make it through the book with a minimum of cheating (or even no cheating).

Total - 14/25


I found Stormin' Sonic to be a fine gamebook that hasn't aged well in terms of language and theme.  I may think this because I never was a huge Sonic the Hedgehog player and I am now a lot older than the target audience.  The gaming side of the book is fine with some great scenarios and good use of the rules.  However, the gameplay experience will not differ too much between plays as you will still have to explore every area - the main choice is the order.  In tiger terms, I think the word leftovers is a good way to describe Stormin' Sonic - it would have been perceived as much better by a Sonic the Hedgehog fan in the 90s but it hasn't aged well and so it has gone from being a decent snack to leftovers.

Have your own Extra-Terrestrial Adventure by Douglas Hill

The genres of science-fiction and gamebooks have always been something of an odd couple. Fighting Fantasy flirted with sci-fi on and off during its early run before terminating the relationship following the enigmatic Sky Lord, and the only series to really make a fist of it was Mark Smith and Jamie Thomson’s Dr Who-esque Falcon sequence that finished after just six books. This mismatch is even odder when you consider the glut of youth science-fiction being published at the time (presumably riding the Star Wars wave), and one of the leading exponents of this genre was Canadian author Douglas Hill, with his Last Legionary, Huntsman and Colsec series. At some point however, Douglas was obviously encouraged by Sparrow Books to hitch up to the burgeoning gamebook bandwagon of the early eighties, and the result was the solitary though intriguing Have your own Extra-Terrestrial Adventure (henceforth: HYOETA). This erudite tome was traded around my Year Six classroom in Hong Kong with some alacrity, so having acquired a copy for the reasonable sum of A$2.50 over the Christmas holidays, I was keen to wallow in nostalgia and revisit those days of yore.

Theme - 4/5

In HYOETA, you the humble reader play the role of Del Curb, interplanetary investigator and an amusing amalgam of Sam Spade, James Bond, and The Stainless Steel Rat, with the extravagant sartorial leanings of Cugel the Clever thrown in for good measure. Don’t believe me? Check this out:

That day I was wearing a canary yellow, one-piece suit, trimmed in terra cotta and sky blue at the collar, shoulders and wrists. My belt and boots, made of the multi-coloured hide of a Frygian sand-dragon, were almost conservative. As for the rings on my fingers, the jewelled pendant around my neck and the jewelled headband that held back my hair, they were modest compared to the decorations of most city folk.

(Hill, 1983, p. 6)

Del Curb is clearly the main man! He’s also the man the Federation Police (Earth Division) turn to when they need an unofficial ‘splat job’ carried out on one of the planets that form the Federated Human Worlds.

The intended target for this attempted capture/terminaton is an alien (or “exter”) called Rimeq the Renegade:

He came originally from a distant planet, Kalgor. There he had joined a vicious terrorist gang and begun to prey upon his own world, which gave him his nickname, the Renegade. Later he moved on, to look for new prey on other exter worlds and in the Human Federation. Interplanetary criminal, terrorist, mass murderer – that was Rimeq. He was probably insane, and was certainly the most savage, bloodthirsty killer the galaxy had ever known, who had left a trail of slaughter and destruction across hundreds of planets.

Rimeq was a humanoid exter – that is, he had the same number of arms and legs and heads and so on as humans have. But really he was a monster, and was said to be a mutant. He was big and powerful, with a scaly, mottled, purplish hide as thick as armour. He had claws like steel hooks, fangs like daggers, and red eyes set deep in dark sockets that glowed like torches in haunted caverns. He looked like the demons that ancient Earth people used to believe in. And maybe he was, not just because of his bloodthirsty ways, but because of his other powers. For Rimeq had an eerie mental ability, like dark magic. He could grasp and move physical objects with his mind...

            (Hill, 1983, p. 7)



Cover by Ian Craig (from Hill, 1982a)


Rimeq the Renegade has developed a nullity bomb and will use it to destroy Earth, unless given his own personal planet to rule. You, as Del Curb, have two days to scour the galaxy (or maybe just two planets in the galaxy), and stop him! Dare you accept the challenge?

Immersion -3/5

I like the cover by some unfortunately nameless science-fiction artist, and while it’s very typical of science-fiction art from the late 70s to early 80s period, it has nothing at all to do with the adventure itself. Inside the book there is no artwork, but the immersive quality of the writing more than makes up for this. You start with a choice of two planets to explore in your search for Rimeq: a swamp planet called Hallipor, which bears more than a passing resemblance to Dagobah, or the free world of Xyry, whose capital, the Labyrinth, appears like a giant version of Mos Eisley. In fact, Hill is an imaginative writer, and the story is replete with strange alien creatures, explosive weaponry, and barbaric exter mercenaries. A brief sampling:

‘The man who killed the spymaster of Aldebaran, and trapped the kidnappers of the Callitee princess?’

(Hill, 1983, p. 5)

For a while I wandered slowly through [the gambling den], acting like a tourist, placing a few small bets – one on a fight between two toad-like Myterean tree-killers, another on a race among tiny, hundred-legged crustaceans from Korbel III.

(Hill, 1983, p. 19)

Five problems, in fact – five exter guards, ranging from a squat, metal-skinned Brygonian to a spidery, ten-limbed thing from Dree.

(Hill, 1983, p. 83)

Gameplay - 2/5

The structure of HYOETA is that of simple branching chapters, with two only onwards choices per chapter. No chapter revisits an older one, so that essentially it forms a continuously branching narrative, albeit a fairly short one. There are nineteen chapters in total, of which ten chapters are final endings, though all are successful. As a result, while the different endings detract from the overall story-consistency, within each chosen narrative is a short but gripping and internally consistent yarn. Where this scores over a similar style in The Forces of Krill, is that there are no wrong choices and thus no ‘Gotcha!’ mentality common to other gamebooks. In addition, the variety of endings can only contribute positively to replay value as you return to this book to try out all the other choices (and their consequences) that you could have made.



Cover by Terry Oakes (from Hill, 1982b)



 

 Exposition - 5/5

Even though, or perhaps because this is self-labelled as Children’s Fiction, I find the writing in this book to be superb. It’s a perfect blend of science fiction and film noir, and has a looser feel to it that Hill’s more serious proper fiction. One might say HYOETA is over the top and tongue in cheek, but it’s also imaginative, fun, and the sort of cracking read that makes you go back and read through all the other options. If you’re thinking of writing a science-fiction themed gamebook, you couldn’t do worse than scan this book see what you should be aiming at in terms of the power of your prose.

A sample:

I had spent a quiet morning fiddling with my new miniature therm-grenade. It had cost more than I could afford, but it was worth it. Though it could turn an ordinary room into a charred ruin, it was small enough to be set into a ring, like a jewel. And that’s where I carried it – along with several other rings – which were only a few of the mini-weapons scattered about my person.

It’s not that I’m a violent man. I’m more of a careful man. In my line of work, I find that it’s usually other people who get violent. So I like to be ready for anything, any time...

(Hill, 1983, p. 5)

Rules - 1/5

There are no rules for HYOETA, thus garnering it the minimum score of 1. This is a bit of a shame, because the writing is so good it makes you feel like bolting on the Fighting Fantasy rules from Starship Traveller, (and padding out the choices), which would make it a million times better than that book ever was.

Total: 15/25

Have your own Extra-Terrestrial Adventure is a great story hampered by both brevity and lack of a decent rules system that would have bred suspense and added to the narrative. Its final ranking of ‘Decent Snack’ reflects this premise adequately, and if you have any interest in science-fiction gamebooks, the works of Douglas Hill, or the quirky approaches that gamebooks took in their early Golden Age, you should check this out. It’s difficult to find on eBay, although BookFinder and Amazon (UK) seem to stock a fair few cheap copies. My tip (and this is how I came by my copy over the Christmas break), is possibly only valid for Commonwealth countries with good second-hand bookshops: basically, wander into any such emporium and look for Douglas Hill books in either the science-fiction or children’s fiction sections. If you find one, buy it, as it’s definitely worth a read!

References

 

Hill, D. (Editor) (1982a). Alien worlds. London: Pan Books.
Hill, D. (1982b). Young legionary. London: Pan Books.
Hill, D. (1983). Have your own extra-terrestrial adventure. London: Sparrow Books.

Resurrection of the Dead by Alexander Ballingall

Today, I'll be turning my eye on Resurrection of the Dead, a 200 paragraph adventure written and illustrated by Alexander Ballingall which first appeared in the first Fighting Fantazine magazine back in September 2009.  If you do not know about or have not read Fighting Fantazine, then I urge you to do so now.  Not just number 1, but all of them.

As well as writing Fighting Fantasy adventures, Alex is the founder, editor of and contributor to Fighting Fantazine, writer of its blog and is also the founder a massive contributor to (thankyou, Paltogue) Titannica, the Fighting Fantasy wiki.  He is also a prominent contributor to the unofficial Fighting Fantasy forum and the Titan Rebuilding yahoo group .

In Resurrection of the Dead, you are a retired adventurer turned merchant who returns home to hear of strange goings on which have driven your friend, Karl, mad.  Your investigations uncover plenty of foul deeds as you have to inspect every corner of the town from the monastery to the thieves' guild to the heath.  The solution is elusive and it will take a few goes to work out the correct path to victory or even work out what you need to do to achieve victory, making the adventure a satisfying challenge.

Theme

The setting for this book the Old World where some familiar sorcery may make an appearance. The adventure takes place in a town with undead crawling around in the darker, more hidden corners.  It is not safe to just wander around.  There are plenty of characters to interact with from monks to thieves (Vannix 'sticky fingers' gets a shout out here for helpfulness and having an amusing nickname).  Alex has a very in depth knowledge of the Old World (who knew about the Dryaden race?) and there a plenty of Titan references in the book.

4/5

Illustration

Alex has included illustrations from full page pictures to small pictures between paragraphs.  The illustrations are clear and cover the essential elements of the creature or item that appears in the picture.  I particularly like the flesh golem.

3/5

Gameplay

The book provides you with plenty of options and plenty of places to explore.  There are also a few secret places which you need to discover in order to achieve victory.  You also need to pay careful attention to the information that people give to you as it will help you win.

I enjoyed the challenge of working out how to win, but there are a few unavoidable difficult combats for anyone who does not have a skill of 11+, especially since you do not start with a weapon.  There is also a fight with the six parts of a living corpse which can get tedious as they all have low skills and you have to roll a die to see which one you hit rather than choose your target.  That battle could go on for some time.  There might be some 'ignore the combat' activity needed to actually get to the final paragraph.

3/5

Exposition


The descriptions and the interactions are good and well thought out.  Most of the characters in the book see you as a merchant and treat you with disdain for your investigations, especially since you have no weapon to start with.  There are some good details dropped in (Titan references and the relationships between yourself and the other characters).

4/5

Rules

The rules are the standard Fighting Fantasy rules - you have skill, stamina and luck and provisions restore 4 stamina points.  If you fight unarmed, you have a -3 penalty to skill.  You will have a character ready in seconds.  There are no other scores to keep track of or instructions that involve you rolling lots of dice.  Everything is nice and straightforward.

3/5

Total 17/25

Resurrection of the Dead is an engaging and challenging adventure written by someone who knows Fighting Fantasy like the back of their hand.  You may need to fudge a few dice rolls to finally win, but it is satisfying to work out what the path to victory actually is.  In tiger terms, there is plenty here to get your teeth into, but some of the bits might be too tough to chew up without some help (i.e the combats) so they might need to be skipped.

Zork 1: The Forces of Krill by S. Eric Meretzky

 

Zork 1: The Forces of Krill by S. Eric Meretzky is the first in a series of three Zork Adventures published by Puffin Books in 1984 under license from Infocom (and published earlier in 1983 in the USA by Tom Doherty). Curiously, there is absolutely no overt mention that the book is based on a successful series of text adventure computer games. Being an avid player of the initial Zork trilogy I knew this link however, but for some reason never deigned to play these gamebooks when they came out. Partly then, this review is an attempt to find out why I avoided Zork Adventures in favour of other series when I was younger...

Theme - 2/5

In essence, two kids from our world find the Sword of Zork in the bushes behind their school and are transported to the land of Frobozz, now under attack by the armies of the uber-bad Krill. To defeat the forces of evil they must locate the three Spheres of Power, which, curiously, are called Palantirs inside the book. This Palantir reference highlights other LOTR influences, such as the names Aragain and Ellron, but makes them look somewhat incongruous alongside Zork stalwarts such as Frobozz and Dimwit Flathead. There are plenty of references to Zork 1, including “an ancient sword of Elvish workmanship”, “a battery-powered brass lantern”, and even “a white boarded up house in a large clearing in the woods” and a fragment of “the Great Underground Empire”, both of which you get to explore. There’s also a couple of chances to be devoured by grues (though a text description of them remains elusive, as per Jack Vance’s original creatures), and, thanks to the anti-cheat section on page 124, I now know the Patron God of Decision Novels (and presumably Gamebooks) is Vindictus, who has the power to reach out of a gamebook and turn all cheaters into hideous toads (hasn’t happened to me yet!).

What gnomes look like in the world of Zork

Illustrations - 2/5

I like the cover illustration by Phil Parks, but it’s completely wrong: Krill is some sort of inhuman demon, not a human wizard; and his sophisticated saurian guards are at odds with the brutal drooling lizard creatures frequently encountered inside the book. Paul Van Munching’s internal art isn’t as good as his awesome-sounding name, and for example, on pages 67 and 76 we get Bilbo Baggins the Hobbit instead of a generic anonymous gnome. Page 57 frustratingly reneges on the promise of showing us what grues actually look like, although this is made up for by the cool map on page 61, which includes “Known Grue Lairs”! 

Gameplay - 1/5

The structure of The Forces of Krill is that of simple branching paragraphs, usually with only two choices. One choice almost always leads to some variation of hideous instant death, but this is leavened by providing the reader with a points score out of ten rating their progress so far, and an invitation to return to the page where they last screwed up and try the other choice. A couple of times there are very broad, heavily-telegraphed hints as to a future choice you must make. Curiously, on one of the few pages you get to make three choices, one option is instant death (forewarned by a hint), one option is technically correct (but wrong if you choose it immediately), and the final choice shifts to a scenario only knowable by those who have actually played the Zork 1 text adventure game.

A map of the Great Underground Empire

 Exposition - 2/5

The writing is serviceable and workman-like but offers no indication the author would later hook-up with no less a talent than Douglas Adams himself to write the Infocom text adventure version of The Hitch-hikers’ Guide to the Galaxy. In particular, the segue from school kids Bill and June into fantasy peasants Bivotar and Juranda is handled weirdly and abruptly, begging the question whether the tenuous link between Zork and the real world was ever really necessary. In addition, some sections look like they have been copied verbatim from the Zork 1 text adventure. While this does provide a certain joy of recognition, it also results in strange info-dumps, as when Juranda says: “It’s supposed to be the greatest engineering feat in the history of the Great Underground Empire, designed by Lord Dimwit Flathead himself”, when there’s no possible way she could know this unless her alter ego June was putting in the hard yards playing Zork 1 at home.

Rules - 1/5

There’s no rules system to speak of, though at a couple of points you are asked if you possess certain items. One of these leads to the previously mentioned anti-cheat section at page 124. Page 88 shows you four different buttons for controlling Flood Control Dam #3 but doesn’t do anything as radical as actually letting you choose which one(s) to press.

These are buttons but you can't choose which one to press.

Total 8/25

Not quite leftovers but better than carrion, The Forces of Krill is really only of interest to the serious gamebook historian or collector, or if you have a soft spot for the old Zork adventure games. Certainly, I won’t be actively seeking out subsequent adventures in the series, such as The Malifestro Quest or The Cavern of Doom, but if I saw them going cheap in a second-hand book shop I’d probably buy them just to check if they could improve on The Forces of Krill. I can however see why my younger self never read them beyond a brief scan, and, unfortunately, it’s because they’re not very good.

Carrion? Leftovers? Pah! Make up your mind!