Fighting Fantasy
November 29th 2006 08:22
The 'Fighting Fantasy' books were a series of interactive novels put together by Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone in the 1980s. More Dungeons-and-Dragons styled role-playing than the more simplistic 'Choose Your Own Adventure' books, they featured a complexity of subplots and decisions that have seldom been matched in the interactive-book genre. Taking their cue from their source of inspiration, these books also utilised dice and notekeeping as part of the 'Fighting Fantasy' experience.
The series was kicked off by Ian Livingstone and Steve Jackson back in 1982. They wrote the first few books, most of which were of the medieval-styled realm of monsters scenario, and featured magic and sorcerors and thieve-guilds and all that sort of stuff. As the series progressed, more writers were added to the roster, including another Steve Jackson, Andrew Chapman, Peter Darvill-Evans and a whole host of other writers. Most of the books featured 400 seperate entries, and dice were often used to represent 'fighting' ala Dungeons-and-Dragons whenever you came up against a monster or some dude wanting to fight you in the novel. You also needed a pencil and some paper to keep track of your stamina, skill level, backpack contents and other things along those lines.
Forty or so of the sixty books in the series are set in the fantasy realm of Titan (the aforementioned medieval-styled monsters scenario) and feature all sorts of diabolical creatures and villains. A handful of the other books are set in a more science-fiction styled scenario - futuristic worlds of robots and cyborgs and spaceships and aliens. One book is set in a superhero-styled environment ('Appointment with F.E.A.R.'), and another is a more horror-styled piece set on modern-day Earth ('House of Hell').
Put simply, these books rule. They're incredibly nerdy, but they're a lot of fun too if you're a kid stuck indoors on a rainy day. I used to get them from my local library and I think I've played/read more than half of them. My favourites were probably ‘Crypt of the Sorcerer’ (the first one I read), ‘Deathtrap Dungeon’ (cause it had such a cool cover, hahaha) and ‘Scorpion Swamp’ (ingeniously, in this one you got to choose what kind of character you were).
The series is undergoing a bit of a revival at the moment, with some of the older titles getting re-released along with some new ones getting released too.
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Comment by Adrian
Philosophy Blog
I have the vague suspicion, also, that while in classic D&