THE GATES OF DEATH
Charlie Higson
Reviewed by Mark Lain
Attendees of
Fighting Fantasy Fest 2 in September 2017 were given the surprise news of the
first FF book to be written by a genuine celebrity in the form of Charlie
Higson. Accompanying this was the news that he was a long-term FF fan, a
comment which immediately seemed to make no sense when he said he was too old
for the books the first time around, followed by him then listing a handful of titles
that he owned, one of which, Creature Of
Chaos, does not exist. Alarm bells started ringing in my head at this point
and they then rang even louder when we were told that Jonathan Green would be
helping Higson out with the mechanics. None of this especially suggested that
CH had much of a knowledge of FF or rather, certainly not enough to try to
write a FF book (unassisted, at least). But, the dangling carrot of another new
book in the series was more than enough to get fandom excited by this
announcement and there is no question of Higson’s credentials as a successful
writer of books aimed at FF’s actual target audience so his pedigree in
literary terms made this project look very hopeful. Much speculation then
followed on the subject of how the “Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone Presents”
tag would work with someone far more famous (in real terms) than them. This,
mixed with Scholastic’s almost certainly wanting to make the most of the Higson
name, meant that there was little surprise when the standard naming convention
applied to third party FF authors’ books was finally relinquished and CH was
given cover author credit. Had the series finally sold out? Well, in real
terms, probably yes as no-one else ever got cover credit, but in practical
terms Scholastic really had little choice but to do this so it’s understandable
even if it breaks with FF tradition in the name of celebrity. Such is life.
Another
striking observation worth pointing out about the marketing of this book is the
colour. Scholastic’s versions of FF have gold spines - the first six were like
this and the subsequent five new reissues to accompany Higson’s book also had
gold spines albeit slightly different in appearance to the initial six – but
the Higson book is silver. This is bad news for anyone whose OCD precludes
oddities on bookshelves, but good news for anyone trying to find the new book
quickly in bookstores and, again, demonstrates how determined Scholastic are to
push the Higson credit. Thankfully, unlike the first six reissues, the silver
cover print does not disintegrate on contact with human skin so credit to
Scholastic for heeding at least one of the numerous criticisms levelled against
their reissues.
Which brings
us again to the biggest controversy and criticism of Scholastic’s series and
one which we will get over with first: Vlado Krizan’s internal art. When this
first saw the light of day in The Port Of
Peril and the reissues of The Warlock
Of Firetop Mountain and City Of
Thieves it was justifiably panned by FF fans. His uninspiring greyscale
pallet made the images seem dull and lifeless, whilst his semi-digital
inorganic forms were emaciated and cartoonish. Any sense of awe or terror was
gone entirely and the whole ensemble of art was amateurish and uninspired.
Replacing familiar and popular art by Russ Nicholson and Iain McCaig with this
insipid rubbish was a travesty, and this problem carried over into The Port Of Peril as it featured
familiar species, locales, and key NPCs that had all been drawn better in
previous iterations and that the fan’s eye had become familiar with. Curiously,
the subsequent reissues of The Forest Of
Doom and The Citadel Of Chaos did
not fare as badly art-wise because in these two cases Krizan seemed to have
just traced Russ Nicholson and Malcolm Barter’s original art and added a bit of
boring greyscale and jagged digitalisation to it resulting in what was
essentially just a bad photocopy of the originals rather than a crime against
good taste. House Of Hell’s
Krizanisation (new verb, copyright me) was somewhere between the two, but was
still fundamentally poor in comparison to the original art. So, the subject of
the art in The Gates Of Death is
curious: on the one hand, it’s back to Krizan original material a la The Port Of Peril but, other than in
Port Blacksand, most of the actual subject matter is new Higson creations and
this book relies less on familiar tropes than PoP generally did, notwithstanding its over-reliance on demons.
This should allow VK to let his imagination run wild and really give him the
opportunity to demonstrate what he can do with a (ahem) blank canvas. To be
fair to him, his portfolio of sci-fi and battleship art online is actually very
good, albeit that battleships are normally shades of grey (which suits him down
to the ground) and his sci-fi stuff is colour which does not suffer as much as
black and white does when large blocks of colour are used. So Krizan is not as
talentless as people make out, there’s just something not quite right with his
FF art. We all love the original artwork so he was never going to win there but
this new book goes into unknown territory with no yardstick to compare the
images to. It’s a depressing observation to have to make now then that Krizan’s
art in TGoD is just as bad as that in
the first three Scholastic books and has the same lack of inspiration, awe, and
evidence of ability in fantasy artistry that made the art in the earlier
Scholastic books such anathema for the eyes. Supposedly, Krizan was given a
ridiculously tight deadline to turn the art around for the series in general
but surely he could have done better than this…. Surely?
With that out
of the way, let’s move swiftly onto the content of the (literally) shiny new
offering from FF and its injection of new blood with its first new author since
1993. The plot is fairly straightforward: the Demon Queen Ulrakaah is the
latest in the sequence of psychos who wants to wipe out Titan, this time with a
demon plague. YOU are a novice monk engaged to stop this happening with the use
of the hard-to-get-your-head-around-the-idea-of substance known as Smoke Oil
(??) which turns demons back into normal people. Throughout the book you encounter people who transform from people into demons
which fits the concept of how Smoke Oil works, but overall this idea doesn’t
seem to make sense unless we accept the book’s repeated premise of people being
transformed into demons being by possession presumably. YOU have to trek across
Allansia, initially via familiar places from FF lore (Port Blacksand,
Silverton, Salamonis, Plane Of Bones) to eventually reach new places invented
for this book (the Invisible City which contains the Temple of Throth and the
Gates Of Death themselves). This is an interesting approach as the overall feel
of the book progresses from great familiarity to completely unknown territory
which does give it a sense of unfolding mystery and foreboding. Port Blacksand
can be negotiated by two mutually distinct routes and can bring you into
contact with either Nicodemus again or very nearly has you meet the enigmatic and
elusive Lord Azzur (who you don’t actually come face to face with as such which
was a partial disappointment balanced out with the intriguing revelation that
he sees, hears and speaks through conduits). From there you have a choice of
routes to Salamonis (one via Silverton, the other via a more treacherous open
environment) before heading off into uncharted new territory as you try to find
the Invisible City and breach the titular Gates Of Death to get to Ulrakaah
herself. Silverton is nothing more than a one-note opportunity to heal lost
Stamina and we learn nothing new about Silverton itself by going there. Indeed,
it is sold very short in the same way that Port Blacksand was in Port Of Peril which is a shame.
Salamonis is a whole other prospect though and, as it’s nearer to the source of
the demon plague, it is in a rather more advanced state of infestation.
Essentially, the Salamonis section is a labyrinth of interconnecting (and
mostly anonymous) roads that lead eventually to its gates at compass points.
The literal killer here is trying to negotiate the city, find a NPC who can
sell you useful equipment/advice, and avoid repeatedly dying by falling foul of
demons, in particular by ending up in their purple demon dimension. Certain
locations are deadly (the sewers in particular) and some of the city gates are
red herrings that, again, will scupper you. The looping interconnecting roads
within the city are a game-mapper’s nightmare and the feeling of disorientation
as you try to get out safely is very much to the fore, making this section both
effective and oddly hopeless in the sense of your chances of survival.
At this
juncture, we need to discuss a mechanic that dominates this book – the looping
nature of its design. Not only does the Salamonis map loop all over the place,
but so does much of the book. If you die, more often than not you can use one
of several methods of reincarnation to then get hurled back to a previous point
in the book (or occasionally a future one, which is quite confusing).
Initially, this seems unusually forgiving for FF (which it is) and removes the
demoralising experience of endlessly restarting the book only to fail again in
a similar place to a previous attempt (especially as the Salamonis section is deceptively
hard), but it becomes just as frustrating after a while as being sent back to
relive previous stages is no less tedious than having to just start again from
the beginning. Indeed the sheer amount of reincarnating, looping back,
returning to a fail point, looping back again, and eventually going around in
endless circles does quickly become annoying and quite boring and repetitive. It
does take a certain amount of determination and willpower on the player’s
behalf to get beyond the Salamonis section and I suspect many players will grow
so frustrated with this part that they will eventually just give up. There are
only so many times you can re-read previous parts of the book before you get
fed up with it and, whilst reincarnating creates the illusion of fairness, aimlessly
wandering about in Salamonis’ deathtrap becomes inane after a while.
However, if
you do manage to escape Salamonis, the rest of the adventure is far more
interesting and, once you’ve found (revealed) the Invisible City, you get to
explore the ethereal and genuinely mystical-feeling Temple Of Throth which
gives you useful equipment and info before you try to access Ulrakaah’s lair.
This is the most original and well-designed act of the book and rewards your
persistence in the earlier sections with a genuinely enjoyable and intriguing
episode. Indeed, everything previous to the Invisible City is fairly
lacklustre. The final showdown with Ulrakaah is easily one of the most
climactic end boss encounters in any FF book and goes some to make the rest of
the adventure worthwhile. My favourite element is the way you have to die to
pass into the demon plain and inhabit another character’s body there. To do
this you fight the Obsidian Giants and, should you have some weakwater, you are
almost certain to lose the fight which, perversely, means you win the fight as
you need to die to progress. This is a refreshing idea which provides a neat
twist on the usual “hero that has to win all of the time theme” that is central
to most fantasy adventuring. The book repeatedly bangs on about you needing to
be “pure of heart” to pass through the Gates Of Death and, presumably by dying,
you demonstrate this. Ulrakaah is physically massive and genuinely intimidating
and unleashes the (at first sight) absolute toughest and most unwinnable FF
fight ever upon you: a Demon Horde of Skill 400 Stamina 800. Obviously there is
no way that you can even attempt this fight in real terms, but, by using
various magical seeds that you have picked up in the Temple Of Throth (or
should have!), you can exponentially reduce both the Skill and the Stamina of
the horde down to a much more manageable level. Ulrakaah herself is not
especially strong for an end baddie (Sk 10 St 10) and it’s impossible not to
have the key weapon you need to kill her (a khopesh) as there are two in the
book and the second one is wedged in the gates themselves so you cannot help
but acquire it. Interestingly, there is a non-win ending that you can find here
too where you become Ulrakaah’s successor and continue her work. This section
is number 400 which is very meta. The real win section is 470 which also shows
us how comparatively long this book is in paragraph terms, although the optimum
path is not actually very long so much of these sections must be used up in the
Salamonis labyrinth and the multiple interconnecting paths within the Temple Of
Throth.
The Demon
Horde fight (and the Salamonis deathloop) raises an interesting point about
this book: the difficulty level. At face value, given how labyrinthine
Salamonis is, how seemingly impossible the end showdown is, and the number of
items and information that you need to win through at the end, this book should
be very hard. However, with the constant reincarnating, the multiple paths
through (pre-Salamonis, that is), and the sheer amount of helpful items (seeds and
potions in particular) that you can collect, in reality this book is very easy
once you’ve cracked its looping design and realised that coming back to life
can be advantageous as it gets you the chance to visit other areas and get more
than enough stuff to win through with. There are loads of opportunities to find
potions (and there are many different potions, mostly linked to reincarnation
or negotiating demons easily), Luck tests are rare, there are umpteen Stamina
bonuses, there are three types of handy magic boots, instant deaths are very
rare, it is possible to revisit certain sections in the Temple area endlessly
to get huge numbers of items you need for the end fight, and you can collect so
many different weapons with various different properties and damage indicators
that you should hardly be able to move for the weight of them. None of the (infrequent)
fights (most of which are with curiously weak-ish demons) are difficult and
several are avoidable one way or another, especially if you start experimenting
with potions and/or smoke oil. It is possible to move quickly through the
opening section by accepting an offer of help from Lady Webspinn (a goth name
if ever there was one) and you can also travel on horseback at one stage which
makes things move faster. The sheer amount of help you can get in the Temple Of
Throth knowledge base section becomes overwhelming and definitely convinces you
that, by this point, you have a good chance of winning. This balances neatly
with the tedium and apparent hopelessness of endless death loops in Salamonis
and makes the book feel more balanced difficulty-wise for anyone who is totally
demoralised by the Salamonis section. Once you have explored the book as a
whole it is obvious that this is generally a very easy book to finish, it’s the
exploring it all part that could take you some time and experimentation. There
is no central maguffin to find as such, it just tests your tolerance levels due
to the underlying looping structure, which is both a blessing (less dying all
the time) and a curse (repetitively going around in excruciating circles).
There is no true path to speak of due to all the loops, but there is an optimum
path that gets you to the Invisible City very quickly. You can negotiate
Salamonis in about ten sections once you’ve worked out how to and, if you
listen to all the advice you are given throughout the book by helpful NPCs, you
will find that (like The Port Of Peril
before it) all the potentially tricky parts are signposted to make them simple
to get through. The Invisible City is non-linear although some areas will need
to be visited before others and you can visit and revisit each part an infinite
number of times so you will not struggle here. There is a huge amount of info
to gather in the Temple but none of it actually affects your chances of
success. It simply adds lots of plot extemporisation and contextualises what is
happening by bombarding you with background detail to make the plot nice and
logical.
As well as
the looping design, the other feature of this book that quickly comes to the
fore and won’t leave you in a hurry is the tone of Higson’s writing. This book
reads less like a gamebook and more like a modern style children’s story book,
what with its use of words like “bum”, “burp”, “wee” and “fart” (none of which
suit the tone of serious adventuring), repeated use of corny jokes (Fish Face
is a NPC who has the face of a fish, Holy Man is full of holes, there is an
essential item called “bier goggles” which allow you to see the Invisible City
whilst riding on a bier), potions are named things like “Nostalgia” (sends you
back to a previous point) and “Pretty as a Picture” (beautifies a foe)… the
list goes on. Not only is this reducing the player’s ability to take this book
seriously, it is also far too explicitly obvious in terms of how to
use/negotiate these moments. (I have a feeling the Nostalgia Potion might be a
dig at aging fandom too, but I could be wrong.) There is a much bigger problem
here though and that is that none of this fits into FF lore. Potions in FF have
a distinct naming convention, as do NPCs, etc and awkward comedy and
overly-obvious signposting does not sit well in my opinion. I found the humour
puerile and at odds with FF, and the revised approach to certain aspects of
lore sets this book aside from the rest. The initial sections where you visit
familiar places do indeed create familiarity (which is welcome) but the overall
idiom is not in keeping with FF and is out of context. As for the bum-faced
monster, this alone is the single worst moment in any FF ever and also seems to
serve no purpose at all other than to add yet another pathetic attempt at humour.
I have to acknowledge there are many neat nods to continuity such as meeting a
Clawbeast in Trolltooth Pass, finding a demonised King Salamon in Salamonis,
the Nicodemus/Lord Azzur cameos, etc, and there is a nice nod to cartographer
Steve Luxton, but I have a suspicion these could be Jon Green edits given how
oblivious to the whole scene Higson seemed to be at FFF2. On the subject of
JG’s “help” it is hard to guess exactly what the extent of this was but the
mechanics combat-wise seem very FF (as do all the adjustors/new rules listed in
the back for combat with different weapons, which do add some realism to fights)
and the name Lady Webspinn in particular has a very Green-ish feel to it as
does the description of the bier goggles which is clearly a pair of steampunk
goggles, but I’m just conjecturing of course. And, incidentally, is the Fish of
a Thousand Voices a reference to the Babelfish in Hitch-Hiker’s Guide To The Galaxy? If it is, fair enough, it just
occurred to me that this was a possible popular culture link worth mentioning.
Who wrote/designed what and where inspiration comes from is ultimately near
here nor there really, there is a much bigger underlying problem with how this
book is written and that is that, stylistically and prosaically, Higson is
completely out of his depth with serious fantasy (I’m sure he thinks having
Logaan set your pants on fire for lying is hilarious but, in the context of
serious fantasy, it is not!) For sure, there are some design elements that work
very well in this book and someone (Jon Green or whoever, with more
gamebook-writing skill than Higson, did any post-manuscript edits) has done
some of the necessary work to make it function but much of the awful Higson
pre-teen burp and fart prose remains and overshadows the decent aspects of the
content. Also, I cannot resist, as a lifelong Prince fan, from commenting on
the paraphrasing of the lyrics to Purple
Rain in section 200: doubtless Higson thinks this is hilarious but it is at
best cute and at worst desperate, and, again, is jarring random new lore that
is at odds with everything else we know about the FF world. On the plus side,
it does explain why the dimension portals in Salamonis are purple!
Much of the
negative focus on Scholastic’s FF range has been directed at Vlado Krizan’s
internal art, but Robert Ball’s new covers also inspired a mixed reaction from
fans. The second sextet of Scholastic FFs does not have full page cover art.
Instead these books have a cropped image within a circle. The small image of
Ulrakaah’s face on the cover of The Gates
Of Death is suitably evil-looking and I personally find it effective but,
having seen the full-sized version, I would have much preferred the latter
image on the cover as it is far more threatening and shows her as the truly
awe-inspiring baddie that she is. Instead, Charlie Higson’s name seems to be
the star of the cover, rather than the Demon Queen herself. I guess it’s all
about marketing the celebrity name rather than the content of the book and
there is nothing we can do about this. Whilst on the subject of Scholastic and
their handling of the series, as with the earlier books, this book is printed
on poor quality paper with the fake smudges and scorch marks that made the first
six books look so shoddy.
We must be
grateful that, decades down the line, the series is still open to adding new
authors to its ranks. In the modern day cult of celebrity, a well-known name is
a necessary evil to shift units and Higson does at least have the target audience
pedigree. Sadly, as a gamebook writer he appears to have no idea what he is
doing and has taken a concept with huge potential and turned it into an only
half-decent novel written for a 21st Century pre-teen. There is a
wealth of strong material in here (and the optimum path will reveal it to far
better effect than bumbling around endlessly trying to navigate the loops and
dead ends) but it is muddied and overshadowed by the bad jokes, flippant
oh-so-hip writing style and the excessive number of system loops. The end is by
far the best part and shows the true potential of the book (although I think
you can finish it without any smoke oil if you don’t bother visiting the High
Priestess in the Temple, which is a major error, and it assumes you know who
Lady Webspinn is whether you have met her or not), assuming, that is, that you
can be bothered to endure the looping parts long enough to ever reach it. It
does not suffer from the rushed travelogue and no-real-choices-as-such
linearity of The Port Of Peril and
the plot is far more involving and original than PoP. I found myself getting bored in the Salamonis maze but was
glad that I got through it and persevered to the last act. The opening part is
nice in its familiarity but it does not really amount to much and just seems to
ultimately be a bridge to create some cohesion with PoP. My biggest gripe is Higson’s awful writing (especially his
backside fixation) and some of his lore does not mesh with “accepted” FF lore. I enjoyed The
Gates Of Death more than, and it is definitely better than, PoP but its problems generally outweigh
its moments of quality. A playthrough of the optimum path (without all the
asides and loops) reveals the quality of its central premise and concepts (and
also how easy it is to win), but most playthroughs will almost certainly
involve getting tangled-up in its irritating webs. If it had been written by a
more capable and accomplished gamebook author - and had far more editing
afterwards to make it fit better with cannon (the naming conventions of potions
in particular) and to remove a few glaring errors - this could have been really
good but, as it stands, it’s just okay and I doubt many people will revisit it
once they have completed it, especially as you will have even found most of its
alternate paths in one endlessly looping and increasingly frustrating
night-after-night playthrough. Overall, this was a missed opportunity where
your focus is unavoidably drawn from its good points (plot, concept, intrigue,
excellent final act) to what Higson really wants you to experience (the
resurrection mechanics, his terrible idea of hilarity) and what he
unintentionally causes you to experience (his lack of ability at writing a
serious gamebook). The good parts are very good, the bad parts (which, due to
them heavily outweighing the good, are what you will remember) are terrible.
