Marc Gascoigne Announced as new Fighting Fantasy Brand Manager

LONDON, UK  |  23 JANUARY 2025

Steve Jackson and Sir Ian Livingstone, the co-creators of Fighting Fantasy, have recruited Marc Gascoigne as Brand Manager of the bestselling gamebook series. The classic series of adventure gamebooks, which began in 1982 with The Warlockof Firetop Mountain, continues to thrive with new titles being published by Scholastic UK, together with digital and audio editions, role-playing and board games, miniatures, and a growing range of licensed merchandise.

With more than 20 million books sold in over 30 languages, Fighting Fantasy remains a truly global phenomenon. The series will be returning to US bookstores in mid-2025 with 10 titles being published by Steve Jackson Games Inc (run by the other Steve Jackson in the USA).

Marc will be supporting existing Fighting Fantasy licensees, as well as seeking out appropriate partners for new ventures. Long-time Fighting Fantasy fans will already be familiar with Marc’s work from the legendary sourcebooks Titan—the Fighting Fantasy World and the Fighting Fantasy monster collection Out of the Pit, the gamebook Battleblade Warrior, and two Fighting Fantasy novels. He was also the series’ consultant editor in the 1990s for Puffin Books, before building a career in fantasy fiction as publisher of Games Workshop’s Black Library range of Warhammer novels, and later with his own award winning imprint Angry Robot.

Sir Ian Livingstone said: “We are delighted to have Marc join us to further promote and build Fighting Fantasy worldwide. A respected expert of the genre, he will be an invaluable member of the Fighting Fantasy team. May his STAMINA never fail!” 

Sir Ian Livingstone and Marc Gascoigne at Dragonmeet 2024.

You can read the full press release here.

Fighting Fantasy Tees

Launching on Friday 27 August - which also happens to be International Gamebook Day - is a range of branded Fighting Fantasy T-shirts from Seven Squared.

Designs include The Forest of Doom, City of Thieves, Deathtrap Dungeon, The Citadel of Chaos and, of course, The Warlock of Firetop Mountain.

Finishing off the collection is this rather cool Fighting Fantasy logo tee.

To find out more, read the press release here, and keep an eye out for more updates this Friday!

Crystal of Storms - by Rhianna Pratchett!

Scholastic Books have announced acclaimed games writer and journalist Rhianna Pratchett as the next guest author for the bestselling Fighting Fantasy series.

Set in the iconic Fighting Fantasy world of Titan, Crystal of Storms casts the hero of the story as a member of the Sky Watch, charged with keeping the airborne archipelago of Pangaria safe. When the flying island Nimbus suddenly crashes out of the sky into the Ocean of Tempests below, the hero must battle storms and sea beasts in their mission to raise it from the deep.

For this landmark Fighting Fantasy adventure, Scholastic have taken a new approach with the cover art, in order to attract a new, younger audience to the classic gamebook series - one which many of their parents cite as getting them reading and introducing them to fantasy role-playing in the first place.

As the world’s most high-profile woman in gaming, Rhianna Pratchett is the perfect match for the series, and becomes its first ever female guest author.

"I first came to the Fighting Fantasy books as a child; reading them surreptitiously under the covers with a torch late at night," Rhianna explains. "It's been such an honour to be asked by Ian Livingstone, Steve Jackson and the team at Scholastic to create a new novel for their vibrant and exciting world. My kid-self has been high-fiving my adult-self all year!

"I hope new and old fans will enjoy exploring the floating archipelago of Pangaria and its colourful, eccentric and dangerous inhabitants. I also hope that some of that enjoyment will occur surreptitiously under the covers late at night."

Crystal of Storms, illustrated by Eva Eskelinen, will be published in October 2020. Read the full press release from Scholastic here.