Death in the Rear View Mirror

Death in the Rearview Mirror, the Danish translation of Sir Ian Livingstone's Freeway Fighter, is currently funding on Kickstarter.

To find out more and pledge your support, click this link.

Get ready for a high-octane, AR adaptation of Sir Ian Livingstone's Freeway Fighter

The first entry in a new wave of adaptations from the legendary Fighting Fantasy series will bring Sir Ian Livingstone's Freeway Fighter to a new audience through a high‑octane augmented reality experience.

Peasoup, the pioneer behind interactive augmented reality Smart Books, has announced a partnership with Sir Ian to transform the iconic gamebooks into its proprietary format. Their debut collaboration, Freeway Fighter, is scheduled for release in 2027.

Peasoup’s Smart Book system is far more than a traditional book or gamebook. It is a full‑colour, physical reading experience enhanced by cutting‑edge technology. Using a dedicated augmented reality app, the Smark Book system animates the printed page, allowing readers not just to imagine the post‑apocalyptic car chases of Freeway Fighter, but to see and interact with them digitally as they progress through the story.

Founded by veteran writer and videogame designer Søren Jønsson, Peasoup was created to inject excitement back into reading. To date, the company has produced four Smart Books featuring original adventures across fantasy realms, pirate voyages, and daring escapades.

Extending this technology to the Fighting Fantasy series is a natural evolution, and one that promises to redefine how readers engage with classic FF gamebooks.

Sir Ian Livingstone commented: “The Fighting Fantasy series was designed to place the reader at the heart of the story, letting them take control of where the story goes. Choice is exciting and empowering, and partnering with Peasoup for these new adaptations takes the experience to the next level, where choices and actions in an augmented reality setting further affect the outcomes of the story. This high-octane, AR adaptation of Freeway Fighter will take the adventure to new audiences.”

Freeway Fighter will be available in 2027, and the next Smart Book Fighting Fantasy adaptation will be announced soon. Retailers looking to find out more should contact Rory Kelly, Zatu's Head of Distribution, at rory.kelly@zatu.co.uk or call 01603 937 846.#

40 years of Freeway Fighter

2025 marks 40 years since the publication of Freeway Fighter - the only Fighting Fantasy gamebook, to date, to be set in a dystopian world.

For his sixth solo contribution to the FF range, Ian Livingstone ventured into the realm of near-future (for 1985) post-apocalyptic science fiction. Clearly inspired by the Mad Max movies - and set in 2022 - Freeway Fighter (FF13) had the hero crossing the American wilderness in their heavily armoured Dodge Interceptor, to reach the distant oil-refinery of San Anglo so that they might return with vital supplies for the inhabitants of the peaceful town of New Hope. But success is far from certain since the wilds that lie between the scattered, fortified towns are the territory of lawless bandits and brigands.

Vehicular combat was a feature of this adventure with the Dodge Interceptor having both a FIREPOWER and an ARMOUR score to represent its offensive and defensive capabilities.

The Adventure Sheet for Freeway Fighter.

Like Starship Traveller (Steve Jackson’s one and only foray into hard sci-fi Fighting Fantasy), Freeway Fighter has fewer than the standard 400 references, coming in at only 380 paragraphs. How come? “Because 400 references was a guide,” explains Livingstone, “not an absolute requirement.”

The original US edition of Freeway Fighter.

The cover was by the renowned SF artist Jim Burns. When the book was republished by Wizard Books, the cover was reworked by Burns. However, this was not an original piece of artwork for the range - the illustration had already been used back in 1984 on the cover Games Workshop's Battlecars.

The interior art was by Kevin Bulmer. It was completed in only nine days, as a favour for Ian Livingstone after the original illustrations that had been commissioned were rejected at the last moment.

Kevin Bulmer’s illustrations for Freeway Fighter.

One of the early contenders for internal artist on Freeway Fighter was actually FF legend Iain McCaig, but other commitments meant that it simply wasn’t to be. However, we have an idea of how the book might have looked since McCaig did start work on an image for the book.

In 2017 Titan Comics published Ian Livingstone’s Freeway Fighter, a limited four-part comicbook series that was then collected as a trade paperback. It was written by Andi Ewington, with art by Simon Coleby, colours by Len O’Grady, and lettering by Jim Campbell.

Concept and cover art for the Freeway Fighter comic by Simon Coleby, with colours by Len O'Grady.

While Freeway Fighter is not currently in print as a physical gamebook, it is available as part of Tin Man Games' Fighting Fantasy Classics app.

Will Sir Ian ever return to the lawless hinterlands of America to write a pedal-to-the-metal heart-stopping sequel? We'll just have to wait and see...

21 July 2022

Today is 21 July 2022 or, as some of you will know it, Freeway Fighter pandemic day!

Having witnessed how a pandemic has affected the human race on your Earthly Plane over the last couple of years, the Warlock could quite easily believe that Sir Ian Livingstone was having some kind of prophetic vision when he wrote Freeway Fighter, predicting how people would react when faced by a threat of an unstoppable illness.

You can enjoy his vision of a world given over to lawlessness in which petrol has become increasingly unobtainable, in one of several ways. First there is the seminal Fighting Fantasy gamebook, first published in 1985 and featuring cover art by celebrated SF artist Jim Burns*. Secondly, you can relive the adventure via Viber, and thirdly, as part of the Fighting Fantasy Classics app. And fourth, there is the graphic novel prequel to Freeway Fighter published by Titan Comics in 2017.

* Not once, but twice!

Get on the road with Freeway Fighter

The latest release from Tin Man Games, for their Fighting Fantasy Classics app, is Sir Ian Livingstone's Freeway Fighter - surely the most suitable FF gamebook to add to their library in this year of all years!

You can download the app now for your PC, Mac, Android and iOS device. Check out Steam, Google Play, and the App Store now.

Freeway Fighter - now on Viber!

Talk-A-Bot's messenger game of Ian Livingstone's seminal, post-apocalyptic gamebook Freeway Fighter is now available on Viber, the cross-platform instant messaging app.

Devastated by a killer virus, the world you once knew is a wilderness.

Life is lawless and dangerous. Survivors like you either live in scattered, fortified towns, or roam outside as bandits. YOUR mission is to cross the wilderness to the far-distant oil-refinery at San Anglo and bring vital supplies back to the peaceful town of New Hope. Even in the armed Dodge Interceptor you are given, the journey will be wild and perilous.

Will YOU survive?

Read the press release here, and to find out more, follow this link.

Freeway Fighter - coming soon to Viber!

Talk-A-Bot's messenger game of Ian Livingstone's seminal, post-apocalyptic gamebook Freeway Fighter is coming soon to Viber, the cross-platform instant messaging app.

Devastated by a killer virus, the world you once knew is a wilderness.

Life is lawless and dangerous. Survivors like you either live in scattered, fortified towns, or roam outside as bandits. YOUR mission is to cross the wilderness to the far-distant oil-refinery at San Anglo and bring vital supplies back to the peaceful town of New Hope. Even in the armed Dodge Interceptor you are given, the journey will be wild and perilous.

Will YOU survive?

The Viber version of the game will include all manner of stickers, unique to Freeway Fighter, such as the ones above.

An official launch date has yet to be announced, but watch this space for more news, and if you haven't tried Freeway Fighter on Facebook Messenger yet, why not do so today?

The 12 Fighting Fantasy Days of Christmas - Day 9

Devastated by a killer virus, the world you once knew is a wilderness.

Life is lawless and dangerous. Survivors like you either live in scattered, fortified towns, or roam outside as bandits. YOUR mission is to cross the wilderness to the far-distant oil-refinery at San Anglo and bring vital supplies back to the peaceful town of New Hope. Even in the armed Dodge Interceptor you are given, the journey will be wild and perilous. Will YOU survive?

Coming next year to a Messenger App near you is the Freeway Fighter Chatbot, FF13.

Having started life as a Fighting Fantasy Gamebook, in recent years Freeway Fighter has been turned into a limited run of comics and graphic novel, but in 2021 you will be able to play Ian Livingstone's much-loved post-apocalyptic adventure again via the Messenger App on your phone, tablet or PC.

This new version has been developed by the Hungary-based team at Talk-A-Bot along with Ian Livingstone.

Below is a screenshot to give you an idea of what the Freeway Fighter Chatbot will look like.

As ever, keep checking www.fightingfantasy.com and follow Fighting Fantasy on social media - via Facebook, Twitter and Instagram - to be kept up to date with all developments.

Blast from the Past! Freeway Fighter

Devastated by a killer virus, the world you once knew is a wilderness.

No, it's not your daily news update, but the opening to the blurb of Ian Livingstone's Freeway Fighter. It continues...

Life is lawless and dangerous. Survivors like you either live in scattered, fortified towns, or roam outside as bandits. YOUR mission is to cross the wilderness to the far-distant oil-refinery at San Anglo and bring vital supplies back to the peaceful town of New Hope. Even in the armed Dodge Interceptor you are given, the journey will be wild and perilous. Will YOU survive?

For his sixth solo contribution to the FF range, Ian Livingstone ventured into the realms of near-future, post-apocalyptic dystopian science fiction. Clearly inspired by the Mad Max movies, set in 2022, Freeway Fighter had the hero crossing the wilderness in his heavily-armed (and armoured) Dodge Interceptor, to reach the distant oil-refinery of San Anglo so that he might return with vital supplies for the inhabitants of the peaceful town of New Hope. But success is anything but certain, since the wilds that lie between the scattered, fortified towns are the territory of lawless bandits and brigands.

Vehicular combat was a feature of this particular adventure with the Dodge Interceptor having both a FIREPOWER and an ARMOUR score to represent its offensive and defensive capabilities.

Like Starship Traveller (Steve Jackson’s one and only foray into hard sci-fi Fighting Fantasy), Freeway Fighter has fewer than the standard 400 references, coming in at only 380 paragraphs.

The cover was by the sci-fi artist Jim Burns. When the book was republished by Wizard Books, the cover was reworked by Jim Burns. However, this the painting was not an original piece of artwork for the range, the piece having already been used as far back as 1984 to illustrate the Games Workshop RPG Battlecars.

Model-maker and FF fan Stuart Bannister was inspired by Jim Burns' artwork to create a 3D revision. "I enjoy converting miniatures, and I also like making dioramas, so it made some sense to try and recreate scenes from some of my favourite FF books," explains Bannister. “My very first one was to recreate the cover art from Freeway Fighter, using a 1:43 scale model car, dismantling it and adding bits to it in order to build a more futuristic/post-apocalyptic version. I had just watched Mad Max and had re-read the Freeway Fighter book – the front cover illustration remains one of my all-time favourites. Getting a car to the right scale of 28mm miniatures was a problem and then trying to get a really smooth, red finish on the car was a challenge. I had to do a lot of sanding and use a lot of spray lacquer to get the desired effect."

Freeway Fighter, as sculpted by Stuart Bannister.

The interior art was by Kevin Bulmer. It was completed in only nine days, as a favour for Ian Livingstone after the original illustrations that had been commissioned, were rejected at the last moment.

One of the early contenders for internal artist on Freeway Fighter was actually FF legend Iain McCaig, but other commitments meant that it simply wasn’t to be. However, we have an idea of how the book might have looked since McCaig did start work on an image for the book.

With Fighting Fantasy gamebooks, the reader is always cast as the hero of the adventure. This means that secondary characters encountered along the way enjoy the sort of popularity and fan adoration normally reserved for the protagonists of more traditional novels. In the case of Freeway Fighter, readers demonstrated a particular fondness for the car the hero drives throughout the course of the adventure.

“I wanted to know the background story to the Dodge Interceptor you end up driving in the book,” says Andi Ewington, the creator and writer of the Freeway Fighter comic. “I always found it strange such a car would be found at New Hope without a bigger tale to tell. The comic fills in those gaps and brings a depth to an already existing story.

“Once I had the germ of the plot and I had my main characters, I would cherry pick scenes, encounters and baddies that fans would be familiar with and weave them into the narrative. It was imperative not to mess with the world so it would conflict with the gamebooks too much, so every step I took in the comic I would ensure I wasn’t creating a ripple that would disrupt the source material. It was tricky, but I think I’ve managed to carefully tip-toe my way through it without causing too much disruption.”

Ian Livingstone's Freeway Fighter was published by Titan Comics in 2017, with Andi Ewington's script being realised on the page through Simon Coleby's art, Len O’Grady colours, and Jim Campbell's lettering. It was later collected as a graphic novel, which has since been translated into Hungarian!

The Hungarian edition of Ian Livingstone's Freeway Fighter alongside the English language version.

This new iteration of Freeway Fighter has also inspired FF fans, including pixel artist Andy Green, who created this image, inspired by Simon Coleby's artwork.

Did you know...?

One of the variant covers produced by Titan Comics for Ian Livingstone’s Freeway Fighter #1 featured the artwork from the original FF gamebook and was exclusive to Forbidden Planet, which hosted the launch event for the comic at its London Megastore, on Saturday 20 May 2017. It was here that Livingstone and Burns were reunited for the first time in a long time.

“After a gap of 30 years, it was brilliant to see Jim Burns at the Forbidden Planet launch event signing,” says Ian Livingstone. “Puffin Books’ original 1985 Freeway Fighter gamebook (red car) cover was painted by Jim. When Freeway Fighter was republished by Wizard Books in 2005, the (blue car) cover was again by Jim, and now both of his cover paintings appear as variant covers of Ian Livingstone’s Freeway Fighter #1. And I am pleased to say that I am the proud owner of both paintings which sit proudly in my collection.”

FF does SF

Apart from a few notable exceptions, Fighting Fantasy’s various forays into the realms of science fiction were not the most successful gamebooks Puffin produced, but the company still published nine of them over the course of half a decade.

But setting an adventure in the far-flung vastness of space was still a tempting prospect for an author. “I liked to try new things out,” says Steve Jackson. “Sorcery! had a new magic system, Starship Traveller was the first SF adventure.”

Set in the distant future, Starship Traveller had the hero become the commander of the eponymous starship and its crew. After his interstellar vessel is sucked through a black hole into an unknown quadrant of space, the hero has to search the local star systems for the coordinates to another black hole and the way home.

Jackson: “I was a big Star Trek fan. Always preferred it to Doctor Who. Mr Spock was my hero. I liked the episodes where Kirk & Co landed on a planet where they encountered alien races and philosophies. Never liked the deep space battle episodes. Starship Traveller was unashamedly based on Star Trek."

Starship Traveller was originally going to be included among the second tranche of FF gamebooks put out by Scholastic but it can still be enjoyed in an updated format thanks to Tin Man Games' app of the same name.

The next FF SF adventure to come along was Andrew Chapman's Space Assassin. The hero was the assassin of the title, his mission: to stop the crazed scientist Cyrus from unleashing a gruesome mutation experiment upon his homeworld from the vast hulk of the starship Vandervecken in orbit above it.

Then came Ian Livingstone's Freeway Fighter, which you can read more about here, and a prequel to which is now available as a graphic novel from Titan Comics.

The Rings of Kether, also by Andrew Chapman, casts the hero in the role of a narcotics officer attempting to break up a drug ring on the planet Kether.

Unusually, the hero is given some degree of freedom in regards to where he can travel between various locations on the planet’s surface, and in orbit as well, which in turn means that there are multiple paths leading to the final confrontation with the leaders of the drug cartel.

Next came Steve Jackson's Appointment with F.E.A.R., which is back in print, thanks to Scholastic Books, and also exists in the form of an app from Tin Man Games.

Rebel Planet was Robin Waterfield’s first contribution to the gamebook line as writer, having already edited a number of titles in the series. In the adventure, the leaders of SAROS (a secret Earth organization) are fighting to overthrow the alien Arcadian Empire. Having gathered together their last few resources, they send the hero on one last daring, and foolhardy, mission to strike at the heart of the Arcadian homeworld.

Wrapped inside a powerful Transformers meets Jurassic Park cover, Robot Commando was written by the other Steve Jackson (the US author behind Scorpion Swamp and Demons of the Deep). “It was inspired by the mecha genre,” explains US Steve, “of which Transformers was the first big-deal popularization in English.”

The hero of Robot Commando is a dinosaur rancher in the country of Thalos, on a distant planet, who finds himself in the middle of an attack by the militaristic Karosseans. An unknown weapon is activated which causes everyone, save the protagonist, to fall into a deep sleep, leaving Thalos free to be invaded. During the course of the book the hero uses a number of different giant robots to battle both the dinosaurs and the Karosseans while searching for a way to wake his fellow countrymen. 

Robot Commando is also one of the books under consideration to be the next release for Tin Man Games' Fighting Fantasy Classic library app.

The next SF FF title came out over a year later. Inspired by the movies Bladder Runner and Escape From New York, Star Strider is notable for being the first of what would become four FF titles by Luke Sharp.

“I have to confess that I didn’t read FF before I started writing for FF," says Sharp. "Well I did read Rebel Planet by Robin Waterfield before I submitted a proposal for what I called Rogue Tracer, which eventually became Star Strider. That’s why my first book is SF. It was pure luck that I got a commission. I was working with Dave Robins a well-known writer who had books published by Penguin Books and I had helped him with a book he had written on movies. His agent suggested he submit a proposal for FF because there was little work around at the time and Puffin needed writers for FF. It was Dave who suggested I put in a proposal in the envelope along with his. I got the gig and he didn’t.”

The thirty-third FF adventure, and the ninth science fiction title, was the first and only solo gamebook written by Martin Allen, who had already co-written the Clash of the Princes double-header with Andrew Chapman. In Sky Lord, the hero is Jang Mistral, a four-armed soldier from the planet Ensulina. His mission is to travel to a lawless artificial planet and capture a scientist named L'Bastin, who has created a species of dog-headed humanoids (called the Prefectas) to be the ultimate warriors in the universe.

Although some later FF adventures would feature some SF elements - most notably Spectral Stalkers - Sky Lord remains the last space-set Fighting Fantasy gamebook to date.

However, role-players can still enjoy new space-set adventures, with Arion Games' Advanced Fighting Fantasy Stellar Adventures.

Which is your favourite SF FF adventure? And would you like to see new gamebooks set in distant galaxies? Let us know in the comments below.