fighting fantasy books mud flat skeletons

Naturally, you’re going to give it a spin.Įschewing the series’ slash-away-and-ask-questions-later battles between good and evil, the only true way of emerging victorious in Moonrunner wasn’t slaughtering the war criminal baddie at the heart of the plot, but bringing him to justice.Īnother entry from Stephen Hand, this featured a brilliant recurring masked, seemingly invincible, adversary called Conrad. Some rich sadist has built a fiendish labyrinth filled with monsters and traps that no-one has ever escaped from, and offered up unlimited wealth to anyone who can defeat it. Who wants to be a superhero who doesn’t fly? 5. Whatever, you obviously chose the flying superpower.

Steve Jackson’s superhero story sees the reader choose their special power in order to save the world from the rogue organisation the Federation of Euro-American Rebels It kind of spirals into darkness from there.

The very first paragraph sees you face off against a cackling skeleton in a hanging gibbet or a maggoty scarecrow. You play a Demon Stalker out to seek revenge on a Demon Lord who has kidnapped your parents. The series went proper Hammer Horror with the first of Stephen Hand’s FF gamebooks (although this was co-authored with Jim Bambra). Virtually every move you might make in this will kill your character.Īuthor Steve Jackson, evidently wise to the nimble-fingered place-saving cheaters, made whole wings of the house a deathtrap that was impossible to escape from. There he’s met by a Jacob Rees-Mogg, lord-of-the-manor, type chap and his butler who – well, strike a light, guv – both turn out to be goat-hoofed Hell Demons who rule over a hoard of ghouls, ghosts and Satan worshippers. So, of course, he knocks on the door of the first cliched, isolated manor house with one light on. There’s no villagers to save. You’re just after the bloke’s horde of gold.Įssentially, what you’ve done there is ransacked an old man’s home, beaten him and his lodgers up, and nicked all his money. There’s no real, heroic reason for your adventurer to be running into a volcano and facing off with the warlock inside. Namely, a terribly frustrating maze section that disrupted many a juvenile’s Sunday afternoon when they could have been watching Bullseye instead. There are a couple of problematic issues, mind. The Warlock Of Firetop MountainĪs the first in the series, and a classic in its own right, selling two-million copies worldwide, it goes on the list by default. With the launch of the latest in the series, here’s a countdown of the ten best Fighting Fantasy tales told to date.

It will be written by Fast Show comedian and actor, and children’s author, Charlie Higson. And the latest book, the charmingly titled The Gates Of Death, is out on 5 April.

Fighting fantasy books mud flat skeletons