40 years of Sword of the Samurai

40 years ago today, Sword of the Samurai was published for the first time.

Written by Mark Smith and Jamie Thomson*, the twentieth book in the series presented readers with the Fighting Fantasy version of Japan, in the form of the mystical land of Hachiman**.

The hero of the adventure is a young Samurai, Kensei, who is tasked with recovering the Dai-Katana - the Shogun’s great sword - which has been stolen by Ikiru, the Master of Shadows, who dwells deep in the Pit of Demons.

“At the time, the whole Samurai/Ninja thing was big and breaking out of the niche world it was in, into the bigger niche of gamebooks and RPGs, which had become substantially more popular than they had been for a long time,” says Thomson. “Still a niche, compared to cinema and even games like Monopoly and stuff, but a big niche.”

Sword of the Samurai was only the second time that Alan Langford had appeared on internal art duties at the time, while Peter Andrew Jones contributed his first cover since Talisman of Death***.

“I’ve been fascinated with the East ever since I read a book called The Earth is the Lord's by Taylor Caldwell,” says Langford. “It’s about the early life of Genghis Khan – Temujin – and that fired up my interest. The other source is Kubla Khan, and that was illustrated by Frank Frazetta. So Sword of the Samurai was quite an interesting job for me to do.”

Sword of the Samurai was translated into numerous languages, including Bulgarian, Czech, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Portuguese****, and, appropriately enough, Japanese.

We already know that Fighting Fantasy is big in Japan, but it is even bigger now that YOU ARE THE HERO: An Interactive History of Fighting Fantasy Gamebooks has been published in Japanese.

* Who had previously worked together on Talisman of Death.

** Which Marc Gascogine would later make part of Khul.

*** The Wizard Books' edition featured cover art by Mel Grant.

**** Sword of the Samurai - or A Espada do Samurai - is still in print in Brazil.

Le Talisman de la Mort and La Nuit du Loup-Garou sont ici!

The latest Fighting Fantasy gamebooks to be released by Gallimard Jeunesses in the new format are Talisman of Death and Howl of the Werewolf.

Talisman of Death ~ Le Talisman de la Mort

The once peaceful world of Orb is facing a terrible danger. Evil forces are at work to subject it to the terrible domination of the god of Death. Only YOU can prevent the catastrophe from happening. Your mission: to thwart the pitfalls and intrigues that await you in the city of Greyguilds and destroy the Talisman of Death before the lackeys of the Fleshless King destroy you. But be careful, because time is running out!

Howl of the Werewolf ~ La Nuit du Loup-Garou

You would have to be crazy to cross the borders of the windswept, fog-shrouded, and soul-haunted principality of Lupravia. And yet, that is what YOU must do. A monstrous wolf has cruelly bitten you and you are now struck by a terrible curse. Fail in this new adventure and the beast that now lies dormant within you will not be able to resist the call of the Werewolf. You have until the next full moon!

Bonus: The Archives of the Old World will reveal to you everything a hero worthy of the name must know!

Fighting Fantasy is 38 years young today!

Today is the 38th anniversary of the publication of the original Fighting Fantasy gamebook, The Warlock of Firetop Mountain, by Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone.

In honour of this momentous event, today sees the first International Gamebook Day take place, online, all over the world. So far the covers of new Polish translations have been revealed and Branching Narrative have a 48 hour sale happening for Deathtrap Dungeon: The Interactive Video Adventure.

Check out the official International Gamebook Day for all the latest news, and tune in at the following times for interviews with these Fighting Fantasy authors and artists.

12:00pm

Jamie Thomson

1:00pm

Rhianna Pratchett

3:00pm

Russ Nicholson

4:00pm

Charlie Higson

5:00pm

Guest of Honour - Ian Livingstone

Click the image above to read the opening of Crystal of Storms.

Rhianna Pratchett at International Gamebook Day

In an exciting development, Rhianna Pratchett is also going to be interviewed by Olly Mc, as part of International Gamebook Day, on this Thursday, 27th August 2020.

If you have a burning question you would like answered, you can post it here. And don't forget you can also post questions for Jamie Thomson, Russ Nicholson, Charlie Higson, and Guests of Honour Ian Livingstone here.

Rhianna Pratchett

Share the International Gamebook Day Facebook event page with all your Fighting Fanasy friends and join in the with the fun on Thursday.

International Gamebook Day - Thursday 27 August 2020

The very first International Gamebook Day is taking place on this Thursday, 27th August 2020, and Fighting Fantasy gamebooks are going to be part of the celebrations.

Co-creator of the Fighting Fantasy series Ian Livingstone is going to be Guest of Honour on the day, and will be talking to Olly Mc, of the StoryMaster's Tales, about his gamebook work, which spans almost four decades.

Ian Livingstone

Also being interviewed by Olly for the event are FF authors Charlie Higson and Jamie Thomson, and FF art legend Russ Nicholson.

Charlie Higson

Jamie Thomson

Russ Nicholson

You can get involved by letting know what you want Olly to ask his interviewees on Thursday, and the place to post them is here.

The day's festivities will conclude with a Virtual Beer-o, hosted by James Aukett, which will be kicking off at 8:00pm.

A number of companies have special offers lined up for the day, including Branching Narrative, so you will be able to pick up Deathtrap Dungeon: The Interactive Video Adventure at 50% off!

So keep an eye on the International Gamebook Day Facebook event page and join in the Fighting Fantasy fun on Thursday.

Fighting Fantasy Fan Fiction

The Fighting Fantasy gamebooks have inspired countless writers, ever since The Warlock of Firetop Mountain was first published in 1982. Some well-known and popular authors have contributed to the series over the years, including Jamie Thomson, the author of the Dirk Lloyd books, and Charlie Higson.

In the Fan Fiction chamber of the Fighting Fantasy Fan Zone dungeon you will find stories written by fans inspired by their favourite gamebooks, including Christopher Griffith's retelling of the three books in the Zagor saga.

But please be warned, if you have yet to read the gamebooks yourself, these stories contain all sorts of spoilers.

If you have a story you would like to share, you can contact the Warlock here, or via mail@fightingfantasy.com.

Authors attending Fighting Fantasy Fest 3

As well as Fighting Fantasy co-creators Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone, there are a number of other authors who will be attending Fighting Fantasy Fest 3, including...

Peter Darvill-Evans - author of Beneath Nightmare Castle, Portal of Evil, and Spectral Stalkers.

Jamie Thomson - co-author of Talisman of Death, Sword of the Samurai, and The Keep of the Lich-Lord.

Jonathan Green - author of Spellbreaker, Knights of Doom, Curse of the Mummy, Bloodbones, Howl of the Werewolf, Stormslayer, Night of the Necromancer, and You Are The Hero - A History of Fighting Fantasy Gamebooks.

Jon Ingold - narrative director of inkle studios, and chief writer on Steve Jackson's Sorcery!

PJ Montgomery - comic writer and adaptor of Steve Jackson's The Trolltooth Wars.

Fighting Fantasy Fest 3 is happening in just seventeen days, on Saturday 31st August. If you haven't got your ticket yet, don't miss out and grab yours today!

Dice Men - Turn to 400!

Yesterday, DICE MEN: Games Workshop the Early Years 1975 to 1985 exceeded 400 backers and is on the verge of being 50% funded.

YOU ARE THE HERO - A History of Fighting Fantasy Gamebooks touched on the foundation of Games Workshop, but for the full story you need to make sure you back DICE MEN on Unbound.

If you need another incentive, the book is co-written by Fighting Fantasy Gamebook author Jamie Thomson.

The Second Swordsman - Who is the Hero?

It's Gamebook Friday again, which means there's just time for one more of Malcolm Garcia's  Second Swordsman posts before Christmas.

This time he considers a trio of adventures in which YOU may be the Hero, but YOU don't actually know who YOU are!



The Second Swordsman - Who is the Hero?

By Malcolm Garcia

In most FIGHTING FANTASY adventures, YOU start as a seasoned adventurer, setting out on an epic quest to save the world from an evil scourge or to find a horde of treasure beyond your wildest dreams. But there are a handful of books in which YOU do not even know who YOU are when YOU begin your journey.

Talisman of Death has YOU transported from Earth to the world of Orb. Through this mysterious process YOU acquire swordsmanship skills previously unknown, but which will be necessary if YOU are to succeed in the task given to YOU by some deities to save the world from Death itself. In Black Vein Prophecy, which is the first FIGHTING FANTASY novel I’ve yet read where there is zero background, YOU awaken in a tomb not knowing who or where YOU are, and YOU acquire your SKILL, STAMINA and LUCK scores via a series of trials. Where Black Vein was short on background, in Creature of Havoc there was an abundance of history to read before starting the adventure. But this is all irrelevant as YOU don’t know who, where or even what YOU are.

None of these three adventures where YOU start off as an unknown were written by the same author. Talisman was penned by Jamie Thomson and Mark Smith, who would go on to write Sword of the Samurai. Black Vein was written by Paul Mason and Steve Williams, who also wrote Slaves of the Abyss and The Riddling Reaver. And Creature was the product of Steve Jackson – his final book in the FIGHTING FANTASY series. In a 2011 poll of FIGHTING FANTASY readers, Creature ranked number five – previously  the highest rated books I’ve attempted using the Second Swordsman process were House of Hell (also by Steve Jackson) and Deathtrap Dungeon – ranked six and seven and respectively.

Deliberately choosing every second option meant that Talisman of Death lived up to its name. After establishing some decent SKILL, STAMINA and LUCK scores, and buoyed by my possession of ten meals and a STAMINA-restoring potion, I started my adventure, not unusually, in a subterranean vault. Within a few choices I had been given the eponymous talisman and tasked with keeping it from the clutches of the minions of Death. But then within another few options I had made the foolish decision to charge into a group of Dark Elves, who swiftly captured me and took me to their evil master. Thusly I had failed within just a handful of choices of the start (although not doing as badly as in Island of the Lizard King), having undergone no LUCK tests or fought any creatures.

In Black Vein, the Second Swordsman process enabled me to escape the tomb that was collapsing around me in the beginning, along the way not being sure whether what I was seeing was real, or a hallucination. When I reached the ruins of the city above I remained unsure about my reality after encountering a talking horse and, obviously freaked out by this encounter, choosing the second option meant I decided the best way to get away from the city was to launch myself into the ocean using a catapult. Because I’d acquired a poor LUCK score when underground, I failed a LUCK test and lost some STAMINA when I hit the water. But I was then rescued by a ship, the Captain of which somehow knew about a dead body I’d found in the tomb at the start. My confusion only increased when I had to fight a crazy man who was floating on the sea in an inflatable zorb-like ball – which would unfortunately turn out to be the last time I had a fight.

Soon I went ashore with the Captain, who I then bizarrely chose to betray to some travelling bandits. Being bandits, they robbed me and left me tied to a tree. For the rest of the adventure, choosing the second option made me ignore several opportunities to interact with the locals and my aimless wandering was soon mercifully put to an end by some suspicious locals who had me jailed and executed. Through all of my choices in Black Vein I never really got an idea of what I supposed to be doing; somewhat akin to my earlier misadventures in Demons of the Deep and Spectral Stalkers.

Creature started promisingly enough with what has to be the most comprehensive, but also instantly redundant, background story of how the Necromancer Zharradan Marr came to be. I then gained consciousness and proceeded to kill and munch my way through the dungeon where I’d been put, for reasons as yet unknown. Yes, munch. It turns out that whoever/whatever I am has a hankering for hobbit meat. Sating this appetite was helped by the new rule that if I rolled a double for my attack strength I instantly killed my opponent – even if their attack strength was greater in that round. Because it’s not too hard to roll a double, I knocked off five of my nine adversaries this way.

Deciding what to do in Creature was not always possible by using the Second Swordsman process, because at the start of the adventure several of your choices are selected on the basis of random dice rolls. But once I gained more control over my own fate, I rewarded this by making some foolish decisions, such as provoking a Giant Hornet and falling into a trap pit. I then got lost in a series of the dungeon’s dead ends and brought about my own doom by attacking a poorly constructed tunnel.

Excluding Talisman, which was an abject failure when just choosing the second option, these adventures started promisingly – I enjoyed the process in Black Vein whereby YOU establish your SKILL, STAMINA and LUCK scores, and being a brutal killing machine in Creature was a refreshing change from the pressure of always having to try and save the world. But a series of poor choices in both of these adventures soon caught up with me, and my failures were rather anticlimactic. Next time I’ll hopefully learn who I was in Black Vein or get out of the dungeon in Creature, if only to devour some more hobbits – I never seemed to get full no matter how many I ate!

Thank you and Happy Christmas to Malcolm, for his latest Second Swordsman blog post. Which titles will he be tackling in the New Year? You're just have to logon to www.fightingfantasy.com to find out!

And remember, if you have any suggestions for items for the official Fighting Fantasy blog don't forget to get in touch via mail@fightingfantasy.com.

Dice Men: The History of Games Workshop Unbound!

Some exciting news broke at Dragonmeet over the weekend. If you haven't already heard, Unbound will be publishing a new book about the early years of Games Workshop.

Dice Men: Games Workshop the Early Years 1975 to 1985 is co-authored by Steve Jackson, Ian Livingstone and Jamie Thomson. Steve and Ian need no introduction, and Jamie Thomson will be best known to Fighting Fantasy fans as the co-author of Talisman of Death, Sword of the Samurai and The Keep of the Lich-Lord, but he was also an employee of Games Workshop in those early days.

We've already had the history of FF gamebooks by Jonathan Green, which currently runs to two volumes and which touched on the foundation of Games Workshop, but Dice Men will explore that seminal time in much greater detail. It will take the form of a full colour, highly illustrated hardback over 300 pages long, A4 (210mm x 297mm) printed on 140gsm gloss art stock, with colour printed endpapers and a bookmark ribbon.

To find out more about this very special book, and to pledge your support to the project, follow this link.

The Second Swordsman – 'Watch Out For The Hitman!'

Today is Friday the 13th, but will it be a case of 'unlucky for some' as Malcolm Garcia tackles another Second Swordsman challenge?

The Second Swordsman – 'Watch Out For The Hitman!'

By Malcolm Garcia

For every FIGHTING FANTASY book where YOU are searching for a special object or magical weapon to complete your quest, there are more than a few where the goal is for YOU to kill whatever local ‘big-bad’ is terrorizing the citizenry or scheming to take over Titan. And so, in this edition of the SecondSwordsman, I’ll see whether choosing every second option will assist me in an assortment of assassination adventures.

In Stealer of Souls YOU start off seeking to rescue the friendly wizard Alsander from the prison of an Archmage who has learned how to harness the power of people’s fears and nightmares. But, just as the movie Predator was never going to be just about a rescue mission, quicker than you can say ‘get to the chopper’ your quest becomes a hunt to destroy the evil Mordraneth. In The Keep of the Lich-Lord YOU are sent to deal with Lord Mortis, a warrior who has risen from the grave and is amassing an army of the wicked (why killing him a second time will work any better is never explained fully). And in Legend of Zagor YOU go forth to defeat the original big-bad, but this time Zagor has become fused with a demon from a world beyond Titan.

A regular occurrence when choosing every second option in FIGHTING FANTASY novels is that YOU ignore opportunities to learn important information, gather treasure, or fight creatures and instead YOU rush through the adventure and miss out on a lot. This also happened somewhat with these three books, with the worst culprit being Keep. After arriving on Stayng Island I immediately left the town of Siltport and headed for the hills. Then I kept on moving and ignored in quick succession a cave, a cemetery, and a gathering in the woods (any of which would usually be a prime candidate for excitement) before hurriedly arriving at the docks at Keladon (more about those later).

In Stealer I began by making some good decisions and found my way to the subterranean Iron Crypts. But then I ignored several doors and passageways, and it wasn’t until after I’d fought the Dark Priest that choosing the second option led me to explore more, which helped me find the good wizard Alsander and enter Mordraneth’s Empire of Illusions. Stealer also had one of the few occasions in a FIGHTING FANTASY adventure where I got to have a nap during a dungeon crawl. I also managed to score a crowbar and some SKILL-boosting chainmail armour, as well as learn a handful of spells. These all gave me some momentary hope that, as in Battleblade Warrior, I might just muddle my way through to 400, or very close to it.

In Legend, while the Second Swordsman process didn’t make me ignore numerous rooms (as it had done in The Warlock of Firetop Mountain) it did make for a somewhat wearisome adventure. Because of the design of the castle, choosing every second option had me enter nearly every room I came across as I worked my way through the halls of Castle Argent. A few of these places were beneficial, but the purpose of most seems to have been to slowly drain me of my STAMINA through combat. But I did manage to have the most LUCK I’ve yet had when gambling (breaking my bad run from Seas of Blood and Bloodbones), fortuitously avoided the plague by having bought the antidote earlier, and discovered some more SKILL-boosting chainmail armour. Curiously I also picked up a valuable silk tapestry, which must be the first time in a FIGHTING FANTASY adventure where I’ve been rewarded with soft furnishings.

For some of these three adventures, my good initial SKILL scores were given a workout. In Stealer I had a fight at the very start of the adventure against a Giant Stormbird and then didn’t fight anything else until I went underground. But I then made up for lost time by defeating another thirteen creatures – including a few occasions where I lost no STAMINA in the battle. In Legend I chose not to waste a precious LUCK point near the very start, and had to face off in a tough battle against a Fog Wyvern. Then once I made it ashore on Tower Island I fought another fifteen creatures, including the awesomely named Skulking Shade as well as the SKILL ten Skeletal Dragon. But in Keep, choosing to rush across Stayng Island meant I did not have a single fight. The only times this has happened previously were in Crypt of the Sorcerer, Spectral Stalkers, and Island of the Lizard King.

Unfortunately, by choosing every second option I again failed to meet with success. I met my end in Keep by rushing a group of pirates at the aforementioned Keladon docks, which rewarded me for my foolishness with an instant death. I died in Stealer from being bitten by a floor of illusory snakes – which would probably not have happened if I’d not stupidly spent my sole ‘dispel illusion’ spell on a pack of rats just a few choices earlier. And in Legend I didn’t even get to meet Zagor, but instead failed in a fight against an elven thief who was armed with a poisoned dagger, a magical cloak, and a SKILL level of twelve. This was a very tough foe for one that wasn’t a ‘big-bad’ (only about one per cent of Titan’s creatures have this SKILL level) and I feel that avoiding this fight is essential to have a chance of victory. This is the twenty-seventh FIGHTING FANTASY adventure I’ve tried the Second Swordsman process on, but it’s only the sixth where I’ve fallen in combat – the other victors being the Kraken, the Fire Elemental, the Giant Sandworm, one of Carnuss’ slaves, and the Minotaur of Zagor’s maze.

So once again the Second Swordsman process yielded varying results. From the disappointment of Keep, to the frustration of Legend, and the momentary optimism of Stealer. I can only hope that next time I make fewer stupid decisions and don’t follow the lyrics of Watch Out for the Hitman and “do that thing until your body starts to break.”

Thank you once again to Malcolm, for his latest Second Swordsman blog post. If you have any suggestions for items for the official Fighting Fantasy blog don't forget to get in touch via mail@fightingfantasy.com.

One week to go until Fighting Fantasy Fest 2!

One week today the doors open on Fighting Fantasy Fest 2!

Featuring a host of special guests, including Guests of Honour Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone, along with the likes of Iain McCaig, Marc Gascoigne, Malcolm Barter, and Jamie Thomson, it is going to be a 35th anniversary celebration to remember.

There will be talks, gaming sessions, comics, a cosplay competition, video game demonstrations, signings, and all manner of traders. On top of that, Snowbooks will be launching YOU ARE THE HERO Part 2 at the event.

With so much going on, you might find it helpful to have a look through the talks schedule for the day, which runs across two strands in two halls.

It's not too late to buy your ticket and make sure you don't miss out on the Fighting Fantasy event of the year!