#16: Seas Of Blood

 SEAS OF BLOOD

Andrew Chapman

Reviewed by Mark Lain

Number 16 in the original series is one of only two FFs where you get to play an out-and-out baddie (along with Midnight Rogue where you’re less bad and more just vaguely shady.) It is also one of only two pirate-themed FFs ever released (the other being the many-years-in-limbo Bloodbones.) Andrew Chapman was fairly prolific in the teens era of the series, giving us #12 Space Assassin, #15 The Rings Of Kether and this effort all in very short succession. The quality of his output was sadly very inconsistent, but there was a noticeable improvement from book to book: Space Assassin was terrible, The Rings Of Kether was adequate, but Seas Of Blood was actually really good. Perhaps Chapman realised this as at this point he then stopped writing FFs for good (other than a co-writing credit in the 2-player offering Clash Of The Princes.) Incidentally, to avoid any awkward silences he didn’t die suddenly, I’ve checked J

There is much to relish in your portrayal of a pirate captain who has engaged in a wager with his rival (the colourfully named Abdul The Butcher) to decide who is king of the pirates (although that does awkwardly now remind me of Aardman’s The Pirates in An Adventure with Scientists, which could reduce this book’s credibility slightly nowadays!) You both have a limited time in which to sail around the Inland Sea, plundering, murdering and robbing to gather as much gold and slaves as possible. Whoever has the most when you reach the far end is the winner. So the premise is pretty simple really, which works well and is a nice respite from the usual FF fare of either assassinating a megalomaniac who’s threatening the world or going through some hideous experience or other to acquire untold wealth and fame. To help accentuate the difference between the individual YOU and the YOU that has a big ship and a crew, two new stats (Crew Strike ie Skill and Crew Strength ie Stamina) are introduced. New stats are always a mixed-bag but, unlike some other attempts at crews (the dismal and unnecessarily long-winded effort in Starship Traveller springs to mind), this one is well-handled. There are many skirmishes with other ships and/or bunches of people and, although most of these are fairly difficult, you do get the feeling of a tough inter-crew battle which is pretty accurate as you wouldn’t expect this to be over in three dice rolls. You also can’t escape unless you win an Attack Round (again, logical, as you’d collectively need the upper hand overall, rather than it just being YOU that’s running off.) To add a sense of urgency there is a Log feature as well where you keep track of how long you have been travelling for – another logical inclusion as you are on a schedule here! If you exceed the number of days agreed with Abdul you lose regardless (more good plot logic.) Some extra rules have been added as well to deal with time being a healer and also with strengthening your depleted crew. Capturing slaves increases your Crew Strength and you personally can regain 1 point of lost Stamina per day of travelling. Again, these are further logical inclusions and are, again, welcome.

Whilst the fairly simple plot is executed effectively, there are a few issues that seem at odds with the overall well thought-out construction:

• ·         Primarily, if you have been plying these seas and making a nuisance of yourself in them for years how come a) you don’t seem to know what there is anywhere and b) no-one seems to know who you are (or has everyone who ever met you ended up dead)?
• ·         Less jarring, but also fairly evident is that there seems to be a time dilation effect depending on which direction you go in or what verb is describing your way of moving. For example, heading one way up a river takes ages, but going the other is really fast (unless of course the current is incredibly strong in one direction, maybe?) Likewise, “speeding” towards Nippur takes twice as long as just generally going there!
• ·         No matter which direction you go in and how many times you zigzag across the Inland Sea, you never seem to run into Abdul and his crew. What route exactly does he take then? Is he watching where YOU go and deliberately going the other way or something? Or does he just head straight for the really rich pickings and then spend a few days R&R somewhere? It would be nice to be able to do some taunting and even plunder each other along the way as that would really add some extra urgency to the game.
• ·         Occasionally, there are some moments that just don’t seem to make sense, in particular an assault on a monastery where you are made to change your mind about torching it with flaming arrows only for your “over-zealous” (and presumably fairly disobedient) crew to burn it down anyway destroying all its booty in the process (or is this an admonishment for attacking a monastery?....er, which a nasty pirate wouldn’t really be bothered about in moral terms) and a Roc’s nest that seems to contain the entrance to a dungeon (that has no dead clumsy baby Rocs in it that would presumably have slid into it at some point surely?)

Given the subject matter (and the fact that pirates are presumably unwelcome in most places), the difficulty level is fairly high in this book, both in the combat/encounter sense and in the unpleasant instant deaths sense (and many of them are pretty unpleasant.) There are c.40 instant death paragraphs in this book, in other words 10% of it is trying to kill you! You are especially penalised for exploring. Given that most FF players will want to take some risks and will enjoy guessing what might be good and bad situations to get in, this book is pretty harsh on bravery. Combat-wise, you will need a very high (11 or 12 preferably) Crew Strike to stand a chance in ship-to-ship combat situations which is, unusually for the harder FFs, very suitable here as fighting other pirates and trained navies is not going to be easy (most ships encountered have Crew Strike 9 or 10.) The fact that some tough combats yield hardly any booty adds to the difficulty and the fact that you need to choose wisely before engaging other ships. There is even a point where you can literally find yourself in the middle of a warzone which is very hard to escape from and, again, this really does make sense. To add to the difficulty, the true path is very tight and exploring often gets you nowhere as many diversions are exactly that – diversions that send you on a wild goose chase up a river etc and gain you nothing. As time is of the essence this could be another deliberate feature but it does kind of take away the whole idea of an adventure. The real killer comes in a triple-wammy at the end where you need to have four winds on your side, followed by a hand-to-hand fight with a Cyclops and finally the discovery that your (seemingly) huge amount of booty gets divided in half for the final count-off with Abdul himself. In one way you can feel pretty cheated by this at the end but, on the other hand, it does show you that you need to seek out the true path and gather a vast amount of gold (800+ gps to be exact.)

Initially, it appears that you have quite a variety of routes to take, which seems interesting and varied, but multiple playing will show just how linear this adventure really is and also just how much of it is pointless diversion and red herrings (rather like House Of Hell.) This means you can learn from replaying and gradually discover the optimum route so there is lots of playability on offer here. Add to that the genuine satisfaction gained from playing a baddie, some interesting side-missions, the general fun of bataar racing (Steve Jackson would approve!) and this book’s (overall) well-designed structure, and this makes for a generally really good FF.

There is one real tour-de-force sequence in this book which is not well-written but is brilliantly designed: the battle with the Cyclops. Rather than a straight FF combat, you have to choose where to strike the Cyclops over numerous blows and there is a real skill to it, rather than just slashing with your sword/rolling the dice. This sequence covers around 30 paragraphs and is reminiscent of the car chase in Chapman’s The Rings Of Kether. Chapman seems very fond of these long set-pieces and should perhaps have been a film director instead, as his ideas and execution are better than his writing abilities.

Indeed, the only real problems with this book are peripheral rather than any faults in the game itself. Chapman’s writing is typically terse and, at times, lacking in colour and detail. The atmosphere is created more from your being a pirate and the premise of the game, rather than from the text, which is fairly barren in places. Chapman’s snappy approach worked in The Rings Of Kether as it added a hard-boiled aspect, whilst his frankly dull atmosphere-less prose in FF#12 all but ruined Space Assassin. In Seas Of Blood it just about gets away with it as your attention is elsewhere. The endings are genuine let-downs and make you wonder why you bothered turning to them – whether you win or lose you only get two sentences that amount to little more than either “You lose. Ha ha” or “You win. Hurrah.” (but actually phrased worse than that!) The other big problem is Bob Harvey’s art which I really do not like. Granted it is better here than in Talisman Of Death, having a slightly sun-drenched “bright” feel to it that adds a Treasure Island­-ish effect, but it is still too “Arabian Nights” in feel and does not seem to be fantasy art. If anything, Harvey’s art looks more like semi-serious history to me that detracts from the theme of this book. The cover is far better and has real menace to it, even if a) the seas of blood themselves aren’t red and b) the hydra is nowhere near that big when you meet it. Incidentally, this and Robot Commando both have the number and Fighting Fantasy lettering in black on the cover instead of the usual white – I have no idea why!

Overall I really like this book and have played it many many times without ever getting bored of it. Its strengths carry it through and do well to overcome its odd parts and bad writing/artwork. Wizard Books haven’t re-issued any of Andrew Chapman’s FFs, but this must surely be the one that most deserves a re-issue as it is genuinely good.

The Trolltooth Wars

THE TROLLTOOTH WARS

Steve Jackson

Reviewed by Mark Lain

I have to admit that when this first came out I approached the concept of a “Fighting Fantasy Novel” with some scepticism. The whole idea of a FF book is that it’s “Part-Novel, Part-Game in which YOU are the hero”. This offering is 100% novel, no part game, and someone else is the hero. So in that sense it kind of defeats the object of it’s being FF really. However, if you can get your head around the idea that this is a concerted effort to expand on the FF folklore that was assembled in Titan – The Fighting Fantasy World, and not a shameless cash-in for Puffin at the height of FF’s success, then there is definitely some value in the creation of a FF Novel series. Steve Jackson was always trying to expand the boundaries of FF as a franchise so he was the most likely person to pen the first FF novel of which there were, eventually, only seven – three featuring Chadda Darkmane and four about Zagor. In keeping with the FF gamebooks, SJ wrote the first, then SJ and IL executive produced the rest that were written by various other interested parties.

As this is a Jackson effort, the key NPCs are Jackson creations, Balthus Dire (from The Citadel Of Chaos) and Zharradan Marr (from Creature Of Havoc), with supporting roles for Jackson/Livingstone’s Zagor (from The Warlock Of Firetop Mountain) and Livingstone’s cartoonish Yaztromo (who we first met in The Forest Of Doom and who then turned-up ad nauseum in various other FFs.) Many of the creatures lean towards the more outlandish and original Jackson types (rhino-men, ganjees, calacorms, soulless ones, etc) with the usual inclusion of some fantasy standards (goblins, orcs, etc) which makes this feel like a very Jackson-esque effort. SJ’s prose was always well written in his FFs and that is the case here too and his tendency to include some dark humour also shows through (Ian Livingstone’s FF writing always felt more serious in tone) which is welcome and keeps it interesting for the reader.

Much has been said in reviews about the inconsistency or sheer ludicrousness of FF plots. The fact that traditional FF is a game makes this less annoying, but this would never work in a story book. Thankfully, SJ manages to create a logical and well fleshed-out storyline that flows nicely and makes perfect sense. The added bonus of this being a story book means that it is possible to develop the urgency of the plot by having multiple threads running simultaneously to eventually meet together further into the story (eg: the story often switches between Dire’s, Marr’s, and Darkmane’s activities) – this would be impossible in a FF gamebook because, by definition, YOU can only know what has happened and/or is happening to YOU (unless you’re psychic or something.) The plot revolves around possession of a herb called cunnelwort that allows you to go on little forays into the spiritworld (LSD then basically?) Whoever has this power can become the most powerful sorcerer on Titan so Marr and Dire both want it. Marr has already got it (but can’t really use it properly otherwise he would already be Sorceror #1 presumably), so Dire’s minions attack a caravan transporting some and steal it. This upsets Marr and very soon a war breaks out between their two forces. Dire uses the usual collection of bizarre vivisects that anyone who has played The Citadel Of Chaos will be familiar with, whilst Marr’s army consists largely of his unholy experiments with gormless zombie-type things. The main protagonist enters the fray in the form of Chadda Darkmane (the YOU of the piece, in fact), an adventurer from Salamonis who is keen to increase his Amanour (which is best described as a kind of publically-acknowledged kudos or the adventurer’s equivalent of well-publicised sexual virility) so he gets hired by the King of Salamonis to meddle in the war and make sure Salamonis does not get invaded. It soon becomes apparent to Chadda that he can make his task easier by visiting the third of Allansia’s evil sorcerers (Zagor) and asking him for help. So, long story short, Dire and Marr are at war, whilst Chadda visits a few towns and then plays The Warlock Of Firetop Mountain but with the aim of making friends with Zagor rather than nicking his treasure. Needless to say, Chadda acquires a couple of hangers-on along the way, both of whom in traditional FF companion style eventually end up dead, so no surprises there. It is worth noting as well that once again Jackson cannot resist referencing Greek mythology when it turns out that the entire story is just the Gods playing a game to relieve their boredom and personally I really liked this very unexpected ending.

Much of the enjoyment of this book comes from its exposition of the FF world. There is a really nice background to the Dire family early on in the book, the role played by the ganjees makes sense of how they came to be living with Balthus Dire in The Citadel Of Chaos, Zharradan Marr is revealed as even more despotic than he appears in Creature Of Havoc, and Zagor is actually quite sympathetic by comparison and we can see why he buried himself so deep inside Firetop Mountain to get a bit of peace within the microcosm of his own impenetrable domain. A few areas of illogicality in FF gamebooks are explained along the way (eg: why the keys to Zagor’s treasure chest are scattered around Firetop Mountain’s dungeon) and we get to visit one of the bizarre novelty towns in Allansia (Shazaar) which gives SJ a chance to be playful as he often is in his FF books. There is a very interesting section where we are introduced to the ganjees’ mortal enemies (the sorq), so they’re not totally indestructible after all or, at the very least, they do appear to have a nemesis. There are a few small downsides to the FFxploitation in this book, but they are mostly harmless – the similes in particular are often laboured and seem a little smug (smelling like a skunkbear, etc etc) and Darkmane’s annoying Chervah sidekick is a sort of hyper-superstitious version of the equally-irritating Gronk in 2000AD’s Strontium Dog stories.

If there is one area of confusion it would be where this story is supposed to fit into the FF story arc. The gamebooks do tend to have a coherent flow with sequels and prequels along the way etc. Given that Balthus Dire is still alive, this book must come before FF #2 The Citadel Of Chaos. The presence of Marr is more confusing as he gets trapped in his own dimension in FF #24 Creature Of Havoc and gets trapped again in The Trolltooth Wars when Darkmane smashes the mirror he likes to hide in – unless he has a lot of mirrors with pan-dimensional properties, this is fairly hard to explain. Zagor still being alive is less problematic as he keeps reincarnating anyway (albeit in a kind of Frankenstein’s monster way) so the jury is out in that sense, but he does still have his treasure so, logically, this would also sit before FF #1 The Warlock Of Firetop Mountain. Other aspects of Firetop Mountain suggest this as well – the iron cyclops still has its jewelled eye, the minotaur in the Maze of Zagor is still alive, the keys to Zagor’s treasure chest are still where you find them in WOFM, etc.

There is a certain assumption, in the way this book is written, that the reader is familiar with Titan and the FF world, but I can accept this as it is fairly unlikely that anyone would read this book without having a prior knowledge of FF. The attraction of a FF novel would stem from liking the gamebooks, so this does make sense. There is also an assumption that the reader has completed The Warlock Of Firetop Mountain as Darkmane’s trawl through Firetop Mountain is full of spoilers that will tell you how to find the true path (in terms of items, at least) through Firetop Mountain. In particular, where to find Zagor’s keys and what his two weaknesses are (the eye of the Cyclops and his deck of cards) are given away here.

In a clever bid to make this 100% novel FF book more acceptable to FF fans, key moments are punctuated with internal art by Russ Nicholson. This is especially astute as Nicholson’s images of Zagor and Balthus Dire are used several times which adds coherence with the gamebooks. As ever, Nicholson’s art is really good throughout and his particularly beady-eyed and ugly goblin/orc art is as good here as it is in any other FF he has drawn. Again, this adds a nice linking feature to the gamebooks.

There is one aspect of this book that rarely appears in FF gamebooks. The gamebooks rarely show much empathy plot-wise as any “human” element is supposed to come from YOU, the player. As the immersive-ness of the adventure being “yours” is not present when Darkmane is experiencing what there is to be experienced, the reader's sympathies are gained in other ways here and SJ handles this very well in his writing. Of particular note are Balthus Dire’s initial cunnelwort trip which is a bit overwhelming even for a sorcerer of his experience/evil-ness (you really get a sense of how the spiritworld really ought to be left alone by mortals) and the real highlight of Jackson’s writing comes in the attack on the village of Covan (again, from Creature Of Havoc and presumably fully re-populated by the time FF # 24 enters the story arc) which is genuinely harrowing in the way it is written from the perspective of one family.

All things considered, there are hardly any negative points to this book. The fact that it manages to act as a compliment to the gamebooks (assuming you can figure out where it sits in the “history” of Titan) is a credit to how well it is written and there is definitely some fun to be had in the diversion of watching someone else having to go through what YOU would normally be up against in a standard FF gamebook. There are no dull points, there are many exciting and/or disturbing points and the book bounces along very well. It’s very easy to read 100 pages of it in one short sitting without even realising how much of it you’ve just read - surely that has to be the sign of an enjoyable novel... The FF novels have never been re-issued and definitely deserve another chance assuming they can still find an audience.

The Lord Of Shadow Keep

THE LORD OF SHADOW KEEP

Oliver Johnson

Reviewed by Mark Lain

Originally planned (and advertised) as number 13 in the original FF cycle, this book instead surfaced as number 3 in the rival Golden Dragon Fantasy Gamebooks series published by Granada. From what I can establish, this was commissioned by Puffin and was entirely intended for the FF series, when Johnson suddenly turned traitor and the book was released by Golden Dragon instead without Puffin even knowing this was going to happen! Forget the eventually released Bloodbones, this book was totally lost to FF as it NEVER appeared in the FF series and is far less known and talked about than Bloodbones. If it wasn’t for it being listed as a forthcoming book in early editions of Sorcery! this book would probably have passed by all but the most inquiring of FF fans and collectors.

Rather appropriately, treachery is exactly the subject matter of this adventure. The premise revolves around YOU being a member of the Imperial Guard of King Valafor (Richard I?) who has gone on crusade against some (presumably heretical if it’s a crusade?) goblins. He left his supposedly nice brother Averok (King John?) as Regent, but, as is often the case, Averok soon turned despotic and sadistic under the influence of the thoroughly unsavoury Arkayn Darkrobe (one of the most cringeworthy baddie names of any FF ever), so it’s your job to hunt Mr Darkrobe down in his castle (the Shadow Keep of the title) and rid the land of Lalassa of him, thus allowing nice old King Valafor to be restored so everyone can live happily ever after. Oh, and Darkrobe is a vampire by the way... and so is Averok... not that you ever actually meet Averok. So, plot-wise, this is pretty much the usual FF standard fall-back idea of hunt down and kill the baddie who is threatening life as we know it. Sounds like it would have fitted in perfectly in the FF series so far then!

The plot as you play is very linear as you travel from your hometown, through a forest, across a plain, and then into Shadow Keep itself (which is basically akin to the Black Tower in Citadel Of Chaos, I suppose.) There is only one true path and there are rarely many options to digress from it other than to go either left or right, or select a staircase or door out of two or three, all of which will eventually lead to the same place, followed by another set of supposed “choices” that eventually lead to the same next place, and so on, so, again, this is pretty much a standard FF trek followed by a dungeon trawl, followed by ascending a tower. As it is largely set in a tower and you are likely to want to get to it quickly, in this case, linearity makes sense and, as with COC, once you’re ascending the tower, the likelihood of digression will be minimal by definition. So this is acceptable, if a little restrictive in terms of having a choice of where to go next. All in all, the plot here is very logical with no bizarre digressions and it does feel like it flows and makes sense as you play through it. The further into the Keep you go, the more undead you meet, until you encounter a mass of hungry ghouls in a dining hall and/or a group of dapper vampires, followed by the big man himself. Darkrobe’s minions are milling about the place trying to protect their master and there are a few comedy encounters such as a Lizard Man with a lisp who seems to be straight out of PG Wodehouse, a somnambulist witch, and an unusually sympathetic ogre. There is a courtyard to negotiate before you get into the keep, as well as a Ghoul who demands a password, and the ghost of Darkrobe’s deceased ex-wife (all very similar to Citadel Of Chaos then, really.)

Again, as with COC, there aren’t an awful lot of items that you need to collect but, those that you do need, are totally essential (although you’re given the most important one in the introduction before you’ve even started!) Also, just like COC, there are a lot of instant death paragraphs (nearly 10% of the entire book in fact), especially once you’re in the Keep itself, which does make for a pretty tough adventure. To make it even harder, you need a very high Psi stat to stand any chance of mentally coming to terms with the Keep’s inhabitants (Vault Of The Vampire would employ the similar stat of Faith, House Of Hell used Fear, and Beneath Nightmare Castle handled this as Willpower, to name but a few of the plethora of different approaches to this idea.) Add to this the fact that you also need a decent Agility score otherwise you have no hope in Skill or Luck test-equivalent situations, plus a very high Vigour stat to survive the many Stamina-reducing happenings, and you get a book that cannot be won without superhumanly-high attributes (so Ian Livingstone would have approved, then!)

To make this book even harder, combats are handled in a manner that completely disregards any evidence of your being a battle-trained imperial guard. Basically, each combat scenario is different, but many are pretty weighted against you. You throw two dice and then check to see what the outcome is. Some combats lead to instant death if you roll a 2, most are just either you or the enemy taking damage, but some have very different results dependant on the number rolled. In some cases, a higher roll can cause severe damage to either you or your foe. For example, if you still have the magic ring from the introduction section you can potentially inflict 10 points of damage to Darkrobe in one hit. Conversely, if you attempt to attack him outright as soon as you meet him you instantly take 15 points of Vigour damage (meaning you are almost certainly dead, I’d have thought.) If Agility is basically a mixture of Skill and Luck, and Vigour is Stamina this would be equivalent to losing 15 points of Stamina which would surely be the highest damage taken in one move by you in any FF book ever. Whilst it emphasises the importance of the magical ring, it also gives you basically no chance of winning without it so killing you outright would have seemed fairer (and is hardly rare in the final showdown situation in most FFs.)

So, the plot is logical if very linear by necessity and there is no ridiculously-long Livingstone-style shopping list, which are good things. There is also a really nice long introduction that sets the scene very effectively. On the flip-side, stat-wise this book is very tough and combats can be very unfair at times, as can the number of instant deaths (which some might view as a challenge in line with Citadel Of Chaos again, so this is both a plus and a minus really), although overall this book does veer in the overly-difficult direction a lot of the time.

The most interesting thing about this book, and part of the real intrigue in playing it, is seeing how it would have functioned as a FF book had Oliver Johnson not stabbed Puffin and FF in the back at the last minute. The mechanics of FF have been smoothly switched to use the Golden Dragon system and, notwithstanding moments like the grossly unreasonable 15 Vigour (Stamina) point penalty, it would work well using either set of rules (although Psi would need an equivalent new attribute inventing, but that’s hardly unusual in FF.) It would be worth getting hold of the FF manuscript (if it even still exists) just to see how the 15 Vigour point loss was meant to work in Stamina points and also how the many special attacks of various encounters would have been handled. Would this book have fallen into the trap of using practically nothing but “Specials”? – if so, it would have seemed a bit unbalanced, unless the justification would be that only “Specials” can survive in the Keep, which you could argue would make sense. I found it a bit odd that you can meet two different lycanthrope species in short succession but there are none after these so we can overlook this (after all, this isn’t Howl Of The Werewolf.) Using FF’s combat system would resolve the combat problems above, so maybe this book was forced down the combat unfairness route mentioned before when it was converted into a Golden Dragon offering. Equally of note is the length (or lack, thereof) of this book: at only 300 paragraphs, it is standard for Golden Dragon, but would leave you feeling very short-changed if a FF had only 300 entries. I can’t help thinking that this did start out with the usual 400 sections as there are parts of its construction that seem edited and there’s a cut-and-shut feel to it. For example, some paragraphs send you to others on the facing page or within a dozen or so sections either way which does make it a bit easy to cheat as you can see what’s coming without having to use multiple fingers to mark save points. A more frustrating result of this suspected editing is that most of the illustrations are on the wrong pages and footnotes have been inserted to make you look at the previous page’s picture (or the next page’s one.) This makes it seem disjointed in places. Furthermore, there is a section where, if you go a certain way, you can find yourself in a labyrinth. These are usually not good places to be in FF books as anyone who has spent hours endlessly wandering around Warlock Of Firetop Mountain’s Maze Of Zagor will understand. The labyrinth in TLOSK ends as soon as it begins. Basically, in you go, find a minotaur immediately, and then out you go again. Even if you get “lost” you get straight back out easily. Either a lot of the (presumably) removed paragraphs related to the labyrinth or Johnson needs to look the word “labyrinth” up in a Dictionary! Either way, this part of the book was frankly pathetic and might just as well have been excised completely. Also, where, in a Keep, would you find room for a maze anyway? This is pretty much the only illogical aspect of this book but, as it’s mostly non-existent, you’d hardly notice! Also of note is the switching of location – Allansia is thinly-veiled and re-worded as Lalassa and there are numerous references to the Icewrack Hills (a corruption of Icefinger Mountains and Moonstone Hills maybe?)

The real let-down in this book is Leo Hartas’ artwork. The illustrations are almost cartoon-ish and rarely rise above the semi-comical. Only the picture of Darkrobe’s dead wife has any oomph to it and you certainly don’t get the impression of an imposing and terrifyingly evil environment.

A counter-balance to the generally unsuitable art is Oliver Johnson’s text. Descriptions are lengthy and generally thorough and the scene is set well, especially in numerous colourful descriptions of direction-taking options (eg: stairs with blood on them vs stairs with red ribbon on them vs plain old stairs.) This adds a nice sense of foreboding and manages your expectations as a reader pretty well. Some of the instant deaths feel a bit curt and unsatisfying, but most are well-written and are far from the, for example, Luke Sharp-style “You are dead, so there” type that can be a major anti-climax.

All things considered, this is an entertaining, if short, adventure and you certainly don’t feel you’ve wasted your time by playing it. Yes, the labyrinth is a contradiction in terms, the art is hardly worth bothering with, and it’s very very hard, but overall (in a 400-section full FF version with the stats properly factored) it could well have been one of the better entries into the very uneven “teens” part of the series (ie numbers 11 thru 19) and would certainly have been better than the eventual number 13 we received (Ian Livingstone’s only Sci-Fi effort, the Mad Max rip-off Freeway Fighter.)

#28: Phantoms Of Fear

PHANTOMS OF FEAR

Robin Waterfield

Reviewed by Mark Lain

Number 28 in the original series has to be one of the most ambitious FFs ever in terms of structure and construction, and it must have been a major undertaking to keep track of the reality-dream cross-overs when writing it which are key to the book’s narrative. You play a wood elf shaman (one of the rare FFs where you are a non-human character) and you even have a name, which is very unusual for FF as you are normally, well, you! The plot revolves around your beloved Affen Forest being under threat from the pestilence caused by the appearance of the Demon Ishtra who is, unsurprisingly for FF, the latest candidate to destroy all of Titan and you have to save the world (nothing new there then.) What is very different about this FF is that you can switch (at will in the second part of the book) between the real world and your shamanic dream world where, in the first half, you can have visions of the future and/or of important bits of information that can help in your quest, and in the second half you can actually move freely through a dreamworld version of the playing environment.

The actual plot itself is split into two distinct parts as noted above. The first half is an info/equipment gathering roam through the still healthy part of Affen Forest. The second half is a trawl through an underworld dungeon as you make your way through Ishtra’s demonic domain under the diseased and unpleasant part of the forest and eventually track him down in his lair. Part one is fairly generic forest-set FF fare with relatively few perils along the way. You must regularly eat (which is realistic) otherwise you lose Stamina in your exhaustion and you can choose to sleep along the way and dream to gain information from your visions. As you progress, the forest becomes an increasingly less green and pleasant place and the creatures become more agitated, aggressive and/or warped as you approach the entrance to Ishtra’s domain. This is all very logical and flows nicely. Part two is where the real cleverness and ambition of Waterfield’s book becomes apparent. Once you enter Ishtra’s domain you have the option to be in either the real world or your own dreamworld and you can even switch between the two as you wish. This is both a blessing and a curse as the dreamworld part is very hard to map due its often abstract dreamlike nature and lack of continuity (as you’d expect in a dream, so kudos to RW for that.) The real world version is basically a large maze and if you map this then play through the dreamworld version you can begin to get an idea of how it links together. Trying to map the dreamworld alone would be practically impossible without a template to follow and the plot can become very confused if you decide to switch between both worlds randomly - you will soon have no idea where you are and can end up repeatedly visiting the same area over and over if you are not careful. But it also makes things more interesting and disturbing if you do opt to keep switching (plus sometimes you have to to avoid dying.) This means there is much scope for re-playability as you discover how the real world and dreamworld versions link together and it really does feel like a bizarre nightmare which is one of this book’s real plus-points. Additionally, depending on whether you finally decide to face Ishtra in the dreamworld or the real world, there are two possible versions of the final showdown with two different outcomes which adds even more replay possibilities. There is also a nice continuity feature where a group of dark elves that you despatch in part one get mentioned in part two as they haven’t come back from a food raiding mission so you will do as an alternative meal.

To emphasize the dream/reality element, this book introduces a new attribute and new attributes are always a mixed bag. Your Power score is your ability to cope in the dreamworld and to deal with the intensity of your visions. The higher the power, the more screwed-up are the visions you can cope with, along with having the mental fortitude to deal with the final battle with Ishtra. The more helpful dreams you have, the higher your Power becomes (there is no upper Initial limit to your Power), and defeating enemies in dreamworld combats also adds to your Power. Conversely, losing dreamworld battles will decrease your Power. With the exception of the final dream-reality mish-mash battles it is not possible to die if you lose a dreamworld combat, so this is realistic as well as you can snap out of a dream when it becomes particularly nasty for you by simply waking up. The dreamworld combat system itself is a problem as it is always weighted in favour of your foe – if you throw 2-7 on 2 die your opponent wins the round, but you must throw 8-12 for you to win a round. Thus the tougher opponents are practically impossible to defeat in dream combat unless you are incredibly lucky or have loaded dice! A higher Power score can also make you very lucky in certain situations (indeed the Luck attribute itself is relatively underused in this book, which is unusual) and you can make progress through the dreamworld far simpler and faster, helping you to avoid some of the more ramblingly bizarre parts of Ishtra’s dream dungeon. Indeed if you choose to fight Ishtra in the dreamworld there is very little need to really explore much (assuming you have a high enough Power score to actually do this) as items are not needed. Fighting Ishtra in the real world requires a lot of magical items with numbers on them, some of which are very hard to find – this could be deliberate to emphasise that this book is meant to be won in your dreams as you are, after all, a visionary shaman, so this could be another good bit of game design and does allow for variety rather than the usual FF trick of forcing you down one particular linear route.

... And that’s another neat feature of this adventure. Granted there is some linearity, but overall this book does allow for a lot of exploration, particularly in the second part. The first part does let you roam about in the forest to an extent, but persistently going in the wrong direction results in being turned around and pointed in the right direction which does remedy the problem of potentially aimless wandering around the forest looking at trees, getting hungry, and dreaming about impending doom, which would become dull after a while and slow the plot down. Part two of the book gives you, for the most part, almost total freedom to explore the underground maze. A few key stages will force you to take a certain path (as the other one “looks dangerous”, apparently) but this works in the same way as in part one and allows you to discover previously unknown parts of the dungeon rather than boring you with repetition (and the dreaded FF reset button, of course.)

There is a schizophrenic nature to how difficulty is handled in this book, but this could actually be intentional to emphasise the difference between the nice foresty part and the demonic underworld. Plus you would expect the book to grow more difficult as you near your goal – I hate FFs that kill you on the third turn of a page and this certainly does not happen in POF. The first part of the book is fairly easy with very few chances to die. The encounters in the forest are very logical and appropriate forest-dwelling creatures of various sizes from an angry mob of nut-protecting squirrels through to various boars, bears, etc. Enemy stats are very well thought-out with most creatures having low Skills (as most of them defend on instinct and have no fighting abilities as such other than thrashing about with claws or tusks, etc) and fairly high Staminas (as they are mostly pretty big and strong.) There is one fairly tough puzzle to contend with in the fairy glade at the end of section one but you don’t feel very clever once you’ve solved it even though it has probably taken you ages to do so. If you can’t solve it, you’re trapped forever so you have to get it right unless you cheat, but the answer is a low number and it won’t take you long to find the correct paragraph! Part two is far tougher with many instant deaths, a few based on failed Luck tests, but most relying on arbitrary dice throws. Whilst this does give the feeling of a lethal demonic underworld it is also pretty unfair and is akin to the more unreasonably hard FFs (Chasms Of Malice takes the failed arbitrary dice roll = death dichotomy to ridiculous extremes.) But at least it acts as a counter-balance to the fairly easy forest part of the book and avoids accusations of this FF being too easy, which it most certainly is not. The second to last showdown (with Ishtra’s side-kick Morpheus) starts hard as you have to face three increasingly stronger dream foes, but the actual dream showdowns with Morpheus and Ishtra are fairly easy by comparison with other dream combats in this book. However, the challenge at this last stage is to actually have accrued a high enough Power score to even be able to face fighting them full stop, plus surviving the many encounters with Ishtra’s Orc workforce and his various sneaky traps is not easy so you will have done well to get to the end. You have to employ common sense and/or ingenuity to survive some encounters, particularly the dining hall, so this is welcome in my opinion. The biggest criticism to level against the difficulty is an area of six doors where you have to roll dice to determine which door to open – one leads to instant death, another holds a potentially important item (if you’re planning on taking Ishtra on in the real world or have no choice due to a low Power score.) You are allowed to keep going until you’ve visited all five of the non-death rooms but this can take a while as you have to throw a double of a given number to be able to enter a given room. Yes, this removes linearity, but it also becomes tedious and you will probably give up after a few rooms due to the amount of dice rolling you have to do (if you’re still alive, of course.) To parallel the fairy glade in part one, there is an incredibly difficult area of the dreamworld where you are forced to undertake the Trial Of Ghosts. Whilst this is not impossible (contrary to what many reviewers have said), it is certainly incredibly difficult and will most likely result in your death. Again, you are at the mercy of a dice roll which makes this even harder/more unfair. I have never actually ended up having to play the Trial Of Ghosts so it is clearly avoidable, but I have looked at its entry (paragraph 309) and the solution is pretty mind-boggling. The creature encounters (mostly Orc and Lizard Man guards) in the second part are tougher in terms of Skill than part one, but not generally as physically strong which adds another welcome element of logic.

A sign of a good FF is originality and/or location-suitability of the monsters you encounter. POF handles this aspect very well. The forest is largely full of forest animals of various sizes (mostly stupid and instinctively defensive), with a few humanoid encounters thrown in, but not so many as to make it seem like Affen Forest is a major thoroughfare of some kind. You can meet a nutcase (who is actually a retired adventurer who gave up after getting stuck in the Maze Of Zagor) and make him be your companion (who, as this is FF, dies shortly afterwards, of course, but in the process takes some of the battle attention off you in a particularly gruelling combat with six dark elves), (unsurprisingly) six dark elves who you don’t like because you’re a nice wholesome wood elf, a lost and terrified travelling family cowering under their caravan, and a unique creature called a Weevilman which is a sort of social outcast human-beetle cross-breed that was apparently hounded from the towns and took refuge in the forest (this is a good feature as well as rarely do you get an actual contextual description of a creature in a FF.) In the underworld dungeon there are several creatures that are unique including a Drake (a dreamworld dragon basically), some Prowlers (mutant abominations created by Ishtra), and an Angaroc (a dreamworld-dwelling hairy lizard-spider thing with some very tough special skills.) Just like Zagor in The Warlock Of Firetop Mountain, Ishtra employs a lot of Orcs to guard him, and there’s even an unhinged Chaotic Orc to contend with.

The inclusion of the ex-adventurer is a neat feature that links this book to the overall body of FF works nicely and there are other links too: the fairies who challenge you in their glade work for The Riddling Reaver, and one of your dreams features the ever-present wizard Yaztromo (although you don’t know who he is or what Allansia is.) I always like to see FFs cross-linked as it creates a feeling of continuity and coherence across the series.

The Yaztromo dream is not the only connection with Y’s first ever FF appearance in The Forest Of Doom. There is another subtler relationship with FOD, that being the totally unsuccessful incorporation of magic into POF. In FOD, Yaztromo sells you a selection of utterly useless magical objects at the start of the adventure. In POF, you are allowed to use a few basic spells. However, use of spells reduces your all-important Power score and you cannot use any magic in the second part of the book as you are told that Ishtra’s underworld is protected by an anti-magic barrier of some sort. Plus, you cannot use magic in dreams, which kind of takes away most of the point of it even being in this adventure. It would have been easier just not to bother making us think there was magic use in this FF, but that might have detracted from the idea of your being an elf, so the jury’s out on this: personally I don’t think it was worth including magic to then take it away from you half-way through and render it largely unusable even in the first part.

The dream sequences themselves are worthy of mention. Robin Waterfield’s writing in general is often more thorough and fleshed-out than you would normally find in a non-Ian Livingstone FF (paragraph 1 alone is almost four pages long!) and that allows for a very vivid and immersive Affen Forest, followed by a truly foreboding and claustrophobic underworld. RW’s descriptions of the dreams are particularly outstanding and really set this book apart as a unique experience. The dreams are confusing, eerie, and as intangible and vaguely symbolic as actual dreams. As you read them you almost see them in a murky mental fog which really does give a feel that you are dreaming. There is a particularly clever vision of a future where humans are riding around (trapped) in metal beasts (cars) which really is very neat and is perfectly suited to the overall environmentally-conscious wood elf theme of the book where your character is at one with the forest where he lives and wants to rid it of the foul pestilence that is threatening it. Indeed, the words “pestilence” and “corruption” are used a lot to describe the parts of the forest near to the entrance to Ishtra’s lair and RW is definitely making an ecological point in this FF. Rarely does a FF have a message, but there is a very clear one here which makes this book rise above sheer escapism and entertainment.

The art in this book is a perfect complement to the nightmarish themes and dreamscape environments. The art is chaotic, abstract, sometimes hideous, but is always suited to how you are visualising the descriptions. Ian Miller is to be congratulated for his interior artwork, but sadly his cover art is without doubt the worst FF cover of all time. It’s not even the stuff of nightmares, it’s just rubbish – the best description would be a lot of snot with some demons sticking out of it: appalling, and sadly very likely to put off a potential reader who would be missing a treat by not playing this book.

One small point of note is the naming of the demon Ishtra. It could be a coincidence, but this is an anagram (and not a very clever one!) of “Ishtar” (starring Warren Beatty) which is generally regarded as one of the worst films ever made...

Overall then, this is a very good FF that has a really different feel about it. It’s not too hard, but it’s far from simple, the art and prose work really well together, there is lots of atmosphere, and there is much all-important re-playability and freedom to roam. RW is to be congratulated for how well he has handled the extremely complex structure of the second part (particularly where you deduct 20 from a paragraph to switch to dreams or add 50 to it to switch to reality) and uses the inconsistency between dreams and reality to create a really convincing result. Yes, the second part can get very confusing and you can end up going around in circles but that’s part of the effect and I personally like it for this. There are definitely some flaws, but this one is well-worth taking the time to explore and it's a pity it hasn't been re-issued by Wizard Books, especially as they can't possibly do their usual trick of making the cover any worse as it can't be worse than it already is!

#29: Midnight Rogue

MIDNIGHT ROGUE

Graeme Davis

Reviewed by Mark Lain

Number 29 in the original series sees a welcome return to the mean streets of Port Blacksand, which we first visited in depth in City Of Thieves and then passed through en route to somewhere else in Temple Of Terror. This book has not been re-issued in the Wizard Books series and, frankly, this is a great shame as MR is actually a really fun FF. I emphasize the word “fun”, rather than using a word like “excellent”, as this FF does have its shortcomings, but it’s good enough to be a worthy further visit to Port Blacksand, rather than making us wish we’d never bothered going back after the dizzy heights of COT.

This book is the first FF to really put the player into an anti-hero role, which makes it intriguing from the outset. You play a thief who has one night in which to pass the initiation to join PB’s Thieves’ Guild. The initiation itself involves tracking down and stealing a priceless jewel called the Eye of the Basilisk - anyone who has played Ian Livingstone’s abysmal Eye Of The Dragon will be pleased to hear that not all FFs that involve finding unimaginably valuable jewels named after the ocular units of various lizardine creatures are terrible. The jewel is owned by a wealthy merchant called Brass (ha, ha) and you are first required to sneak around PB trying to find clues as to where exactly Brass is stashing said valuable object. You don’t actually get to properly see much of PB as you can only explore three pre-defined areas, but this does make sense as you probably wouldn’t go on any wild goose chases if you are a competent thief – you’d be straight to the point and out as quickly as possible, rather than wasting time having a bit of a look around. Once you’ve found the clues you need, you are then sent on a very linear dungeon trawl to ultimately find the jewel at the end of it.

There is much more depth to the plot than just its general essence, however, some of which makes sense and adds to the atmosphere of the book and some of which is plain ludicrous. Depending on which route you take into various locations you can see different angles on things and gradually learn what you ought to be doing as you go along. For example, if you try to access Brass’ house by shinning up the drainpipe and peering in through the bedroom windows you can establish who is in what rooms and therefore learn what you will meet once you’ve gone into the building via the front door (which it quickly becomes apparent is what you need to be doing.) I like this aspect as it adds a three-dimensional feel to the environment rather than the usual flat, one-way-in-one-way-out approach that you often find in FFs. There are relatively few encounters and combats within PB itself which is logical as you would not want to be drawing attention to yourself or making waves in a place where thieves are hunted by the city guards. Once you pass into the dungeon trawl there are numerous encounters and traps which, again, makes sense as this second part of the book is effectively a test in the vein of Deathtrap Dungeon. The two parts of the book add variety and also add meaning to this being an initiation that involves rather more than just pinching stuff, which would be a bit one-note. There is some nice continuity from other trips to PB: city guards are dressed the same as those in COT, Lord Azzur’s palace is still impenetrable, Madame Star is back (and is still useless), the pubs are still very unpleasant, you can meet Nicodemus (although if you do somehow end up at his hut, you are dead as he still enjoys turning people into newts), etc. Again, this is a nice touch as it adds to the atmosphere and makes PB feel familiar to the player, rather than being totally unconnected to the other FFs that are set there. The plot is also very “interactive” in the RPG sense as you have considerable scope to explore and revisit areas rather than following a linear route, although the dungeon trawl is literally a straight line but this could be deliberate to avoid the book feeling unbalanced towards this section and, therefore, make the player lose the sense of character and place that the first part creates in abundance.

Unfortunately, the RPG element also adds the one really silly part of this book’s plot – if you do not have the clues you need to leave PB at the end of the first part, you are allowed to go back to paragraph 1 and search about again which presents the credibility-losing problem that PB then resets itself, which is a problem FF rarely ever addresses properly. Granted, in MR this isn’t overly noticeable as there aren’t many encounters, kills, etc to have to keep re-visiting, but you could find yourself re-collecting more of the same items. The tavern, the sleeping beggar in the Merchants’ Guild and the re-sets of Brass’ house are more annoying but you might not actually visit the same places more than once unless you know for certain that you need to go back if you’ve established that you’ve missed something important. The fact that you can return to the start an infinite number of times does suggest that this is a very long night and removes some of the sense of urgency, as well as making no sense plot-wise!

There is a neat twist at the end when it becomes apparent that the whole exercise was just one big test as the jewel itself is a fake made of glass. This does also present a bit of a plot dilemma though – given that Brass is the pivot to finding the jewel, are we supposed to think that he is in on it all along? This is never answered so we just have to either draw our own conclusions or assume that there’s a big gaping hole in the crux of the storyline.

This book does not simply offer a (generally) coherent plot and lots of appropriate atmosphere. To help you get into the feel of your anti-hero character (you are, after all, generally used to playing all-round good guys in FFs), there are some neat additional rules and game mechanics added, albeit with mixed results. As you need to move stealthily and silently, you are limited to only being able to carry six backpack items. This is a nice touch, but it is rendered almost meaningless as rarely does anything you find actually qualify as a backpack item, plus weapons (presumably noisy sometimes?) do not count as encumbrance. OK, you have a shortsword, not a regular sword, but all the same, this feature hasn’t been incorporated well at all. Plus, on starting the game, you are told that two item slots are already taken up by your Potion and Provisions which makes you feel that this rule will be a real challenge. Sadly, it is not exploited much and is a wasted opportunity. There is also another small plot niggle here – why does one provision take up the same space as ten? Odd.

A generally better employed new game mechanic is the use of Special Skills of a thiefy nature: you can pick three from Climb, Hide, Pick Lock, Pick Pocket, Secret Signs, Sneak, and Spot Hidden. Sadly, whilst there are many references asking if you have these (and the deployment is fairly balanced across all of them), it becomes quickly apparent that some will be far more useful than others and, if you didn’t choose the best ones, you will go around and around in an endless circle back to section 1 until you either die or lose interest and give up. Hide, Sneak, Climb, and Spot Hidden can often be substituted for successful tests of Skill or Luck (although there are so many of these tests that you do need very high Skill and Luck stats to get through this way, which could be intentional.) Pick Pocket is largely useless and offers few benefits, although this could be a clever feature as you are fairly likely to choose this very thiefy talent, only to discover it’s hopeless, so we’ll give that one the benefit of the doubt as (probably) a good piece of game design. Secret Signs, whilst sounding mysterious, is the worst of the lot as you normally end up deciphering fairly incongruous Thieves’ Guild emblems that it transpires you don’t understand anyway – it’s handy in the tavern to get info but the info isn’t essential, and it adds some plot depth near the end of the dungeon trawl when you can realise that a dead body is a failed testee, but it’s generally no use to you overall. On the other hand, it is not possible to beat the book without Pick Lock (and Climb will become essential as well, depending on your Skill/Luck situation.) Frustratingly enough, or very helpfully, depending on which skills you started with, the book knows that Pick Lock and Climb are essentials and you can find items in PB that act as substitutes for these skills, which is helpful but is also part of the biggest failing of this book – it is far too forgiving to the point of being one of the easiest FFs ever.

Not being content with just allowing repeated resets if you can’t get out of PB, generally ignoring its item restriction rule, giving you the two key skills on a plate, and letting you literally see where you are going wrong, the book has yet more ways of helping you along. If you head off in the wrong direction in the dungeon or in either the Merchants’ Guild or Brass’ House, the book will repeatedly try to convince you to go in the right direction instead. In some cases, it eventually kills you for not listening to its suggestions, but in most cases it just turns you around and makes you go the right way instead. This is hardly a challenge, plus the rare occasions that you are killed instantly are usually the result of rank stupidity on your behalf – indeed, a fair bit of this book can be beaten on common sense alone. Granted this makes you feel the character, but it also takes away the element of danger that is key in FFs. There is a small challenge in that you can only access The Noose (a sort of thief-friendly part of the city) from section 1 (and you need to go there to get a clue), but, as you can keep re-setting the game, it quickly becomes clear that maybe you should be going to this otherwise exclusive location (and I can’t help feeling this might be an error in the construction, maybe?) Plus, I’d have thought that a thief would probably head straight there to try to build up some allies amongst his own kind before tackling the (theoretically) more hostile territories of the Merchants’ Guild and Brass’ House. If all this isn’t enough help, if you don’t know where Brass is hiding the jewel by the time you decide to stop searching the three areas, you are then offered the chance to try various other (more famous) parts of the city, all of which seem fairly suicidal to visit (Lord Azzur’s palace, Nicodemus’ hut??) and, if you try this, the book goes into overdrive to talk you out of it. If you really are daft enough to ignore its advice, it will then kill you, but you wouldn’t be very likely to get into this situation as your wariness as a thief should have turned you away by now. 

Personally, I struggle to see how you wouldn’t know where Brass is hiding the jewel as it’s laid on pretty thick, but there is a definite challenge in finding the three actual numerical codes you need to get out of PB – this aspect is really good and makes cheating impossible, but it’s only a matter of time from repeatedly visiting the locations before you will find the codes. 

Interestingly, if this book used the Time feature that some FFs use, the constant resets would be offset by limiting how long you can waste going round and round the same three places (if you really need to do this anyway), but that would be far too hard for this most forgiving of FFs! Even the inevitable FF falling at the final hurdle feature is dumbed-down. Granted, you can die at this point, but you might have just acquired a brand-new item in the previous chamber that is probably the answer... and if you haven’t, the book actually allows you to turn to a clue paragraph where your thiefy senses tell you to go back and try to find something that might help in said previous room. Any sense of difficulty that may still have been lingering in your mind will be gone by now (unless you’re dead, of course!)

The art adds to the sense of place very effectively, especially the images within PB itself. We’ve already noted its neat consistency with other PB-set FFs, but the art itself is very well drawn and is full and vivid. The dungeon-set images also have a suitable dark gloom to them, plus there is a distinct feeling of night in all the images which works well and is in context. I have only one issue with the art and that is the image on entry 134 when you enter Brass’ office – the picture is clearly from the outside looking in through the window, yet you are actually in the office at this point so maybe there was a misunderstanding or this picture was originally intended to be used somewhere else? The cover also suffers from an odd problem: the jewel is stated as being yellow in the book’s text, yet it is red on the cover. Is this another paragraph 134 incident or was the cover picture simply never colour-corrected? The blue background and the pink ROGUE lettering look very washed-out and I’m not convinced the cover was intended to look like this. An interesting point to note with this cover is that it is the only cover that shows YOU on it, albeit in fairly non-committal and general shadowy humanoid terms. Overall though, in spite of it looking wrong, there is a night-time feel to the cover and it is quite nice.

An interesting small point of note with this FF is that it includes a few fake paragraphs (eg: 260, 275) to prevent you from cheating by reading random entries and trying to piece the solution together. This is a neat feature but I have two problems with it: 1) This is basically a waste of paragraphs and I don’t like to see this in a FF; 2) This book is so easy I fail to see why you would ever need to cheat!

So, difficulty-wise this book is too simple and far too helpful (although that’s a nice antidote to brutally harsh FFs such as Crypt Of The Sorceror or Chasms Of Malice.) However, in terms of atmosphere and the feeling of the fun of playing a miscreant, it is actually really good and I really enjoy it for its originality and the variety it adds to the series. If it were a little harder it would make you have to plan your skills and route out more, learning from past plays, but it’s still got a lot to recommend it and is a worthwhile entry into the series.

#15: The Rings Of Kether

THE RINGS OF KETHER

Andrew Chapman

Reviewed by Mark Lain

FF #15 (and the third Sci-Fi attempt) is probably one of the most obscure of the early FFs from the era when we would see a new title every month or two and when Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone were still actively writing for the series. Only Steve Jackson (II) and Andrew Chapman were the other regular contributors at this stage, before SJ/IL took a back-seat and the floodgates opened pouring loads of new FF writers (some good, some bad) into the mix. The obscurity of this FF is not helped by its never having been re-issued in the Wizard Books series'.

In spite of its comparative lack of press, this is actually the first decent Sci-Fi book in the series, if still only a fairly minor entry in the overall cannon and, whilst fun to play, it is certainly not without its faults but is considerably better than the dull Starship Traveller or the simply dire Space Assassin (the two Sci-Fi FFs that preceded it.) In many ways it is possible that this ended up as a lesser-known effort due to peoples’ lack of confidence in Sci-Fi FFs and it is something of a miracle that Andrew Chapman was allowed to write another one after he inflicted Space Assassin on the FF readers. But it is a good job that this book did go ahead as it paved the way for the best two Sci-Fi FFs (#22 Robot Commando and #18 Rebel Planet) shortly afterwards.

There is much to recommend in this book but the plot is its real strong-point. It’s a lot of fun and you really do get the impression of being an intergalactic Philip Marlowe figure as you gradually gather clues and information by sneaking about and by quizzing various characters that you meet along the way with the ultimate aim of locating the HQ of (and bringing down) the intergalactic Satophil-D drug ring. To add to the effect you have an expenses account and can bribe information out of people assuming you offer the right money in return. Furthermore, the more you sneak about the more attention you start to draw to yourself and the more in danger your life becomes, which adds to the atmosphere and draws you into the character and the storyline, so this is classic Film Noir stuff transplanted into Space. The plot is logical and there are numerous possible routes you can take – in other words, none of the irritating problems of there being only one linear true path that detracts from the playability of most FFs. Plus, there is ample scope for replaying and choosing a different route. Added to this is the fact that you are given a certain amount of RPG-style freedom to roam from place to place as you please which makes this feel less like a guided story book and more like an actual game. The final touch with the multi-directional plotting is that there are actually TWO ways to win: you can either take the baddies in dead by totally annihilating the entire asteroid where drug production is happening, or go for the more law-friendly option and take them in alive by out-gunning them (personally I find the destroy everything option more satisfying and it seems that AC did as well as the final paragraph for this outcome is far more vividly written than the somewhat pathetic three short sentences you are rewarded with for capturing the baddies.)

There are some great cameo moments along the way, including a bizarre asteroid-monastery (that is actually a waste of time visiting other than for novelty value), several run-ins with some fairly surly rival groups of intergalactic miscreants who like to mouth-off about not liking Feds and who will use you in their power-games against each other (more Film Noir here), a few EVA space-walks to remind you you’re in Space (some of which are more dangerous than others), a very hairy negotiation of an asteroid mine field (Empire Strikes Back?), a fairly interesting spaceport with quite a few options of what to do, etc, but the best sequence by far is a car chase that you can find yourself in. This episode is really long and is peppered with all sorts of obstacles and ways of meeting a sticky end. In some ways it feels a little out-of-place and makes you feel like you are rather Earth-bound, but it is so well executed and so fast-paced that your adrenalin really does start to rush.

Overall, the pace of this book is pretty fast and there are no drawn-out moments or dull parts to break-up the flow. If anything, the only really disappointing part is when you finally come up against the drug-producing HQ – there isn’t all that much in there for a hive of illicit activity and Blaster Babet himself is a major let-down. It takes very little thought to beat his tricks and his stats are hopelessly-low for any FF encounter, let alone a final baddie. On that note, it was also a bit of an anti-climax when I discovered that the evil-looking fat bloke dressed in baddie gear on the cover isn’t the man you’re looking for, but one of his minions – Babet himself is fairly emaciated (unless that’s what Satophil-D does to you!)

As you would expect with Sci-Fi there are numerous extra rules to accommodate the use of laser guns and let you get into ship-to-ship encounter situations. These rules are basically the same as those created for Starship Traveller (although phaser combat is slightly less lethal, doing 4 Stamina points of damage rather than your life resting on one throw of the dice like in ST.) To counter the higher damage you can suffer, provisions are provided in the futuristic form of pep pills that restore 6 rather than the usual 4 Stamina points. This does mean that the damage vs restoration factor is actually no different to that in regular medieval FFs, but at least it’s realistic inasmuch as phaser combat will kill far quicker than normal FF sword combat. Yet again, as with ST, ship-to-ship combat is a wasted opportunity and there aren’t many of these encounters in TROK either. This is a shame as ship combat is made slightly more interesting here as you are given two smart missiles that cause instant destruction when fired at an enemy ship. Only having two means you have to be sparing and take a call on when is best to use these, but as there aren’t many ship combats you might not even use both of them so that’s a bit of an own goal as well. As regards one-on-one combat, there are less of these than you might hope for but how many times is a space detective really likely to need to kill? So this is actually fairly logical if a little on the flat side in terms of what you would expect in FF. Also, the encounters are almost all very weak (4 to 8 St is the norm here even for most robots) and take little effort to kill especially as your phaser does 6 St of damage. Similarly, there is very little to collect in the way of items so that’s a bit of a let-down but I can see how it fits into the overall concept of gathering information rather than stuff to reach the end so this is forgivable.

Unfortunately, the emphasis on plot and variation in terms of possible routes does come at a cost, not just in terms of weak foes, lack of combats, not having much to collect, and minimal exploitation of potentially scope-expanding extra rules. None of the various routes to either of the endings are especially difficult and this book is actually very easy to beat. I have played it several times and have never lost. Many would say the mark of a FF that is too easy is if you can win on the first playthrough and this is easily done in this book. It is also fairly short if you happen to crack the clues and take the quickest route through (indeed, some routes consist mostly of the car chase and I believe it’s possible to avoid even this), although you can drag it out by going everywhere possible along a given route even if you don’t really need to.

A real mixed-bag in this book is AC’s style of writing FF. There is a good amount of dialogue (which you would expect if you are trying to get people to tell you information) and it is nicely written in a hardboiled way that adds to the Noir-ish detective feel. You also get to read the plaques on peoples’ doors which always seem to feature heavily in Film Noir so that’s a nice addition too. Flavour and atmosphere is added to the Sci-Fi theme by the inclusion of ship displays, count-downs, etc and this is a welcome touch. However, a common criticism of AC’s prose is that it can be very curt and instant death paragraphs leave you feeling either a bit stupid or vaguely insulted (unless this was intended, but it’s hard to tell.) Worst of all is that AC commits the cardinal sin of wasting paragraphs. Granted this might be designed to maintain the pace but it would be just as urgent-feeling if there were less paragraphs. I really do not like to be sent to entries that say nothing other than to go to yet another paragraph. Similarly, some references merely list your options before you move to another entry. This is just lazy and leaves you feeling short-changed. Even Starship Traveller cut its losses and only had 340 playing references! A better use of paragraphs in TROK is in the car chase as the constant jumping from short entry to short entry adds to the frenetic feel of it, but even that stretches to consuming 50 possible entries (ie 1/8^th of the entire book and that’s excluding pointless “go somewhere else please” paragraphs!) Annoyingly, there are also a couple of typos in this book where you are sent to the wrong paragraphs so even what was used is not 100% correct. However, it has to be said that Chapman’s writing here is far better than his ham-fisted effort in Space Assassin, although he would not really come of age stylistically until FF 16 Seas Of Blood.

I have similar mixed feelings about the art in this FF. This was the only series entry illustrated by Nik Spender who should maybe have been given another chance. There is a very metallic monochrome feel to his machinery and environment drawings which does give a feel of Film Noir and of futuristic “shininess” with clean lines, little background and, in most cases, largely line-drawing. His people are not drawn in this way and are more conventional which adds life to the NPCs. Plus it means the art is in two styles which, whilst lacking consistency, does give contrast between human and mechanical forms. There are some let-downs though – the mutant thing you meet outside Babet’s lair is ludicrous and you kind of feel sorry for it, Babet himself is pathetic, and the serpent monster thing is genuinely laughable. Of more interest is the cover which I really like - there is a nice black and red theme going on and the henchman on it is suitably repulsive.

Overall then, this FF is no more than an average offering that could have been brilliant from the very hit-and-miss “teens” period in the series (probably the least consistent section of the series, in fact, due in part to Puffin’s demanding release schedule caused by the runaway success of FF) that started well with book 11, reached the series’ worst low so far with #12, was OK at #13, clawed itself back into classic territory with #14, was fun at #16, became stupid at #17, and then returned to form with a run of classics from #18 through to #22.